what happens in our QuickBooks records when we receive merchandise without receiving the bill
we can receive merchandise without the bill because very often the bill comes after we
receive the merchandise you still need some source document as proof that you physically receive the
merchandise you could make a special item receipts and some large companies actually have a stack of
item receipts or a pad of pre printed item receipts in the shipping warehouse and the
receiving Department so that when merchandise is received a specific item receipt is written
out for the driver of the delivery as well as the bookkeeper who receives proof that the item
is received you don't have to make a special item receipt you could use one of the shipping
documents as the item receipts you could use one of the documents that gets created in the normal
process of shipping merchandise you as you approve you could use one of the shipping documents
as your proof that you physically receive the merchandise examples of shipping documents or
bill of lading packing lists or any other shipping document where the receiver signs and the document
has a unique specific number that identifies that specific delivery of that specific merchandise and
identifies that as a transaction the day the items are received is really the day of the transaction
so it doesn't matter if you get the bill or you just make an item receipt at the moment
you physically receive merchandise inventory the asset goes up and because you physically receive
the merchandise your accounts payable records go up and of course the specific vendors balance from
the vendor whom you received that merchandise from will also go up as long as you physically receive
the merger dice these are the things that change regardless of whether you physically received the
bill yet or not let us imagine on May twenty-third we received 50 bananas from sams farm we made an
item receipt and the item receipt number was for 141 now remember this could be a real item receipt
or just a shipping document used as an item receipt as long as we have some unique document
with a unique number to prove this transaction from the main menu click vendors if you only
receive the items choose the menu choice that says only receive items do not choose anything that has
the word bill in it if you only receive the items put the date that we physically receive the items
because that's the date of the transaction choose the vendor in this case it's Sam's farm now do not
put in a reference number do not the reference number is the bill number when the bill will
follow later you should put the number that is on the shipping document the number that you're using
for the item receipt in the memo field number 41 41 and then you would indicate in the memo field
if it's a bill of lading or a packing list or any other shipping document and where it's filed again
the reference number for the item receipt should go in the memo field save the reference number
field until the bill is physically received click the items tab and put in the items we received
50 bananas so we choose bananas and we choose 50 and we push tab okay when we push tab QuickBooks
will calculate the amount of the bill 50 banana excuse me that's in description we want 50 as
the quantity haha don't do that so the bill is a thousand dollars this is an item receipt which is
a transaction for a thousand dollars when we click Save and close and open up the inventory report
we see that the check and the bill previously increased the quantity of the items and this
item receipt increase the quantity of bananas by 50 so that we now have 93 bananas but we have it
from an item receipt not a bill the item receipt is a transaction if you double click accounts
payable and go to the very bottom you will see the item receipt increases accounts payable the item
receipt also increases the inventory asset because it is a transaction and of course even though it's
not a bill the item receipt still shows up on the unpaid bill report because the item receipt
is still a transaction that has not yet been paid for on May 24 we received bill 1414 from
sams farm for the May twenty-third item receipt receiving only the bill is not a transaction the
bill only clarifies the transaction that actually happened when you got the item receipt therefore
you will enter the bill but you will not you will not change the date of the item receipt because
the date of the item receipt is the date of the transaction from the main menu click vendors this
menu choice enter bill for items received really means enter bill for items previously received
or previously received with no bill and we're entering the bill now this is the appropriate
choice to make if you already receive the items and today you're recording the bill for previously
received items now once you choose the vendor all of the previous item receipts that have not
gotten a bill yet will show up on this list select an item receipt in this case Sam only has one if
he had several we would click on the correct one and then we would click OK immediately all
the other information from the item receipt is put on the bill and the check mark here here is
indicated bill received do not change the date do not change the date because the date that you
physically receive the items is the date of the transaction simply put in the reference number
from the bill which is bill number I forgot what it was oh okay bill number 41 41 so bill number 41
41 and now when we click Save and close and click yes because we are changing a previous transaction
we're changing the previous item recede into a bill so we click yes now when we go back to
the inventory valuation detail the transaction on the twenty-third that's previously said item
receipt now says bill no other information has changed from what we put in when we put in the
item receipt the only difference is it says bill and the reference number I think I made
a mistake the reference number is supposed to be 14 14 because that's the reference number on the
bill not the reference number on the item receipt so the only thing that changed after you receive
the bill is the word item receipt became the word bill and the bills reference number showed up here