For each inventory transaction that you post, the appropriate values are posted to the inventory account, adjustment account, Direct Cost Applied and/or the COGS account in the general ledger.
The Automatic Cost Posting field defines automatic cost posting on the Inventory Setup page.
Check the Inventory Setup to see if you have Automatic Cost Posting turned on.
Even if you have inventory costs automatically posted to the general ledger, it is good to run the process manually as part of your end-of-month process. This might pick up any minor necessary adjustments, such as rounding transactions.
Review your inventory balance in the Chart of accounts.
Then run reports to validate totals
The standard Inventory Valuation report will include transactions that have not hit your G/L yet (for example, items received/shipped not invoiced).
The Inventory to G/L Reconcile report gives you a breakdown of what items are received/shipped, not invoiced, and includes it with your on-hand valuation.
To run the Inventory Valuation report, use your search to locate it.
Then add the date you wish to run it as of and any other filters you may need.
Compare the totals to the Chart of account totals for the same date filter.
To run the Inventory to G/L Reconcile report, search for it, and select the appropriate report.
Inventory to G/L Reconciliation
Columns:
- Inventory Valuation – the value of all the Inventory on hand. Not necessarily what has been posted to the G/L. This is the value of what is sitting in the warehouse
- Received Not Invoiced – this is the value of what is in the warehouse that has not been invoiced yet. This is not in the G/L
- Shipped Not Invoiced – this is the value of Inventory that has been shipped out of the warehouse but not invoiced to the client. This is not in the G/L
- Total Expected Cost is the total of Received Not Invoiced and Shipped Not Invoiced
- Rec. Not Inv. And Shp. not Invoiced and Expected Cost Posted to the G/L are only filled if you have Expected cost turned on (you don’t). This would post a value of the Inventory not invoiced to the G/L.
- The expected cost to be Posted to the G/L will be the Total Expected Cost value
- Pending Adjustment – this is if there are any rounding issues.
- Invoiced Value is the value of what has been invoiced
- Inv. Value Posted to the G/L – the value of what should be in the General Ledger.
- Inv. Value to be Posted is if there are any pending adjustments that need to post.
Why Your Inventory Valuation Might Not Match the Inventory Account on the General Ledger
There are many reasons why your inventory valuation figures do not match the G/L inventory account.
Some of the reasons are common, so here is a list of reasons why your inventory valuation may not match your general ledger and how to fix them.
This is not a comprehensive list, but the most common reasons.
Did Not Run Adjust Cost – Item Entries Process
Even if you have the Automatic Cost Adjustment on the Inventory Setup turn on to run automatically, it may not be enough.
Run the Adjust Cost process. Again, it would help run this before running any inventory, costing, or financial statements.
Allow Direct Posting to Inventory Account on the G/L
This problem occurs when people post directly into the inventory accounts in the GL.
Solution
Turn off Direct Posting on the G/L account for Inventory
To look at and fix the entries that are causing the problem, you’ll need to do the following:
- Go to the Chart of Accounts and drill into the value field of the Inventory G/L Account
- Filter on the Source Code field with ‘<>INVTPCOST‘. You may need to use personalization to bring in the column first.
You will need to determine what account to which you should reclass these incorrect entries.
The INVTPCOST is the source code used to mark the transactions that originate from the inventory sub-ledger. If you have transactions that did not go through the inventory sub
ledger, your inventory figure will be off.
Running the Wrong Reports
You may run the Inventory Valuation report and try to match it to the G/L.
The standard Inventory Valuation report will include transactions that have not hit the G/L yet (for example, items received/shipped not invoiced).
The better report to run is the Inventory to G/L Reconcile. This gives you a breakdown of what items are received/shipped, not invoiced, and includes it with your on-hand valuation.
In addition, you may need to run the Inventory Valuation – WIP report so it can match what’s in WIP to G/L.
This is important because your WIP account, and if you’ve turned on the Expected Cost Posting, will most likely be a different G/L account. So be sure to match all of these.
Solution
You can turn on Expected Cost Posting on the Inventory Setup. This will mitigate the problems stated above, so you can run the Inventory Valuation and match it up against your regular inventory and the inventory Interim account.
Inventory Posting Setup is Incorrect
Take a look at the following screenshot for the Inventory Posting Setup.
The inventory account is set to the expense account. This means whenever you purchase or sell an inventory item with this inventory posting group for that location, it will go to account 61500. This may be done in accident or on purpose, but when people reconcile Inventory, they’re typically going to only look at your Inventory G/L accounts. So when you go to your typical inventory accounts, you’ll be missing transactions entries for Resale Inventory Posting Group for the location East.
Solution
In Business Central, they’ve taken steps to reduce this problem by introducing the Account Category and Account Subcategory field on the G/L Account table. This means when you drill down to select an account, you can’t select a “wrong” account.
General Posting Setup is Incorrect
This scenario is similar to the inventory posting setup noted above. However, instead of setting the Inventory Posting Group (the balance sheet side) incorrectly, the General Posting Setup is incorrect.
It will hit the inventory G/L account whenever something is sold instead of the sales account.
Solution
In Business Central, they’ve taken steps to reduce this problem by introducing the Account Category and Account Subcategory field on the G/L Account table. This means when you drill down to select an account, you can’t select a “wrong” account.
Inventory Reports samples
They can be run from the item list