Inventory Valuations

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MainBoss records the value of items in inventory, based on their original purchase cost. However, some items may have their values change significantly over time; if so, it is useful to change the value in MainBoss's records to reflect the items' true market value.

Inventory valuations are also used if your organization has just installed MainBoss or if you do not use the purchase order facilities of MainBoss. In this case, MainBoss does not know the original purchase price of inventory items (items bought before you started using MainBoss or bought without using the purchase order facilities). You can therefore use the inventory valuation facilities to enter the price of your stock "by hand".

Note: The per-unit cost of an item is always the total cost divided by the quantity of that item. Internally, MainBoss retains the result of this division accurate to about 16 decimal places; however, MainBoss only displays four decimal places in a report or on the screen.

If you set a new per-unit cost, MainBoss automatically changes the total cost to be the per-unit cost multiplied by the item quantity. If you set a new total cost, MainBoss automatically changes the unit cost to be the total cost divided by the item quantity.

To specify new values for inventory items, select Inventory —> Adjustments —> Value from the menu. MainBoss opens a window that contains the following:

Inv. Cat.: Lets you specify a category of inventory items. If you select a category, the drop-down list for the "Selected Items" field (below) will only show items belonging to that category. For more on inventory categories, see Inventory Categories.
Inventoried Items: Specifies that you want the "Selected Items" drop-down list to show inventory items. This is the default.
Non-inventoried Items: Specifies that you want the "Selected Items" drop-down list to show non-inventory items.
Selected Items: A drop-down list showing inventory items. The contents of this list are controlled by "Inv. Cat.", Inventoried Items, and Non-inventoried Items.
Pick This Item: Clicking this copies the current selection from "Selected Items" into "Inv. Item".
Pick New Item: Clicking this button lets you enter a description of a new inventory item. This is useful if you are recording the value of an item that isn't currently tracked as part of your inventory; you can add the item to your inventory and then continue recording the value.
Clicking Pick New Item opens the Inventory Item editor window. For more information on using this window, see Describing Items.
Inv. Item: The item chosen from "Selected Items" or specified when you clicked Pick New Item.
Date: The date/time when the value is assigned. If you leave this blank, MainBoss will fill in the current date and time.
On Hand: The quantity of the given item that you currently have on hand.
Unit Cost: The old per-unit cost of the specified item.
Total Cost: The old total cost of your entire stock of the specified item.
On Order: The quantity of the specified item that is currently on order. (Items are put on order when an appropriate purchase order is issued; for more information, see Purchase Orders.)
On Reserve: The quantity of the specified item that is currently on reserve for use in various work orders. (Items are put on reserve when an appropriate work order is created containing that item in its materials list; for more information, see Creating and Editing Work Orders.)
Stock Available: The total quantity of the specified item that is freely available for use. This is the total amount of stock on hand, minus the amount that is on reserve for work orders.
New Unit Cost: The new per-unit cost for this type of item. If you specify a new unit cost, MainBoss automatically adjusts "New Total Cost" to be "On Hand" multiplied by "New Unit Cost".
New Total Cost: The new total cost of your total stock of this item. If you specify a new (adjusted) total cost, MainBoss automatically adjusts "New Unit Cost" to be "New Total Cost" divided by "On Hand".
Reference: Any additional reference information that might be useful in this context.
Save & New: Saves the current record and clears fields in the window so you can enter a new record.
Clone: Creates another inventory valuation window using the same information you have just recorded. For example, suppose you are specifying values for several inventory items in the same inventory category. You can enter a new value for one of those items, then clone the value record to get a new record; the new record already has "Inv. Cat." set, so you don't have to specify it again.
Delete: Deletes this adjustment record.
Save: Saves the current record, but leaves all data as is. You can then continue to edit the same record.
Done: Closes the window. MainBoss discards any information that hasn't already been saved.

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