Is inventory necessary in a custom dress shop

I have a client with whom I am beginning to help clean up her books. Her p&L shows a huge loss because it looks like she might have been tracking inventory incorrectly.

She has a dress shop where she buys sample dresses, customers come in, and then she orders them a dress. She currently has two different types of inventory assets: store inventory (assuming these are the samples) and customer inventory (assuming this is when she is waiting for customers to pick up their dresses). It all seems a little overly complicated, and because most of these dresses are one offs, it seems like this opens her up for many mistakes.

I want to advise her not to use inventory items for her products. My ultimate goal is to simplify her workflow so she can more directly be in control of her books. MAYBE for her "samples" that she can convert to cogs if she sells them off the rack. I just don't see the necessity for any of this to show up on the balance sheet?

She also has many items that I am sure are no longer in stock without an intent to purchase again that I'd like to remove. It's just too much extraneous information.

She has a POS system that could track inventory and will talk to QBO. I am thinking that might be a better solution for her to view more details about specific dress sales.

Any thoughts?