Anyone have experience tracking raw material inventory in QuickBooks?

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May 04, 2021

by a searcher from Southern Methodist University - Edwin L. Cox School of Business in Sarasota, FL, USA

I acquired a custom trailer manufacturing company earlier this year, and am still trying to crack the code on the best way to track our inventory (raw materials - steel, sheets of aluminum, axles, etc.) in QuickBooks (Enterprise Platinum 21).

The major issue we are running into is 90% of our orders are completely custom or have multiple add ons to a "base trailer model" that end up making the trailer drastically different from the base starting point.

Making a bill of materials/build list for every single order would be full time job for multiple people, as we produce 10 or so trailers a week, and there are thousands of different options customers can add. This has been a non-issue in the past, as the previous owners just always kept very large raw materials amounts on hand (and we have great margins), but I definitely would like to get a better handle on our inventory so we can hedge our bets a little more as raw material prices continue to rise.

Any help or insights would be greatly appreciated.

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Reply by a searcher
from Brigham Young University in Dallas, TX, USA
^redacted‌ -- I'd love to hear about the solution found for this problem. I am facing a similar task as we are trying to select the right systems for accounting and inventory. Specifically we are trying to decide whether to go with QuickBooks Enterprise vs Online and whether or not to tack on an inventory management solution (Dear, Fishbowl, etc.). Would love to hear your thoughts.
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Reply by an admin
from Stanford University in Honolulu, HI, USA
Congrats on your acquisition! Here’s a tip sheet on What to Do on Searchfunder after you’ve acquired: https://www.searchfunder.com/article/viewarticle/2432. Also, tagging ^redacted‌ in case he or someone in his network has some insight.
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