Line up Xero or QuickBooks with your opening stock

Qoblex and your accounting system both end up with a dollar figure for the stock you hold. The two only agree if you set them up the right way before you start posting. Get this wrong and your inventory value can be counted twice, or Xero or QuickBooks can show a figure that never matches Qoblex.

This article covers the two things to get right. It assumes you’ve already read how products sync to Xero or QuickBooks; this article is about applying that during a switch, specifically.

What you need to care about

Cut through the settings and there are two things that matter:

1. Don’t let Xero or QuickBooks track the same products Qoblex is tracking. Qoblex works out your stock quantities and their value. If your accounting system also tracks quantity and cost for the same items, both systems move the value every time something sells, and it gets counted twice.
2. Start your accounting system’s stock-on-hand balance at the same number as Qoblex’s, with nothing added on top. Then the two agree from day one, instead of being off by whatever gap you opened with.

For the first point:

Both are explained in full in those articles. What’s below is specific to a switch, where you’re also likely to have old products from your previous system still sitting in Xero or QuickBooks.

Clear out anything that could collide

You may already have items in your accounting system for the same products you’re bringing into Qoblex. That happens if you used Xero or QuickBooks for inventory before Qoblex, whether directly or through your old system’s own accounting sync.

Deal with these before you connect, not after.

In Xero

How Qoblex creates Xero items:

• It only creates items when Sync products as Untracked is switched on in your Xero settings.
• It then creates them only for the products on each order it sends.
• It uses the product’s SKU as the item’s Code. A product with no SKU gets no Xero item.
• Sales and purchase documents still carry the SKU as the item code.

Before you connect:

1. Untrack every existing Xero item for a product Qoblex will manage (untick I track this item). See Keep Your Products Untracked in Xero for how.
2. Archive the ones you no longer need in Xero.

In QuickBooks

Make each overlapping Inventory item Non-inventory, or make old ones inactive. (QuickBooks doesn’t call this “archiving” the way Xero does.)

Qoblex controls whether its own products sync as Non-inventory through the Sync products as Untracked setting on the QuickBooks Inventory tab. That setting is read-only in the settings screen. See Keep Your Products as Non-Inventory in QuickBooks for what to check and when to contact Qoblex support.

If an old, pre-Qoblex item for the same product is still active and tracked as Inventory in QuickBooks, resolve that with your accountant and Qoblex support before cutover, the same as you would in Xero.

When to do this in the plan

Matching your opening stock balance

Don’t type an inventory opening balance into Xero or QuickBooks yourself. Let your stocktakes post, then compare the two systems and correct any difference once.

1. Wait for your stocktakes’ journals to sync

Inventory journals go out once a day, in a daily sync that runs at 20:00 UTC, not the moment you authorize.

• In Xero, they arrive as Draft manual journals unless you set Sync journal status on the Inventory tab to Posted. A draft doesn’t move your balance until someone posts it in Xero.
• If you connected Xero only after you authorized your stocktakes, their journals never go to Xero, because Xero only picks up stock movements from the moment you connected it. Go straight to step 2. The difference will be your whole opening value.

Do steps 2 and 3 at a moment when:

• nothing has moved in Qoblex since that sync (no shipments, receipts or adjustments);
• in Xero, every Qoblex journal from it is posted.

Run the Balance Sheet as at today’s date. Anything Qoblex records after the last sync hasn’t reached your accounting system yet, so it would show up as a difference that isn’t real.

2. Find Qoblex’s figure

1. Go to Reporting > Inventory and open the Stock on Hand tab.
2. Add up the Total Cost column for the locations you’re bringing live. Each row’s Total Cost is that product’s quantity at its current Moving Average Cost.

3. Find your accounting figure

In Xero or QuickBooks, open the Balance Sheet and read the balance of the account you mapped as your Stock On Hand Account. See Xero Inventory, COGS, and Adjustments Settings or QuickBooks Inventory, COGS, and Adjustments Settings.

4. Journal the difference once

If the figures differ, ask your accountant to post one manual journal for the difference to your Stock On Hand account, so both systems start at the same level.

Why there’s usually a difference

A difference is normal. A stocktake doesn’t post your full counted value. It posts the change between your count and the quantity Qoblex already showed:

• valued at Moving Average Cost;
• to your Stock On Hand Account, with the other side going to your Inventory Adjustments account.

Products your store’s import created already carried the store’s quantities. Those starting quantities are never sent to Xero or QuickBooks, so only the difference from your count posts.

Batch- and serial-tracked stock

If you brought in batch- or serial-tracked stock, its own stocktake (Count batch and serial stock) adds those units at zero unit cost:

• the adjustment it creates has no cost, so its journal carries no value for the stock it adds;
• it pulls each product’s Moving Average Cost down (to zero for a product that had no stock before).

Set those products’ cost after the batch stocktake, as described there. That revaluation is what brings their value into Qoblex and into your accounting system, so include it in the figure you’re matching.

Already-shipped orders you shipped on cutover day

If you shipped already-shipped orders with Adjust inventory to cover these orders on cutover day, that posts too:

• the adjustment adds those units’ value to Stock On Hand against Inventory Adjustments;
• the shipment moves the same value into Cost Of Goods Sold.

When nothing posts

Nothing posts at all unless:

• your Stock On Hand Account, Cost Of Goods Sold account and Inventory Adjustments account all point to real accounts, not Do Not Sync (Qoblex skips the posting otherwise);
• in QuickBooks, Sync products as Untracked is on (Qoblex support switches it on).

Troubleshooting