On 3/22/2022 9:46 AM, davidvernonl...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Derek, I meant that a half decent accounting system which has an inventory system would have those features, and am sorry if my statement was misunderstood. I use GnuCash to maintain a set of accounts for a boat club with nearly 100 members and it is excellent for that, and I use the business aspects as I have members as customers for service/fees etc. On your points, of course GnuCash can track costs of inventory in its G/L, but when it comes to recording inventory levels to manage a manufacturing business, quantities are really needed ,either in the system , or in an external system. Then you would need to link the 2 systems, either automatically or manually. If manually then ,to move raw materials after manufacture to finished product, calculations would have to be done outside GnuCash to multiply quantity and unit cost of each item consumed to provide total cost , and then manual postings to GnuCah General Ledger for total cost (Cr raw materials/ Dr finished goods) and the same for sales to move from finished inventory to cost of sales (Cr finished goods/Dr Cost of goods sold). To make it more complicated this has to be done on as FIFO or average cost basis, depending on the jurisdiction, as particular items will be purchased many times for inventory and taken out of inventory for consumption, at different times and different quantities. An accounting system with inventory management does this for you. To do this semi manually in Excel and then use the result to make a journal to GnuCash could be a lot of work depending on the number of transactions.
A business operation needs all sorts of record keeping. The accounting package is just part of that. Gnucash is an accounting package. If inventory is involved, then also an inventory package, if employees, a payroll/human resources package, etc.
Yes, these systems interact, and if only manually a lot of work. If they can send and accept "feeds" between the parts, a LOT less as that part of it can be automated << and that's where my professional days were spent -- in my case, at a "financial">>
You are missing that a proper inventory system needs/should have MUCH more than the part that would interact with general ledger. Where shelved, what';s the reorder level, who is the supplier, who are alternate suppliers, etc. Similarly the payroll system/HR needs more than what interacts with general ledger. Who is the emergency contact, who is the bene on the employee insurance policy, etc. .
From MY point of view, all that gnucash is missing in this regard is the ability to accept "feeds" << normally "general ledger" accepts feeds but does not send feds to other parts of the business system -- most of them send feeds to general ledger and send to and accept form each other >> If gnucash can do THAT, then it is up to other teams to create inventory systems, POS systems, payroll systems, etc. that will pay well with gnucash handling general ledger.
Michael D Novack _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
