Comment by karl11

Comment by karl11 13 hours ago

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Lack of manual journals would be a non-starter, I am actually not clear how a business could possibly run their books without manual journals.

An example: you make something that uses 5 inputs. I have inventory and cost of goods sold accounts for each of those inputs, but my invoices out to customers only reference the final product. This is where ERPs add insanely complex inventory management solutions. However, the simple way to deal with it instead is to use a manual journal to reconcile your inventory and cost of goods sold accounts monthly or however often you like.

journal 13 hours ago

I have all the in the works, including complex assemblies and reporting.

I wish I had the $ to hire help.

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j45 12 hours ago

Interesting example - Complex ERP inventory management and manufacturing experience here:

It seems reasonable to need manual adjustments, but I'm not sure if entries would be needed. Deciding how to make corrections and adjustments seems to be key in any manual journal entries, or not.

If journal entries derive from transactions elsewhere, chaining those together, or something to adjust them them is pretty reasonable.

About split entries like the scenario you've outlined? Cost of Goods Sold, vs manufacturing are all often in different parts of the ERP that may not tie back to journals always. Perhaps there is a pattern to setup that is repeatable. I'm not sure if you have a software background, but source code control of managing the bits of what changed when is important.

Another scenario where manual stuff might not work is if we have a just in time manufacturing process, and don't complete the finished goods until the items are on the truck and signed for by the driver (un damaged) so then you can finalize manufacturing, invoicing, shipping documents, etc. There's ways to reduce having to undo all of those if product is damaged between manufacturing and shipping. Of course this has it's own caveats. Implemented OK in SAP though.

Overall, a real need and goal is: reducing the amount accountants or anyone who works with an accounting data has to dump out data from the accounting system to "manipulate the data" to get a view of what happened/happening/needs to happen.

Unpopular take based on experience: It's been my experience that a good chunk of accounting groups that run around with their hair on fire that the system is somehow not working... calls in someone with database or analysis skills, to discover something wasn't done as needed, or not configured and implemented. In this way, the Technical ERP whisperers out there who are not accountants but handle the "in depth analysis"..

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