Ask the Accountant…
Question: When I buy items from suppliers, isn’t that inventory?
Answer: In our industry, we order items that have been customized specifically for one customer. We rarely take possession of the items – only so we can deliver them to the customer ourselves or our customer will pick them up. These instances are not inventory. They are non-inventory items. When we pay the supplier, the transaction goes directly into cost of goods sold as an expense.
Inventory is comprised of items that have yet to be sold. We buy them, and record them as an asset on our balance sheet with the designed intention of selling them and getting them off our balance sheet.
Harriet Gatter is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a former Accounting professor and a former Ad Specialty Distributor of 23 years. She advises Ad Specialty Distributors about using QuickBooks Premier & Enterprise, and SAGE Online to save time, eliminate errors, and correctly account for your business. Her specialty is converting distributors from ProfitMaker, SmartBooks, OrderMaster, AIA, Proforma and other accounting systems.
[email protected] www.AccountingSupportLLC.com
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