When you connect QuickBooks, Qoblex stays in charge of your stock. Qoblex counts your quantities and works out the value of every stock movement, then posts that value to QuickBooks as journal entries against your Stock On Hand and Cost Of Goods Sold accounts. QuickBooks is your set of books; Qoblex is your inventory system.
For this to produce correct numbers, the products Qoblex syncs must be Non-inventory items in QuickBooks, meaning QuickBooks records their value but does not keep its own quantity on hand or cost for them. This article explains why non-inventory is the correct setup, walks through a worked example of what happens when the same items are set up as tracked Inventory items in QuickBooks, and covers the situations, especially made-to-order selling, where inventory tracking in QuickBooks pushes stock negative, books the wrong cost, or leaves your two systems disagreeing.
How Qoblex and QuickBooks divide the work
Qoblex and QuickBooks are not both meant to manage inventory. They each do one job:
- Qoblex owns your stock. It records how many units you have, and it calculates what each unit is worth using your own costing, including landed costs and moving average cost. Every time stock moves (you receive a purchase, make a sale, adjust, transfer, or build a product), Qoblex works out the value of that movement.
- QuickBooks owns your books. Qoblex sends the value of those stock movements to QuickBooks as journal entries: the value of stock you are holding goes to your Stock On Hand Account, and the cost of items you have sold goes to your Cost Of Goods Sold account. Your sales invoices post the sale amount to your income account.
Because Qoblex already sends QuickBooks the value of your inventory, QuickBooks must not calculate that value a second time. That is exactly what a non-inventory item does: it lets QuickBooks show the item on invoices and bills without QuickBooks tracking quantity on hand or cost of goods for it.
Do not set up the products Qoblex manages as tracked Inventory items in QuickBooks. Let Qoblex post your inventory value through the Stock On Hand and Cost Of Goods Sold accounts, and use QuickBooks for reporting. Tracking the same items in QuickBooks hands their valuation to QuickBooks, which uses its own cost instead of the landed cost and moving average cost Qoblex calculates, so your two systems stop agreeing.
Product types in QuickBooks
When you set up a product or service in QuickBooks, you choose a type. Two of them matter here:
- Non-inventory (correct): QuickBooks records the item’s sale and purchase value on documents but does not track a quantity on hand or a cost. This is the type Qoblex products should use, so Qoblex remains the single source of truth for your stock and its value.
- Inventory (causes the problems below): QuickBooks keeps its own quantity on hand and its own average cost, and moves that value automatically every time the item appears on an invoice or a bill.
Qoblex controls how it creates and syncs these products through the Sync products as Untracked setting on the Inventory tab. That setting is read-only in Qoblex and cannot be changed from the settings screen, so if your products were set up as tracked Inventory items in QuickBooks and you see any of the problems in this article, contact Qoblex support to switch product syncing to non-inventory, so QuickBooks stops managing their quantity and cost.
Turning existing tracked items into non-inventory items in QuickBooks affects their history there. Do it with your accountant, and let Qoblex support move your product syncing to non-inventory at the same time.
A worked example: two systems, two different costs
Suppose you hold 10 units of a product, bought at a landed cost of $6 each, so $60 of stock. You sell 5 units for $20 each.
With the item as Non-inventory (correct):
- Your sales invoice posts $100 of income to your sales account.
- Qoblex posts one journal entry for the shipment: $30 to Cost Of Goods Sold and $30 out of Stock On Hand (5 units at your $6 cost).
- Result: income $100, cost of goods sold $30, and stock on hand reduced by $30. The cost is the one Qoblex calculated, and it is recorded once.
With the same item as a tracked Inventory item in QuickBooks (wrong):
- Your sales invoice still posts $100 of income.
- Because QuickBooks is now tracking the item itself, Qoblex steps back and does not post its own Stock On Hand and Cost Of Goods Sold journal for the shipment.
- QuickBooks reduces its own quantity by 5 units and books the cost of goods sold using its own average cost, not the $6 landed cost Qoblex calculated. Landed costs such as freight and duty are added by Qoblex and are usually not present in QuickBooks, so QuickBooks’ cost is lower. If QuickBooks has recorded an average cost of $5, it books $25 of cost of goods sold, not the $30 the stock really cost you.
- Result: your books are now driven by QuickBooks’ costing instead of Qoblex’s. Cost of goods sold and inventory value in QuickBooks no longer match Qoblex, and they never reconcile, because the two systems calculate cost in different ways.
That is the core problem: whichever system tracks the item decides its cost. When QuickBooks tracks it, QuickBooks’ cost wins, and it will not equal the landed cost and moving average cost Qoblex uses. Keeping the item Non-inventory leaves Qoblex as the single source of truth, so your inventory value and cost of goods sold come from one place.
Made-to-order and pre-order products
This is where inventory tracking in QuickBooks causes the most damage, because QuickBooks does not stop you, it just records something wrong.
A made-to-order (or pre-order, or build-to-order) product is one you sell before you have it in stock. You take the order, then you buy or build the item to fulfil it. At the moment you raise the invoice, your quantity on hand is zero.
- Non-inventory (works): QuickBooks does not track a quantity for the item, so it simply records the sale. Qoblex records the cost of goods sold when you actually fulfil the order, based on the real cost once the item exists.
- Inventory (breaks quietly): invoicing a tracked item you do not have drives its quantity on hand negative in QuickBooks. QuickBooks still books a cost of goods sold, but it has no real cost to use yet, so it estimates one. When you later receive or build the stock, QuickBooks makes further adjustments to fix the estimate. The upshot is a negative stock figure, a cost of goods sold that does not match what the item actually cost, and a running gap between QuickBooks and Qoblex that grows with every made-to-order sale.
If you sell made-to-order, pre-order, or back-ordered items, they must be Non-inventory items in QuickBooks. Tracked items go negative and book an estimated, incorrect cost when you sell stock you do not yet have, so QuickBooks and Qoblex stop agreeing.
Other situations where tracking causes problems
Tracking your Qoblex products in QuickBooks causes trouble well beyond a simple resale. In every case below, keeping the items as non-inventory and letting Qoblex post the value is the fix:
- Manufactured and assembled products. Qoblex consumes components and produces finished goods, and posts the resulting value. A tracked finished good or component in QuickBooks would move stock on its own and clash with Qoblex’s build.
- Bundles and kits. Qoblex sells a bundle by moving its component stock. QuickBooks cannot represent that, so a tracked bundle or component double-counts the cost.
- Drop-shipping. Goods ship from your supplier and never sit in your warehouse. A tracked item would still change its own quantity and cost.
- Stock adjustments and transfers. Qoblex posts write-offs, shrinkage, and location transfers to your inventory and adjustment accounts. Tracked items in QuickBooks would try to revalue the same movements.
- Opening stock. When you start, Qoblex posts your opening inventory value. Tracked items would ask you to enter opening quantities and costs into QuickBooks as well, creating a second, conflicting valuation.
- Selling ahead of stock. Any sale that runs stock temporarily negative in Qoblex, which Qoblex reconciles later at the real cost, becomes a negative quantity and an estimated cost in QuickBooks if the item is tracked.
When you can leave a product as Inventory in QuickBooks
If you have items in QuickBooks that Qoblex does not manage, for example stock you keep entirely inside QuickBooks and never sell through Qoblex, those can stay however you set them up. The non-inventory rule applies only to the products Qoblex syncs and holds stock for. Keep Qoblex-managed products as non-inventory; manage anything else in QuickBooks as you normally would.