Inventory App That Integrates With QuickBooks

[Melissa]

We are new to the vending business and my husband is wanting to find an inventory program that integrates with QuickBooks.  We do have NAYAX card readers,but the NAYAX system only does inventory at your machine level.  My husband wants to run balance sheets and track assets.  We can do that on QuickBooks but are trying to find a way to track inventory that goes from warehouse, to machine, to goods sold.  Any help would be so appreciated.  Thank you!

[AZVendor]

There are no vending apps that integrate with QB.  You need to pay for the VMS from Nayax or one that's similar that you can download and parse into data that you then manually input to QB.

[Melissa]

Thank you for your reply.  Im aware there are no vending apps that integrate with QB.  However, does anyone use any general inventory apps that do intigrate with QB that can help us track inventory from warehouse, to machine, to goods sold?  Most owners tell us that we are micromanaging, but my husband has run many businesses and has always followed strict protocols for tracking inventory to goods sold so we have accurate books.  I'd love to know how people handle this in a vending business before we invest and drive ourselves crazy just tracking inventory by hand all day long.  My husband is worried some vending operators are just being poor business owners by not having accurate books and just estimating on average price of goods bought and then sold and how much inventory you truly have.  Any information is appreciated.

[Southeast Treats]

Parlevel has a healthy inventory/ warehouse module that probably does all you want, I don't know if it would integrate with QB.  I use QBO for accounting and manage inventory in Parlevel with no issues.  I don't think that makes me a poor business operator... 

[Melissa]

Ok this is so helpful.  So are there particular reports you run from parlevel that you upload to QB that you use on the accounting side?  For instance, if you buy Coke for $1.00 a can and then sell it for $2.00 but the following month you buy it for $1.50 a can and sell it for $2.50, how do you track those cost differences in QB?  How do you account for your inventory in QB that you have both in warehouse and in machine?

[AZVendor]

You don't have to do any of that kind of tracking to properly operate a vending business.  Your monthly revenue, minus cost of goods sold for the month, minus expenses, fixed and variable, is your gross profit.  Period.  The guberment doesn't care otherwise.  You need receipts to substantiate your cost of goods sold and you don't have to worry about stales or expired products because they are already expensed in COGS.  At the end of the year you count your inventory in machines, trucks and warehouse and that is your ending inventory for the year for the COGS accounting on your taxes.

Vending Management Software will allow you, on the non-accounting side, to monitor your product sales by category or even product if you want to be that anal about it.  If you are doing this manually on route cards then that detail can kill you.  Your route card can show all the products in the machine and in which row, the par level, the adds, the stales and the ending level for each product. These numbers just allow you to manage the inventory levels by machine and tells you when you have a slow seller.  You should track meter readings for every machine to balance your cash to.  You need to keep track of your coin bank and how much of it is added to every machine so that you can accurately account for over/short on every collection.  This all just allows you to manage the vending side.  Then, at the end of the month, the final number gets plugged into QB as the income for the month.

In the 90s we used route cards that were great in that they allowed you to see at a glance how every product in a machine sold over the life of that route card.  We put route slips in every collection bag that recorded location name, product added by category, the stales by category, each category ending inventory level, the ending meter reading and the amount of change added to the coin mech from the coin bank bag (because that coin was not generated by sales.)  This was later input into our RouteSail software and was used in RouteSail to calculate everything mentioned above plus the commissions that we then owed on the collections.  RouteSail created the routes for each day which created the collection slips that went into the bags.  This is what your VMS can do for you.  But QB is still kept separate.

[Melissa]

This is the most thorough and helpful explanation I have ever received to this question, and I've asked so many people in so many different forums.  So I really appreciate your time in writing.  Would you be willing to email me your phone number so my husband might call you and pick your brain?  I think it would really help him solidify his thinking of he can talk to you.  My email is mbailey5492@gmail.com.  Thank you so much!  

Melissa Bailey