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Deborah Sen
February 16, 2023
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What is the proper way to account for inventory that is not a physical item?

  • February 16, 2023
  • 1 reply
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I have purchased a small publishing company and have print (physical) books as well as e-books (digital) in the inventory list. The cost of goods for the digital books is zero. The "Total Quantity On Hand" is negative in most cases- sometimes by 20,000 units or more because there isn't any physical inventory for these items....There's an infinite amount of those titles available.  Is there another way to categorize these items so that I can still invoice for the sales and not have all that negative inventory? 

Best answer by Rustler

Digital goods should use a service item when selling it.  Then there is no cost of goods entry to worry about and no negative qty either/

 

use inventory adjust, set the adjusting account to COGS shrinkage and set the new qty to zero, then make the item inactive to get it off some lists.  Create the service item(s) you need to replace the inventory items you made inactive

1 reply

Rustler
RustlerAnswer
February 16, 2023

Digital goods should use a service item when selling it.  Then there is no cost of goods entry to worry about and no negative qty either/

 

use inventory adjust, set the adjusting account to COGS shrinkage and set the new qty to zero, then make the item inactive to get it off some lists.  Create the service item(s) you need to replace the inventory items you made inactive

    D
    Deborah SenAuthor
    February 18, 2023

    Thank you! You don't happen to know if there's a way to change the inventory type once the qty is set to zero? I have hundreds if these items that would need to be made inactive and then re-created as service type items. It would be great to not have to do that one by one. 

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