The new norm is the no inventory amount. With online vendors abounding in the many marketplaces on the net, there exists the physical and mathematical situation of having zero inventory but actually selling goods. “I don’t have what you just ordered, but I just sold you 27 of them.” What a country!
Welcome to the world of negative inventory. That’s right, as in negative numbers, as in below the number Zero on the number line; as in a negative sign in front of a number.
How does your accounting software handle that negative inventory? Does it completely reject that negative number and thus the order? If it does, you have a problem because that’s the result of entering a sales order for inventory you don’t possess.
Plus & Minus handles negative inventory because we know it’s a fact of life. What if you are totally out of a product according to the book’s balance? But you don’t stock it. You just sell the goods and then tell your supplier to drop ship them to your customer. Sort of like Amazon; you’re just an intermediary.
In some cases, you actually own and ship the inventory and, as of now, your software shows you have Zero inventory. But you just got the delivery in and it’s sitting on your receiving dock just waiting to be entered into your software. But who has the time for entering the delivery when customers are on the phone or online ordering products? Do you want to tell the customers to please be patient as you break out the gel pen and start writing the customer info by hand so you can input it when the computer says you can? No way! You enter it and ship it. And when you get the chance, you enter the delivery, which brings the inventory level automatically.
The real world is so unlike a programmer’s world.
Bottom line: don’t buy accounting software that doesn’t allow negative inventory!
