Learn to Use QuickBooks Inventory Troubleshooting Tool
Are you struggling to interpret a company file swamped by a vast array of unorganized data? The QuickBooks Inventory Troubleshooting Tool transforms your data into a presentable, user-friendly format, ensuring it is easily accessible and intuitive to act upon.
Haphazard or poorly displayed data turns into a barrier rather than a resource, leading to confusion, delay, and misinterpretation errors. With every passing day, QuickBooks accumulates new data in the company file, which might turn chaotic if not organized properly. Effective data display & management is incredibly crucial to transform raw data into an actionable resource and facilitate smarter decision-making.
The QuickBooks Inventory Troubleshooting Tool helps you turn data complexity into clarity by systematically organizing the items and customizing the inventory criteria to your preferences. This improves visualization and ultimately boosts business efficiency by ensuring seamless access to the company file data.
This blog will guide you through unlocking the full potential of the tool, clarify the symbols & abbreviations you might come across while using the tool, and let you explore various ways for setting up your inventory in QuickBooks. As you progress through this blog, you’ll also discover simple techniques to fix inventory problems in QuickBooks.
Technical Insights into Troubleshoot Inventory Tool in QuickBooks
The QuickBooks Troubleshoot Inventory Tool helps you put safety measures in place to avoid errors in the future. In simple terms, you can modify inventory criteria and choose how the items are shown in the company file so that they are arranged as per the preferred suitability of your client’s business. If you spot errors in any of the inventory items, you can Quick Zoom on the particular item to fix them. We have categorized the basic functions of the tool below:
Symbols & abbreviations used in QuickBooks Troubleshoot Inventory Tool
You might see ‘special icons/symbols’ in the tool along with some abbreviations, which might be confusing. The abbreviations are also used throughout the blog, so take a look at the following table to know their meanings and avoid any confusion:
| Symbol or Abbreviation | Meaning/Description |
| 🟢 (Green Circle) | It signifies that this item does not have any negative inventory. |
| ⚠️ (Yellow triangle with an exclamation mark) | It signifies that this item has negative inventory. |
| End Qty & Neg Qty | Ending Quantity (End Qty) and Negative Quantity (Neg Qty).
End Qty refers to the actual quantity of an item you have at the end of a certain period. Neg Qty means an item is sold more than its availability in the stock or inventory, which has pushed the stock level’s value below zero (-ve). |
| To & From Date | To and From date refers to a specific period range for the inventory data you are configuring.
From signifies the starting date of the period, whereas To refers to the ending date of the period. |
Important:
- If you mistakenly enter the From date later than the To date, Client Data Review (CDR) will automatically assign the former date as From and the latter date as To.
- Discrepancies in the inventory, including negative quantities and out-of-balance items, are indicated by the status column between the End Qty and Neg Qty? columns.
Setting Display Dates in the QB Troubleshoot Inventory Tool
The From and To dates are a time range between which you want to review your inventory. Both From and To dates can be set according to your requirement but are only applicable to the beginning quantity, sold, bought, adjustment, ending quantity, and negative quantity columns.
Set the From and To date, then press Tab on the keyboard or click anywhere on the screen to refresh the display.
Changing Display Items in QuickBooks Troubleshoot Inventory Tool
The Troubleshoot Inventory Tool in QuickBooks Accountant lets you choose from multiple inventory views. When you change the view, Refresh the page to arrange and display the inventory list according to the new criteria you selected. You’ll also see different colors in the background of the Type, Cost, Sales Price, Avg. Cost and % Markup columns. The colors aren’t related to any specific meaning but provide better display and enhance readability.
You’ll see three options in the Show Items dropdown:
- All: Will display all the inventory items when selected.
- All Active: Selecting this option will display all the inventory items that are currently active.
- Filtered By: This option lets you arrange the inventory items according to specific criteria or items that meet certain conditions you select.
Note: All the criteria items are grayed out (unavailable) when you select the All or All Active option, and you won’t be able to choose any of them after that. Doesn’t matter if you select the grayed-out criteria items or not; Filtered By is set as default.
Inventory Criteria
You can choose all or any of the following five criteria when you set the Show Items box to Filtered By:
- Qty Bought/Build=0 displays items whose bought or built quantity is zero.
- Qty Sold/Used=0 displays items whose sold or used quantity is zero.
- Negative Quantity displays all the items whose quantity is negative (sold/used more than available). You’ll see two buttons under the table that’ll help you in displaying the negative quantities. Marking the Negative Quantity box after selecting the as “of” date button will display all the items with negative quantities on the ending date of the review period you selected. Whereas, choosing the Any time button will display all the items that had or have negative quantity at any point of time in the review period. Even if the item has a positive value on the To (end period) date, it will be displayed if it ever touched negative quantity during the review period.
- Inactive with Qty on hand displays inactive items that are still available in your inventory. Can be items that are currently inactive & not being sold, but are still available in the inventory.
- % Markup less than displays all the items with markup less than the entered amount. The percent will be visible but grayed out when you clear the % Markup box or switch the Show items option to All or All Active. It isn’t used when grayed out, but gets restored (to save you from re-entering it) when you change the Show Items option or select the % Markup box.
This way, you can change display items using the QuickBooks Troubleshoot Inventory Tool. If the list still seems chaotic to work on, try adding a new criteria or changing the current one to arrange and limit the list.
Quick Ways to Fix Inventory Problems in QuickBooks
This section of your blog shares some reliable ways to fix inventory errors in QuickBooks Desktop (Accountant or Enterprise). You can use the following methods for both QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise inventory troubleshooting and QuickBooks Accountant inventory troubleshooting. Check out the following applications of the QuickBooks Troubleshoot Inventory Tool & remedies for common inventory problems in QuickBooks Desktop:
- You can generate the Inventory Valuation Detail Report of an item for the selected period simply with a double click on the End Qty or Neg Qty? Column.
- You’ll see checkboxes assigned to each and every inventory item. You can select any number of inventory items by selecting their respective checkboxes in the first column. Click the Make Selected Items Inactive option to set all the selected inventory items as inactive. If you want to turn an inactive item to active, double-click it to open the Edit Item window and unmark the Item is Inactive checkbox.
- You’ll or might’ve noticed that the cursor turns into a Quick Zoom cursor whenever it hovers over the inventory item name. Double-click the Quick Zoom cursor to launch the Edit Item window, where you can make modifications regarding the item.
- You’ll see an Adjust Inventory Quantity/Value on Hand option at the bottom of the window, which is used to adjust the quantities of all the inventory items displayed on the screen. You’ll have to just enter the quantity or quantity difference for any of the items in the new window; as soon as you enter one of these items, the other is automatically calculated. Select the Adjustment Account to add a reference number, job and class information at the top of the list displayed. Hit the Save & Close option to apply the changes or tap Save & New to apply the changes and keep the window open for the next item. Warning messages about the Age of Transactions will start popping up after saving the changes. Changes won’t be applied, and you’ll encounter recurring warning messages if you didn’t enter the correct Adjustment Account.
Wrapping up!
This blog helps to acknowledge how the QuickBooks Inventory Troubleshooting Tool helps you arrange your inventory items for maximum accessibility possible. Apart from that, the symbols and other buttons/options you’ll find while using the tool are also well-defined in the blog. Our blog’s aim is to ensure you are well-equipped to utilize the Troubleshoot Inventory Tool in QuickBooks for resolving inventory errors, fixing discrepancies caused by negative quantities, and customizing the inventory criteria to suit your needs. Whether to fix the inventory errors or customize the inventory items, QuickBooks Troubleshoot Inventory Tool serves as an invaluable resource for better decision-making and enhanced efficiency in your business.
Continue Exploring: QuickBooks Review List Changes Tool
FAQs
Why is my QuickBooks inventory showing negative quantities?
Negative quantity of an item simply means that it has been sold more than you have in stock. You cannot fulfill the order currently due to which the item’s quantity has turned negative. This might lead to inaccuracies in your financial records, and we’ll advise you to use the Troubleshoot Inventory Tool in QuickBooks to diagnose and fix inventory problems.
How do I fix negative inventory quantities using the tool?
You’ll have to first use the Troubleshoot Inventory Tool in QuickBooks to identify all the items having negative quantities. Then you can check all the transactions related to the inventory item and adjust the inventory levels to fix the negative quantities in your inventory list. For future, we’ll advise you to keep your inventory and sales orders in check to ensure sales do not occur without sufficient items in the inventory.
Is the QuickBooks Troubleshoot Inventory Tool available for all QuickBooks products?
Unfortunately, the Inventory Troubleshooting Tool is only available in QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Solutions and QuickBooks Desktop Accountant.
How can I check the cost, value, quantity, and other aspects of inventory items in QuickBooks?
You will find all the item-related info in the Inventory Valuation Detail Report. When fixing inventory errors using the QuickBooks Troubleshoot Inventory Tool, double-click on the End Qty and Neg Qty? columns to create an Inventory Valuation Detail Report.
