Quick Books 2012

[191145ACP]

Different question for you FFL guys, do any of you use Quick Books Software for your gunsmithing or gun sales business? I have started to look at it and am wondering if it is the right thing for me. I have not yet figured out how I can deal with the sales tax issue of transfers, relating sales receipts to forms or work orders, how to track value added inventory. It looks like a pretty capable package and am hoping it is just my lack of knowledge at this point on how it all works.

[curvejunkie]

Different question for you FFL guys, do any of you use Quick Books Software for your gunsmithing or gun sales business? I have started to look at it and am wondering if it is the right thing for me. I have not yet figured out how I can deal with the sales tax issue of transfers, relating sales receipts to forms or work orders, how to track value added inventory. It looks like a pretty capable package and am hoping it is just my lack of knowledge at this point on how it all works.

I sure hope it works, we just installed both that and the POS software for the registers...

[EBR Works]

We use it for all transactions including sales, transfers, inventory management & manufacturing. It takes some tweaking, but works well.

[darkwater]

Different question for you FFL guys, do any of you use Quick Books Software for your gunsmithing or gun sales business? I have started to look at it and am wondering if it is the right thing for me. I have not yet figured out how I can deal with the sales tax issue of transfers, relating sales receipts to forms or work orders, how to track value added inventory. It looks like a pretty capable package and am hoping it is just my lack of knowledge at this point on how it all works.

Not an FFL, but as an accountant, I can share firsthand experience that when clients bring me their Quickbooks, inventory is always a big issue. Unless you specifically identify and set up an item for each new cost for a particular part, Quickbooks uses an average-cost method of tracking inventory, which is not a method the IRS allows. Even if it came close to FIFO or LIFO, my experience is that clients have the hardest time working with and adjusting inventory to get it right. Expect to have to adjust the inventory figures at year-end, it's just a given. Quickbooks has its quirks, but to do better, you'd have to spend ten times as much, or more.

[LG FIREARMS]

The Point of Sale cash drawer will not work on 64 bit systems.

[Colonel Monk]

Howdy:

We are using it at the FFL where I'm working. I just started, guy is a friend of mine. I went to biz school a million years ago, but only remember basics of accounting.

So far, we just have the final sales invoicing in there, and payments. Each firearm is essentially entered as a "non-inventory" part like a special order. We could re-use them if we get an identical order at the same price...

I should mention that so far, we are mostly doing special order AR builds and pistols, and not carrying anything "in inventory"...

I might start over again configuring it, as the first employee didn't use much foresight. But so far I've been happy with the ability to create DROS as a service and non-taxable item, and so forth.

It appears to do a lot more, if I could get Boss to do his work orders and all on the computer I sure would - but as he's not very computer savvy I think they will always start with handwritten job order/invoice and then be entered into QB.

If anyone feels like sharing their QB practices, I sure would like to hear how you have set it up.

Thanks,

CM

[191145ACP]

Thanks for the replies. Like “darkwater” mentions, I am having problems figuring out how to deal with my small amount of inventory. I have some inventory that I do value added to that I have not figured out how to track cost so I can determine a selling price. I have been on the QB community board a fair amount trying to get an idea how to deal with things. It seems to me that there is a market for someone to set up some basic gun business templates to help us out. I think there is quite a few of us in the background using it. I am meeting with a QB expert account later this week to help me get accounts and items linked.

How are you guys dealing with sales tax on transfers. I had an item for the price of the gun to the invoice that is taxable, then credit the price of the gun back. This post the correct Tax amount. It will be interesting to see what my QB account says about that.

I am primarily a working gunsmith, so the quoting and invoicing from QB is working very well. The ability to track my work to each customer’s project keeps things very clean.

[Colonel Monk]

Sorry for hijacking your thread earlier....

I've probably not messed with it as much as you have, but I did figure out last week how to add a few items to QB for invoicing.

Added DROS charge as a non-taxable service....

Your gunsmithing is a service, no? Can you add in the cost of the value-add service you're performing as a line item which you sell to the customer?

Hmmm.... thinking about what you're doing, what you want to do is value your inventory including your service - so you buy brand X triggers, and add 30 minutes of smithing, and want to account for that?

Seem the way to do that would be to bring in the triggers as a "raw material" for manufacturing instead of a saleable product and somehow add the smithing to it.

I don't have it in front of me, but I'd think that your inventory item is the finished trigger, and the purchase/tracking of the raw triggers is some kind of non-saleable inventory like nuts and bolts...

CM