WSW - Podcast QuickBooks Inventory & Product Updates
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[00:00:00]
Introduction and Workshop Overview
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Dan DeLong: So welcome to another workshop Wednesday, all about casual conversations for serious workflows brought to you by school bookkeeping.com, which is all about learning QuickBooks your way.
All right, so pretend like nothing happened.
QuickBooks Inventory Updates
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Dan DeLong: So today we're gonna be talking about [00:01:00] the inventory updates that have occurred in the last couple months inside of QuickBooks online. And oh my goodness, I changed the question of the day.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah, I thought we were talking about something else, but maybe I got my wires crossed, but that's okay.
I'm I always love to talk about inventory.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. We had a week off, right? Because I was last week I was a, I was away. So we maybe played a little bit of, change with the
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, okay.
Dan DeLong: With, the topics, but today is about QuickBooks inventory and program updates. So we want to talk a little bit about, some of those changes that were announced in some of the in the know webinars and talk about some of the things that frankly, I've just been waiting for and.
Still, I'm still waiting for most of, most, of my clients. And we'll, talk about that.
Managing Inventory in QuickBooks Online
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Dan DeLong: Yeah if you are [00:02:00] using inventory to track your track inventory inside of QuickBooks online just go ahead and put something in the, chat or the comments. Now how do you feel about inventory tracking in QuickBooks Online in general?
Because you inventory is your bag, right?
Rachel Dauchy: Yes, and actually this is a really opportune time to say this 'cause we just got a inquiry from, a new inventory based business. And the first thing I always ask is how many SKUs are we talking about? And I, SKUs is just items, but this new potential customer has eight.
And so my answer is. Fantastic. And he's just buying and reselling stuff. So no manufacturing of anything. And so wanted to know, is this something that we could do inside of QuickBooks online? And I said, yes, absolutely. So when you [00:03:00] can, or to answer the question is, I actually don't have a problem managing inventory in QuickBooks Online.
As long as it's. It checks the box for all the requirements. So I know we've talked about this before, but I personally don't like it when there's way too many items, even if they're buying and reselling things, which has to be the situation. They can't be manufacturing anything. So even if they are just buying and reselling stuff, if we're talking thousands and thousands of items it's not.
My favorite thing to do. For me it's usually if they don't have an obscene amount of items, and they're really sell on
Dan DeLong: How many is obscene.
Rachel Dauchy: And, these people are only selling on one sales channel. So, for me, that's an ideal situation. I don't mind doing it in QuickBooks Online.
And as a matter of fact, I think that. In some [00:04:00] situations, I like it in QuickBooks online because then I'm not dealing with the integration of so many different things and things sinking between all the places. It even though I like all those things and I like a good challenge, oftentimes if it checks the boxes of can I do this in QuickBooks Online, then I'm, fine with it.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Yeah. And and, we were talking about a little bit yesterday on on the power Hour that the advantage of just having things all in one place Yeah. Is you're gonna get more out of QuickBooks the more natively you can use the functions. Yeah, Challenges. Yeah. And
Rachel Dauchy: sometimes more complex inventory sellers, it's the reporting isn't suitable for them and that's.
Fine. If we're talking about maybe a smaller business, or even if it's a larger business and they're really only dealing with one or [00:05:00] two things and they can maybe export the data and create fancy reports maybe out of that, then it, it can be just fine. Yeah.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. It's, excuse me,
went into my teenage years there. So the so yeah, the, and that's typically what, happens a lot of times is that. That you can track inventory inside of QuickBooks online, and it's oh, I got all the things that I need. Not, so fast. And we talked about this many times that QuickBooks Online Inventory Management is really focused on the buyer and seller of the same goods, right?
Yeah. You're not doing, you're not needing to track. The, comings and goings and actually where the physical location of all of your inventory all in the same breadth. It's really just, I buy stuff. I buy stuff, and I sell stuff. [00:06:00] Yep. And I don't do, I don't do anything to that stuff in between the time that I buy and I sell.
Correct. Yeah. Put it on the shelf and sell it later. Yep. Yep.
Product Variances and SKUs
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Dan DeLong: So one of the things that has been lost in that shuffle right, is this idea of product variances, right? When you have an item simple, a common example of that would be clothing or apparel, right?
You sell the same item, it just comes in different colors or sizes or something, right? Shapes and those types. Yep. So QuickBooks doesn't account for that, and other than the fact that you have. The ability to create more items. Yeah. And then, you end up keeping that sku. But in your, experience, what's the best what's the normal practice?
Is there typically a [00:07:00] unique s skew for different I items with different variances?
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. Yeah. I call it a variant, but, yeah so, let's say you have a T-shirt, okay? So you have just standard T-shirt. That would really be the parent. And then let's say that T-shirt comes in pink, yellow, and green.
Okay. But it also comes in small, medium, and large. So let's say a small pink. Is a variant, right? A medium pink is a variant, and then a large pink is a variant. Same with small blue, medium blue, large blue. So the one item has nine variants, let's say, right? Yeah. So I would consider the nine variants, the children and the t-shirt, the parent, [00:08:00] but.
In your system, and it really depends on the system. And so this is why I'm curious to know if QBO has this, the, your system. Really it doesn't even ma we're not even really tracking the parent. It's the variants that are the ones that have quantities, right? So each of those should have a unique individual sku.
Ne you should never have anything that has the same skew, especially if you're dealing with. Pushing those quantities to a POS system or a Shopify store or something like that. Everything should have its own individual skew. And in that situation, you almost throw out the parent. Now, internally, I always usually will have a parent for tracking.
Like parent is, cool. Squiggle t-shirt is like the parent, and then it comes in all the, variance, but it's really the [00:09:00] variance that matter.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. So in, as far as QuickBooks is, concerned up until, the, introduction of this product variant. You, end up having to create individual items.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah, So the individual, I, the, all of the variance would just simply be a list of nine things.
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Rachel Dauchy: That's it.
Dan DeLong: And, the way that you would manage that is you would just put in the description what the actual color and size. So like pink color Yeah. Would show in the, description.
Having a, product variances or a style grid, so to speak, of this is the item. And then these are all of the items that are part of that style of of items. And then the, individual product variances, has really been a challenge. And really [00:10:00] you, just end up needing.
Putting in finding workarounds
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah and really like the, in QuickBooks Online, let's say it, it was, let's say it's, you can just only have nine items listed. That's it. For picking an item and putting it on an invoice, they're all considered just an item.
But the reason that you wanna have these variants tied to a parent is because, let's say. In a POS system that you have a customer looking at or a Shopify store that a customer is looking at, the, effect that it ultimately yields is that if I'm looking at a t-shirt on a website, I can go, oh look, there's that squiggle T-shirt.
Oh, I see. It comes in these three colors and ooh, I see it comes in small, medium, and large. And those simply become [00:11:00] just the, types of T-shirt that I can order. But underneath it's got its own skew. And so what we're looking at as inventory accountants, if we're looking at the item level, we're looking at these each individual items.
But really variants are when you are looking at something customer facing. You are, they're just looking at the parent and they can see that the, Offerings are just the different colors. They don't really understand that's simply a variant of the parent.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. So there's a couple things that have been promised that are coming.
And I was actually reviewing the, in the no webinar that Intuit put out and where they were talking about product variances. And this was back in 2023 when they were talking about it, and they said everybody should have it. By September of [00:12:00] 2024. Here we are in September of 2025 and not everybody has it.
Rachel Dauchy: I guess my question would be why does Intuit wanna build that? If their, do they ultimately want the ability to, on an invoice, pull up basically a parent and then have the different options under that one? Item. Is that really the intention? Because it's really the way you build it is, right? Because the way you wanna see it a certain way.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Yeah. So here, is the, what we see today for most of our clients when we go to products and services. You don't see anything about. Any kind of item variance or, anything?
Rachel Dauchy: No, they're all just individual standalone items. Inventory,
Dan DeLong: Individual, standalone items, that sort of thing.
[00:13:00] So the caveat to all of this, the, yeah, but right is, you have to where, these things are coming from or where these changes are coming from.
Intuit's Trade Gecko Acquisition and Commerce Integration
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Dan DeLong: Into its acquisition of Trade Gecko. Back, in 2000. So that kind of all came in it came into QuickBooks, or is coming into QuickBooks through the commerce tab, which I don't even know where it is now.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. It's, I can't even see it on mine.
Dan DeLong: But if we I have, this, client here has, has, is using the Commerce channel. And now the products and service screen looks way different. Oh, so we have this, there's the intrigued Rachel's voice. Look at this. So we ha instead of those.
Things at the top. Now we have just messages here.
Rachel Dauchy: [00:14:00] Yeah.
Dan DeLong: Oh, and I wanted to go back and show a few things, but now under this new dropdown, you have options with adding new items, right? So new inventory, new non-inventory, new bundle, and then batch import. And this option to import from your sales channel, right?
So you have to have a connection to Shopify, eBay, or Amazon in order to have this, function to begin with. So do
Rachel Dauchy: you need to be using that app?
Dan DeLong: Yeah. That that
Rachel Dauchy: app connection thing in the bank feeds.
Dan DeLong: Yes. That ultimately comes that way when you connect the commerce sales channel.
Oh,
Rachel Dauchy: okay.
Dan DeLong: And yeah, so that, that will come in here. Oops. I want to go back into where it's, or
Rachel Dauchy: app transactions, I should say.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. So if I go in here where. [00:15:00] Where are they hiding it now?
Rachel Dauchy: I think it's, they,
Dan DeLong: no, I wanted I wanted to show now sales orders
Rachel Dauchy: Uhhuh,
Dan DeLong: Is, something that becomes a thing.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah, that's a new thing. Now
New Features and Sales Channel Integration
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Dan DeLong: when you are connecting, your, Shopify sales sales channel or some of the other online sales channels like eBay and, in, Amazon, right? So I can see, the, Shopify connection. I can see the, sales order as they're, coming in and I can see the, details, right?
And if I wanted to, I could import those Shopify items into my QuickBook.
Rachel Dauchy: That's a very cool thing.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. And and then that will allow you to create those transactions. Now what? I don't know, right? Because this is all relatively new and, we're not actually [00:16:00] importing with this, is a bad example for this particular client.
'cause we're using another connector Yeah. In order to bring in the transactions. But I have it connected just in case, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like a backup. If something should fail. It's it's like Miss America, right? The run around
Rachel Dauchy: now. That's, that is really cool that it does that.
Now. I have heard some chatter about that connection, though, not being the best, but, but being able
Dan DeLong: to, just like everything else with QuickBooks, it's not always
Rachel Dauchy: now as somebody that's
Dan DeLong: not for all.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. As somebody that's imported items into many different systems over and over and over and over in duplication.
This is a very good thing. But my guess, my question is okay, you can bring items in, but let's say Shopify, you [00:17:00] have, you've connected it that way and you've brought in your, you've brought them in as sales orders, not invoices. So they're still in a sales order state before they've been invoiced, which is great.
'cause it's a it's the, logical first step that it should be. And QBO didn't have that before, which is very nice. But does it pull in the quantity of how many is on hand in QuickBooks to the sales platform?
Dan DeLong: No. That's
Rachel Dauchy: a big problem.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Normally it's as, as far as the communication from the sales platform to QuickBooks it's, really just one way.
Yeah. It's coming from,
Rachel Dauchy: it's Shopify to QBO,
Dan DeLong: it's Shopify to QBO as far as. Getting data and, getting it into Yeah. Which is really what most people want, right? It's the, shallow end of the pool. But and, ultimately this could potentially [00:18:00] tomorrow I may say another, I may have a different answer because maybe eventually it gets to the point of being able to do omni selling, right?
So when you have, shopify and Amazon connected separately. You may wanna know, you may want Shopify to know when you sell something on Amazon.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah, That's why we use inventory, apps. Yeah. And for that sole reason is, so we're using one hub, and then when the way we know, when we're selling on several channels, we know when we sell one here, it makes the availability of for the, these other two places.
One less, right? Yeah.
Dan DeLong: The, problem with all of that is you have to have whatever your, the, place that you're, that is your source of truth needs to be the source of truth. Yeah. And it needs, to do all of the things, not just. Track the comings and goings [00:19:00] of your products and services, right?
Yeah,
Rachel Dauchy: exactly. Exactly. And the ones that I use do that. They do all those things, but it's still a thing that it's, you've gotta learn how to use it and you gotta know how to do it. So the fact that they're slowly putting these all in here is good. I'm sure at a certain point they'll, I'm sure their goal is to have it operate.
Multi-channel syncing back and forth QBO to whatever channels and QBO that and that to QBO. I'm sure that's their end goal.
Dan DeLong: Yes. Likely as and bringing in cost of good
Rachel Dauchy: sold. Yeah. That's very important.
Dan DeLong: Yes. Now this now speaking of cost goods sold, one of the, one of the new updates is the ability to change your costing method.
I wonder I'm wondering if oh, I can't even get to preferences [00:20:00] and probably not a great idea to do this. Oh, let's see here. We go over sales quickly. Do we have the option on pro? We do. Yeah. We have this option here. Track inventory for sales channels, right? So we have the ability to do that.
Wow. It doesn't say anything as to what that means. Yeah. Or if that actually does that, but but you know what,
Rachel Dauchy: Maybe it means I've allocated X amount for this sales channel and this amount for that sale. I don't know.
Dan DeLong: It's funny because all of these other things are links except for that one, but it gives you the impression that it actually is a link.
Oh, you like this? Yeah. I'd
Rachel Dauchy: be very curious to know what that thing is. Yeah, because I can't
Dan DeLong: click on it. I can turn it on, but I don't want it to.
Rachel Dauchy: But, 'cause if, it's not going QBO to sales channel, [00:21:00] then what does it really mean?
Dan DeLong: Yeah. This is an entry point and who knows what it actually does, huh but, there is actually another another I've seen the screenshots, but of course I'm not seeing it here.
But you have the ability to, to change the calculation method of QuickBooks. 'cause in the, past it was if you're tracking inventory, you're first in, first out. So that's the only way to, do that. Now there is an option to be able to choose between weighted average, or first in, first out.
'cause especially if you're coming from desktop where. That is the option. Yeah. Unless you're using enterprise advanced inventory, weighted average in your cost calculation, you might wanna mirror that because if you change from [00:22:00] weighted average to first in first out, you gotta tell the. You gotta tell the IRS about that.
And there's another forms and all that stuff to to, calculate those, differences. So you are able to, change that. I don't, this is, that's the promise that you able to do that, but obviously,
Rachel Dauchy: and then that here, not to mention that FIFO isn't always appropriate for every business.
So to be able to have exactly an option is nice.
Dan DeLong: I'm wondering, maybe it's under advance, just double check. I don't see anything here. So that's that, that's something that's, new. So the sales orders is, something that is new-ish. Yeah. And then the variances.
Batch Import Overview
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Dan DeLong: So now let me get into where we can actually see it, because now it's decided to error out.
So if I go [00:23:00] into the batch import, so now I'm gonna have this screen, which is not something, do they give you a template
Rachel Dauchy: that you could use? Oh, there you go. They
Dan DeLong: do import. You can import from CSV or Excel. And then here it's really just you, can essentially batch import.
So you have these options here of, products and services.
Handling Product Variances
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Dan DeLong: Products with or without variances, right? So if I choose without variances it looks just these are the columns that, that you have in here. When I choose with a variant, I get a couple extra columns of single parent. Or variant.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, that's really interesting because I, and Miy, you know what I'm talking about.
Parent and Child Product Structure
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Rachel Dauchy: So when you like we're working on this conversion from desktop to online and in desktop, the [00:24:00] products, when you export them. Have this parent colon child, and so you actually have to split that column because, do you know what I'm talking about?
Because it's not apples to apples, so, maybe I'm not describing this right, but I find that sometimes, like the, way that, let's say you have a, an, let's say you've exported all of your products from QuickBooks desktop. The format isn't always the format that you need to import into QuickBooks online.
So if there's ever a situation like what we just did and that we're not importing all the items in, 'cause we didn't wanna miss inventory items, and you're exporting them and importing them in into a different way, the format isn't always the same. And so, you have to reformat the parent and child into just the child.[00:25:00]
Creating and Managing Variants
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Dan DeLong: So when you have items with variants you're, either gonna choose a single, which is, there is no variant. And you can see by choosing single, all of these variant, this variant table that got added here is grayed out, right? So I can't, I can do it, cannot do anything with option, name, option, value.
And it looks like it gives you five five options. So you. You, have lots of things that you can, so you can do color, you can do size, you can you for one particular item, you can have multiple variances. So it could be size, color. I'm trying to think of the other, some of the other things.
Fabric. You could feasibly have different, fabrics.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh yeah. But what's the header? Is it option one? Name? So does, it allow you to put a header in, like [00:26:00] color, size so it knows what you're talking about? Yeah.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. So when I choose parent, the only thing I can change in here is the name.
Oh,
Rachel Dauchy: okay.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. I, cannot put a value, you see the hover hovers over, it gives me, the Uhuh not gonna be able to do that, but I can put in a name. So this could be size. This one go away. Could be color. Color. And then option three could be, material, things like that. So you have up to five Yeah.
Variances that you can define. Of course I didn't spell color
Rachel Dauchy: that's cool that it allows you to do that. Yeah, I just always like curious, is it, is that really is it really like a way of like does it appear as items and sub items? Then when you're looking at [00:27:00] your item list.
Dan DeLong: Yeah, let's, let me, see. I'm just gonna buy and sell this.
Practical Example: Adding a T-Shirt
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Dan DeLong: And this is gonna be a t-shirt, right? Style one, right? If we want, we can put it in a ca in a category, but we're not going to this.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, you froze. Dan froze again.
Dan DeLong: A T-shirt.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, you froze, Dan.
Dan DeLong: I did, right? Yeah, I can hear you. That's okay.
Rachel Dauchy: You're back now.
Dan DeLong: Okay. Yeah, I can hear you. And then the price. Nope, we can't even on a parent, you can't put in the price or the rate.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, see, that goes along with what I was saying. Yeah. It's really when you're using parents and children or [00:28:00] parent and variants, the parent becomes just an internal thing.
Yeah. A way of organizing, it's really the variants are the ones that are become the sellable item. So that makes sense that it would be like this.
Dan DeLong: Yep, So then we're gonna do. Our next item.
Rachel Dauchy: Gosh darn, this is really cool
Dan DeLong: over here. And then this is gray T-shirt, gray small t-shirt.
I can spell now all the, pressure's on. And of course you don't need to do this in a, in this grid fashion, but we are going to,
Rachel Dauchy: yeah. I would, if I had 10 to 20 or something, if I had more, I'd probably use that export
Dan DeLong: template. Yeah.
And then, [00:29:00] this is what did I say? Small gray. Small
Rachel Dauchy: gray.
Dan DeLong: So there's my size gray.
Rachel Dauchy: But when you're dealing with variants, make sure you spell the gray the same way and all the different, so
Dan DeLong: it's small and then color. Otherwise
Rachel Dauchy: you'll screw yourself up.
Dan DeLong: And then this.
All right. We don't need that. We're not doing that. So let's, so now sales description is grayed out. I can't, change the, sales description, but I can, and I can't choose the income account. So here's where, because it probably
Rachel Dauchy: is just pulling from the parent. Yeah. Because there are certain things you set up at the parent level.
Yep. And then the varis are literally just the different color and the sizes. Alright, so this is it's, they probably do that so you're not accidentally [00:30:00] putting in different costs.
Dan DeLong: So let's just say our cost is here and I'll just say we have one on hand just to see. And as of date, my birthday, your order point and oh, we need an inventory account, which is over here.
Now I can't see because I've zoomed in so much. So now what happened? Oh, I scroll down. I'm like, where'd it go? So now if I had save, let's see what happens. We're uploading. A lot of data, all two items.
Rachel Dauchy: You could you could with your gray t-shirt, you could have the gray sweatpants with it and have a grout fit.
That's what my daughter calls it.
Dan DeLong: A grout fit. A grout fit is
Rachel Dauchy: a gray outfit.
Dan DeLong: Okay.
Excellent. Looks like, let's see. It's more [00:31:00] refreshing. It says we're, you can continue working at QuickBooks or upload more new data in the new batch. We'll let you know when the data is saved. So I'm curious if I just pop over here and close outta here and go back into the item list.
I'm thinking, about it. Come on now. There we go. Grady,
nothing.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, that's weird.
Dan DeLong: It's not it's not in here yet.
Let's see here. Curious. Apparently this takes a while. Yeah. And not something you wanna do on a live webinar. We'll put that in the comments once once we get an [00:32:00] idea as to what actually occurred here. But this does allow you to be able to do this thing and, choose that.
And choose that. Choose to be able to create items with. Variances. Yeah. So, there is a relationship with that. Now folks over at PBM, the Pro Bookkeepers Network they have a question of thoughts on how Intuit Enterprise Suite is working with inventory. Seems like all the same rules, apps, workflows would apply for Intuit Enterprise Suite and QBO 'cause they're based on the same software.
Yes, that is correct. There's nothing. In Intuit Enterprise Suite, that will be different than what today in your QuickBooks online, right? You would still need to connect a, commerce channel in order to see these functions, inside of QuickBooks Online [00:33:00] Plus Advanced or Intuit Enterprise Suite, whichever the case may be.
I don't think you're gonna see that for some time.
Connecting Sales Channels
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Rachel Dauchy: How do people connect to the Commerce channel?
Dan DeLong: Yeah, that's a good question. Now in this, because I know that's
Rachel Dauchy: changed throughout time.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Where do you get sales? Okay. It's under sales and get paid and sales channels is where you would go. And this is the same.
No, we're not getting feedback just yet. This is the same screen that you would see in the old interface, Uhhuh, where you would go to commerce on the left side. Okay. And then this is where you would connect a new sales channel.
Rachel Dauchy: Got it.
Dan DeLong: Do we have any, do we have any new ones? Oh, we do. We have Etsy.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
In the, and then in some, oh, you know what, now in mine, which is, I still have [00:34:00] the old setup, but it's QBOA, it, the commerce is actually in the left hand navigation.
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: So you can connect now four sales channels. And then if you don't see it then, you can request. That's pretty cool. But
Rachel Dauchy: again, the, if somebody's gonna be doing that right now, they really, crystal clear have to understand this is not updating quantities.
Yeah. And they still have to go in and manage all that in these sales channels. 'cause there's a lot of confusion. People think that. When this gets connected, it'll do that and it won't.
Dan DeLong: Okay. Yep. And then a couple other things that we wanna talk about with regards to inventory. And I have a QR code there in the upper right, all about our advanced inventory section.
We have a, blog about what you can do inside of QuickBooks Online. We have a, an inventory course where it all breaks down [00:35:00] the, difference. The, main concepts of tracking inventory and how can you track, and manage inventory inside of QuickBooks online when you need these other functions of multiple sites and those types of things.
But in June they talked about a couple options that, have to deal with inventory in the, know.
Inventory Add-On and Pricing
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Dan DeLong: And one is, called an inventory add-on, right? Basic gist is with the different flavors and, fla, versions of QuickBooks online, you've got Plus and Advanced and Essentials and Civil Star, right?
Plus is the lowest version. That includes inventory tracking. So the, thought was, Hey, what about the people in Simple Start that need to track inventory but don't need all the other things that are in Plus. So [00:36:00] with this now, you simple start and, essentials customers they can add on inventory tracking in simple start.
And essentials. That's pretty cool. For a small fee, oh, of $40 a month. So let's just break down that pricing, shall we, Rachel?
Rachel Dauchy: They might as well just go to Plus.
Dan DeLong: Exactly. If they're on essentials and they need inventory tracking Essentials is now $75 a month, so adding $40 is $115. Which is exactly the price of, plus
the way they position it here is that QuickBooks will now get the enhanced flexibility to manage more than their operations without needing to upgrade their subscriptions that include features they don't need,
Rachel Dauchy: like class tracking and [00:37:00] location tracking. I would just upgrade the Plus and get all that.
Dan DeLong: Exactly. So if they are on. Essentials and they need this. Just upgrade them to Plus don't add, the inventory because you're gonna get budgets. You're going to get Yeah. Class and location tracking. And two more users to be able to work with.
Rachel Dauchy: I know. And you know what this does. Oh yeah. They get more chart of accounts vistas, it adds more confusion.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Now
Rachel Dauchy: thanks Intuit.
Dan DeLong: I think the advantage though is that if they're on Simple start and they just need inventory, yeah. Then
Rachel Dauchy: it's not a, it's not a big bonus for essentials people. It is for simple start,
Dan DeLong: right? So if you're on simple start because you have one user and you need the inventory manage.
Component. Yes. Yeah. That brings you up to 75 a month because Simple start, oh no, it's now $38 for simple start [00:38:00] monthly. So that brings you up to $78 for for simple Start with the inventory add on.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah, ma'am. They've raised the prices very rapidly, I've noticed.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. But if you need. Product tracking you, again, you probably have other workflows that you might, that might be necessary.
'cause project tracking, right? That's a plus. You won't get, you won't get any of that. If you just add on the inventory add on.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Discontinuation of Shipping Label Feature
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Dan DeLong: Also with that they are sunsetting or discontinuing this shipping label feature already. That wait before you get so excited. So with this is again, only affecting online simple start and essentials people.
Oh, okay. So if they needed the shipping label printer out of online essentials [00:39:00] or a simple start they needed to opt into that. So now it's included. This is what they're saying is that, if you, alongside the introduction of the inventory add-on, which is up above the shipping feature, will no longer be available in QuickBooks, solepreneur Simple Start or Essentials as of August 25th.
You can still use it, it's just, it's in, it's part of the, essentially the it's part of the inventory add-on. Okay. If they needed the. Shipping manager or the shipping label feature in those products, solopreneur, essentials, and SimpleStart. Then they would just opt for either upgrading to plus or.
Adding the inventory add-on so that they can do that as well. Yeah. You're not shipping any you wouldn't need the [00:40:00] shipping manager if you're not shipping something. So there's, I guess it, does make sense. Yeah. Thank you, Intuit. But it's not, they're discontinuing the entire shipping label feature.
Okay. It's just for that, those, particular product SKUs, those variances of, QuickBooks. So that's those things. So that's one of the things that we wanna make sure we wanna talk about variances. We wanted to talk about the sales order options. All of those are our new-ish enhancements to things that deal with managing inventory.
But like we said, that is we are in the kitty pool. When we talk about inventory management and QuickBooks online this is just adding, is, when you're taking one [00:41:00] more step towards the deep end and you're not necessarily all the way into the 10 foot pool.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. But a lot of these things can be really helpful because a lot of times I deal with more, a little bit more complex, but sometimes they don't need that complexity.
And sometimes it's nice to be able to see, oh yeah, QuickBooks has this one feature now. Oh, that's cool. I can just do it all there.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Yeah. And again, you have that flexibility and more. Deeper integration because you have it all in one place and you're not surprised with maybe a limitation in an integration when you're, using a, third party app.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. And also like when you're using a third party app. And you know what I really liked was that importing from the sales channel, the items. 'cause I'm telling you it, I was joking about them. Making sure you spell the gray right.
Dan DeLong: That
Rachel Dauchy: is a big deal. [00:42:00] Yeah, it has to be exact. So if you're importing in the name, the sku, the anything that it needs to understand to connect, if that's not right, if there's an extra space or a dash, it's, you're gonna get an error.
So I really love the idea of importing the product details from something that already exists.
Dan DeLong: Yeah, I had one because one
Rachel Dauchy: less potential for user error.
Dan DeLong: Yeah I had, one Shopify seller that habitually created new items in, in, in, in
Rachel Dauchy: Shopify. Yes. That is an excellent point you bring up because anytime, yeah, because a lot of times you want them to use a master list, right?
Make sure you put your items here and then it can go in all the places. Inevitably they never do that. And it's usually some other person adding things in Shopify, not understanding that [00:43:00] we need those items. You can't just put it there without updating it here.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Especially when QuickBooks is the source of truth for inventory.
Yes. You need to make sure that's the, that's still the case.
Rachel Dauchy: Yep.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
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Dan DeLong: So appreciate you joining us. Sorry again about the, technical issues that we were having frozen, things and all that sort of stuff. But we'll get our act together eventually, I think. So we appreciate you joining us this week and we'll see you next time on the workshop Wednesday.
Have a great day everybody.
[00:44:00]
