• alaw
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Topic: Generic items (plants) with large price range

My wife has a gardening business where she provides garden design services and sources plants for customers with a variable mark-up. For one job she gave a fixed price e.g. $400 for all plants supplied but other times price is per plant. I don't want to set up items for each plant variety as this will be overkill for the (small) size of business.

I have an item called "plants" and used this in first invoice (direct invoice) with a price of $400 and quantity of 1. Then for next invoice I charged per plant, e.g. 10 plants @ $4 each. This is all fine by the COGS is now all wrong and balance sheet/P&L have incorrect and meaningless numbers. How can I set up system to handle this? Also, how do I fix the previous transactions where this has gone wrong?

In fact, I am having issues understanding this whole area - I'm trying to move from Quickbooks Accounting but this use of items is making really hard.

  • joe
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Re: Generic items (plants) with large price range

You can always void the transactions and reenter them.

If you have large set of plants, you should consider using Assembling in Manufacturing. First create a manufactured item, call it bundle_plants and create a Bill of Material for it, 100 items of the $4 plant. I hope you can see the idea, right?

/Joe

  • alaw
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Re: Generic items (plants) with large price range

Thanks  Joe, I get the idea and will have look although not sure it solves my problem as my wife is often sourcing plants from elsewhere so aren't manufactured.

I've had  a thought that I could create a service item called "Plant sourcing" when I don't want to worry about plants stock. Only issue I suppose is how do I account for the cost of those plants i.e. what was paid to the supplier?

Another question - when I create a service item what is the COGS account used for?

  • joe
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Re: Generic items (plants) with large price range

If you purchase services from suppliers this account will be used when purchased instead of the inventory account.

Joe

  • alaw
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Re: Generic items (plants) with large price range

Thanks again, I'll set up test item and see how that works. Thanks for such quick response