Manufacturing Software Quickbooks helps manufacturers and wholesale businesses to improve inventory management, eliminate data errors, speed up order entry, and improve overall efficiency. If you run a manufacturing or wholesale business – from small web-based assembly lines to small order processing warehouses – the Manufacturing Software Quickbooks is the perfect solution for you.
Do you want to know about Quickbooks Manufacturing and Wholesale? Take a look at this article to know more information in details.
QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. First introduced in 1983, QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer on-premises accounting applications as well as cloud-based versions that accept business payments, manage and pay bills, and payroll functions.
Tracking inventory in a manufacturing firm is more difficult than in other types of businesses. When you boil down everything to its essence in QuickBooks, the problem stems from a couple of tricky accounting requirements:
- In a manufacturing environment, the manufacturer combines raw materials items into finished-goods items. This means — and this is the challenging part — that the manufacturing process reduces the inventory count and value for some items (the raw materials or the components) and at the same time increases the count and value of the other, finished-goods items.
- In a manufacturing environment, the rules say that you don’t just count the value of items in the finished-goods-item inventory values. You also count the cost of labor and factory overhead used in manufacturing the items.
QuickBooks solves the first problem related to manufacturing inventory, but it doesn’t solve or address the second problem. Fortunately, as long as you’re a small manufacturer, you probably don’t need to worry too much about the second problem. You should ask your CPA about this. But don’t worry — Congress and the Internal Revenue Service have provided a bunch of loopholes that make the accounting easier for the small guys.
Handling manufactured inventory the simple way
If you’re using QuickBooks Pro or some earlier versions of QuickBooks Premier, you don’t have the ability to account for the manufacture of inventory in QuickBooks. The best that you can do is group items to combine into individual items in a customer’s invoice.
Quickbooks Premier Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition is an industry-specific version of QuickBooks Premier desktop accounting software. It is designed purposely for manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors who need a single platform to manage their inventory, sales order accomplishment, and manufacturing process.
You can purchase QuickBooks Desktop Premier for a one-time fee starting at $649.99, or an annual subscription starting at $499.99. After purchasing QuickBooks Desktop Premier, be sure to select the Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition for download.
What We Recommend QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition For
QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition is ideal for small- to medium-sized light manufacturers and wholesalers with experienced bookkeepers. It has everything in QuickBooks Premier, plus industry-specific features and advanced inventory tools that are extremely beneficial for manufacturing and distribution businesses.
QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition Is Especially Good For
- Businesses that need an accurate count of inventory available: You can track not only inventory on hand, but also inventory assigned to sales orders, reserved for assemblies, and on purchase orders (POs).
- Manufacturers with complex assemblies: You can define the amounts of materials, inventory, and labor needed for a particular assembly. Those amounts are transferred to the assembled product automatically each time an assembly is completed.
- Businesses with special pricing rules: Prices can be customized by customer, customer type, or assigned to individual sales.
- Businesses that need detailed sales reports: Sales can be broken down by sales representative, product, product type, customer, and customer type.
QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition Is Not a Good Fit For
- Businesses owners who want to manage their own books: QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition is not the best option if you plan on keeping the books yourself unless you have experience with bookkeeping. Compared to cloud-based software, it’s hard to share your books with an external accountant when you need help. You might want to consider a simpler alternative like QuickBooks Online, or explore all the differences between QuickBooks Online vs Desktop.
- Businesses with multiple users: QuickBooks Premier is expensive at $2,099 (one-time fee) for five users as compared to QuickBooks Online Plus, which only costs $80 per month with five users included.
- Businesses that need first-in-first-out (FIFO) or last-in-first-out (LIFO) inventory costing: Your only option for determining the cost of goods sold (COGS) is the average cost method. Third-party plug-ins are available that provide additional inventory options. If your business needs advanced cost tracking with FIFO or LIFO inventory accounting, QuickBooks Enterprise might be an ideal alternative.
Are you looking for something different? If you want to explore other comprehensive accounting software for business owners, check out our guide to the best small business accounting software.
QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition Pros and Cons
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Create invoices from sales orders | Desktop-based program requires installation and setup |
| Transfer cost and quantity from raw materials to manufactured products automatically | FIFO accounting for inventory cost requires a third-party add-on |
| Track COGS using the average cost method | Doesn’t track the weight of inventory for shipping |
| Manage inventory and manufactured products better with in-depth units available information | License required for each simultaneous user (maximum 5) |
| Set special price levels across all inventory, manufactured products, and labor | More difficult to share with an off-site accountant compared to cloud-based programs |
Visit QuickBooks Desktop Premier
QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition Pricing
QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition is available for download after you purchase QuickBooks Desktop Premier, which is available for a one-time fee or as an annual subscription. License fees start at $649.99 for one user while prices for the annual subscription start at $499.99 for a single user.
| Pricing & Features | License Fees | Annual Subscription ($/Year) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 User | $649.99 | $499.99 |
| 2 Users | $999 | $79.99 |
| 3 Users | $1,399 | $1,099.99 |
| 4 Users | $1,749 | $1,399.99 |
| 5 Users | $2,099 | $1,699.99 |
| Unlimited Customer Support* | Additional $299 per year | ✔ |
| Data Backups | N/A | ✔ |
| Free Upgrade Every Year | N/A | ✔ |
If you need more than five users, you will need to upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise, which supports up to 40 users.
Pricing: Other QuickBooks Desktop Editions
QuickBooks Premier is one of the four QuickBooks desktop products. The other desktop products range from QuickBooks Pro for $399.99 (one-time fee) to QuickBooks Enterprise for $1,275 per year for one user. Premier and Enterprise are the only desktop products that have industry-specific editions. Read our QuickBooks Desktop comparison guide for the features and pricing across all the QuickBooks’ Desktop products.
QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition Features
Tip: In addition to the standard features discussed in our review of QuickBooks Premier, QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition offers industry-specific tools, such as a sales order fulfillment worksheet, item receipts, backorder tracking, manufacturing-specific building assemblies, and a customized chart of accounts.
- Create inventory items: You can create an item for each product in inventory, whether the item will be sold or used in an assembly to create a manufactured product. The item will track the average cost per unit to be used if the item is either sold or consumed in an inventory assembly. You can also designate a default sales price. The item screen allows you to designate a reorder point and provides information on units on hand, POs, and sales orders.
- Specify inventory assembly: You can create a special inventory item, called an inventory assembly, for your manufactured products. As part of the inventory assembly item, you specify a bill of materials showing the exact items, including labor, and quantities that go into the manufactured product. The bill of materials will provide a total cost for manufacturing the product.
Build Assembly tool in QuickBooks.
- Build Assembly: You can specify the number of products to manufacture in the Build Assembly screen and the program will remove the items on the bill of materials from their respective inventory counts automatically and add them to the manufactured products inventory. The assembly screen provides helpful information like the quantity available for all needed items and the maximum number of products you can manufacture based on the inventory availability.
- Create sales order: As orders are received, you can create sales orders that will remove inventory items from the quantity available so you know when to reorder or increase the production of manufactured products.
- Create invoice from sales order: When orders are fulfilled, an invoice can be generated from the sales order and either printed or emailed to the customer.
- Create purchase order: If purchases are necessary to fulfill orders, a purchase order can be created directly from the sales order while specifying which items on the sales order need to be purchased.
- Specify custom price levels: You specify a default sales price when inventory items are set up. However, you might not want to charge the default price to every customer. For example, you might charge high-volume customers a lower rate on particular products or orders. You can create a custom price level that specifies a special price item-by-item, or you can create a pricing rule that adjusts the default price up or down by a specified percentage.
- Categorize transactions with enhanced rules: With QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale, you can categorize bank transactions with enhanced matching rules and batch editing for accounts, classes, and payees, allowing you to spot data entry errors quickly.
Reports
In addition to the standard powerful reports that can be generated by the general business edition of QuickBooks Premier, QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale has the following:
- Sales by rep detail: This report will show a list of invoices by sales representative for the specified period, which may be useful when determining compensation or bonuses.
- Sales by customer type: You can create custom classifications for your customers. For instance, you might separate your customer into homebuilders, end-users, and retailers. This report will allow you to see total sales separated by the customer classifications.
- Profitability by product: This report provides the actual revenue and cost for the period, separated by each product sold. You can use this report to identify profitable products to promote or identify products where changes are needed.
Customer Service and Ease of Use
As desktop-based software, QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition isn’t as easy to use as cloud-based programs. Since it’s a very comprehensive and powerful software, you need to devote time to fully learn how to use its features. You can seek help through its in-software help center, live chat, a knowledgebase of guides and getting started information, blogs, and a community forum. Unlimited customer support is available for QuickBooks Premier Plus annual subscribers.
QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition Alternatives
| QuickBooks Online Plus | QuickBooks Online Advanced | QuickBooks Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Best for: Business owners wanting to keep their own books | Best for: Businesses with more than 5 users | Best for: Businesses needing LIFO or FIFO inventory costing |
| Software from: $80 per month | Software from: $180 per year | Software from: $1,275 per year |
Conclusion
Discover QuickBooks Manufacturing and Wholesale, a software that optimizes your business by delivering the right information at the right time. Whether you’re a sole proprietor or a small manufacturing company with multiple locations and support staff, accounting software provides automated features to reduce data entry and keep your numbers up-to-date. With this powerful tool, you’ll be able to produce quality materials faster and use your time more effectively!