Editor's note: November was "Inventory and Manufacturing Month" at Insightful Accountant. In our first article, we promised some features that we didn't make good on due to holidays (short month) and the other topics we had to cover. But we'e still covering those features, starting with one of those significant inventory solutions for QuickBooks Online.
SOS Inventory is a complete inventory, order management and manufacturing solution featuring tight integration with QuickBooks Online. From the ground up, SOS was built for QuickBooks Online and was the first inventory software to connect to QBO.
In the last few years, it has undergone significant enhancements, implemented a modern-looking graphical interface, made substantial performance enhancements and improved manufacturing capabilities, including process manufacturing.
QBO Integration
SOS was built with QuickBooks Online in mind—it wasn't an afterthought. The developers didn't say, "Let's make an inventory program," and then months later say, "What if we could connect it to QuickBooks?" Instead, from Day 1, they built SOS with the idea that it would expand the capabilities of QBO to provide inventory and manufacturing functionality, while at the same time eliminating duplicate data entry.
SOS undertook the task of providing all the features and functions that QuickBooks either didn't do, or didn't do well enough, to meet the needs of inventory-centric or manufacturing businesses. So, they created a mechanism for sales orders, assemblies, serial/lot tracking, barcoding, and many other features. The integration results between SOS and QBO are shown in the illustration below:
But SOS also understood that different users would need to work differently, so they created a high degree of flexibility in their design. As a result, SOS offers users two different workflows to choose from. While most apps "take over" critical areas related to inventory when they are connected to QuickBooks Online, SOS is different.
One SOS workflow permits QBO users to continue processing most transactions usually within QBO. SOS then reads those transactions and automatically generates the related SOS records. The second and more common SOS workflow has day to day operations like sales, purchasing, shipping and manufacturing entered into SOS, which synchronizes them with QBO so that the financial data is always up to date.
Managing the Business Lifecycle
SOS covers the entire lifecycle of your inventory-based or light-manufacturing business. When you first sign in, the SOS Dashboard (shown below) acts as your "Home Page" from which you access the various inventory and manufacturing functions.
To accomplish this level of management, SOS was built around "lists," e.g., Items, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders and all the other vital components that provide the detailed data in SOS. One of the critical features of these lists is the ability to choose from all of the various information and display that data within columns whenever the list is displayed (as shown below).
Sales and Customers
SOS allows you to enter sales transactions primarily in SOS and sync them to QBO, which works best in many cases because QBO does not include sales orders. But you might want to enter a sale in QBO and sync that sale to SOS in other situations.
SOS supports this kind of flexibility where many other inventory apps do not. One possible sales workflow within SOS is shown in the illustration below. (Not all workflows illustrated are described in this article.)
Customers
Customers in SOS synchronize with QBO and visa-versa. Changes to the customer list in either program will synchronize to the other program. New customers can be added to SOS from the Customer List. If the Customer Name and Contact name are the same in SOS, the Contact name should be left blank; the same applies to the Company Name.
Suppose the Contact name or the Company name is different. In that case, each field should be completed correctly, including any designator for a Company Name such as "DBA" before a company name, or "Inc.," "LLC" after a company name. Otherwise, the information you capture for a customer is pretty straightforward.
Sales Orders
Sales orders are an order from a customer to buy products or services at a specified price, but they are non-posting transactions that do not impact your financials until they are converted into invoices or shipments. QuickBooks Online does not include a sales order feature.
Even though you can make sales (using other transaction types) in QBO and sync them back to SOS, it is preferable to use SOS for your order management needs. For example, you can create sales orders and make full or partial shipments as needed. Alternatively, you can create full or partial invoices from the sales orders, and those invoices will synchronize with QuickBooks Online.
Invoices
Invoices in SOS are almost identical to those found in QuickBooks Online. You can enter an invoice in SOS, which will synchronize to QBO and vice-versa. Since you can create an invoice in SOS from a partial or fully fulfilled Sales order, it only makes sense to make the invoice in SOS and let SOS generate the invoice in QBO upon the next synchronization.
Payments
SOS offers online credit card and ACH payment processing. Still, most QuickBooks Online users typically accept payments for their invoices within QBO, even though those invoices were initially created in SOS.
Purchasing and Vendors
You cannot manage inventory if you do not have any to manage. You must buy it first or buy the raw materials you use to make it. SOS includes robust purchasing and receiving functions to support the inventory management capabilities of the app. The purchasing and receiving workflow for SOS is shown in the diagram below. (Not all workflows illustrated are described in this article.)
Vendors
Vendors in SOS synchronize with QBO vendors, and changes made to either vendor list will update with the vendor list in the other system. As with Customers in SOS, if the Vendor Name is the same as the Contact name, leave the contact name field blank. The same applies to the Vendor's Company Name. But if the Contact name or Company name differs from the Vendor Name, the correct information should be entered in the appropriate fields.
Vendor Item Catalog
SOS allows you to track multiple vendors per item using an "item catalog" that captures the cost, vendor part number and estimated lead time for each thing a vendor can supply. So when you create a purchase order, you can easily research each item by vendor to determine your best option based on cost or lead time product availability. Once selected, SOS will automatically add that vendor's part number and the related cost to the purchase order.
Purchase Orders & Receiving
Purchase Orders are used to request that a vendor provide goods or services. They usually also contain the terms, including payment terms, delivery, credit due date, etc. Some SOS versions have an option to require approval of all P.O.s before they can be emailed.
Items are received into inventory by creating an item receipt similar to a purchase order. The critical difference is that an item receipt puts items into stock.
The SOS landed cost feature allows you to include costs other than the raw cost of the item. For example, you might wish to include shipping charges, customs charges, duties, and so on.
Inventory Management
While QuickBooks allows you to create and track products and services, SOS significantly expands the type and functionality of inventory management. SOS makes converting raw materials into finished goods and tracking work-in-progress easy. You can set customer-unique pricing and vendor-specific costs, add custom fields to track specific data you need, and much more.
With SOS, you can track serial numbers and lots/batches and sync them to QuickBooks Online. You also can follow the history of each item, which allows you to see your specific profit and loss for any particular item.
Items
Items drive everything in SOS that is inventory-related. You can set up an item for almost anything, not just inventory. But if you want to track something as inventory, it must be set up as an item. In additin, you can set up non-inventory products, services, raw materials, expenses such as labor, overhead costs, and many others.
Besides giving each item names, there are various ways to identify your items, and SOS tracks them all. For example, you can track things by category, serial numbers, lot numbers, barcodes, SKU, picture, descriptions, vendor part number, customer part number, default location, bin and tags.
In addition, you can assign a wide range of "attributes" to each item, including size, weight and volume. Finally, each item also will have all related accounting categories/accounts and other information (like sales tax status, etc.) associated with it, and the cost and sales price.
Price
SOS allows you to have different pricing structures for other customers and quantity-based pricing. For example, you might have both wholesale and retail pricing. You also might have "special" pricing for specific customers who would typically be subject to retail pricing, or you might want to offer "sale pricing" at certain times of the year. The option to use price tiers (levels) or override a price option can be made at the time of any sales transaction.
Location
SOS fully supports multiple locations, allowing you to see how much inventory is in each of your facilities, and purchase and receive materials at each location. You also can expedite customer deliveries by controlling shipments since you now will be able to fulfill orders by shipping from one or more locations. In addition, you will conveniently transfer raw materials and finished goods between sites, allowing you to manage your business more effectively.
Serial or Lot Tracking
Serialized inventory enables you to track individual units of an item rather than quantities only. For example, you can track when each unit was received, sold, built and shipped.
Lot tracking is used to track a specific item's batches or groups. Lots work similarly to serialized inventory, except a lot represents a group of things instead of an individual unit. A lot number is assigned to each batch of items. The number stays with the batch as it goes through the system. You can track when each batch was received, sold, built and shipped.
In addition, you can set an expiration date for lots, and track when lot items expire and should no longer be available for sale.
Manufacturing and Production
And speaking of raw materials and finished goods, one of the reasons you look for an inventory or manufacturing plug-in app for QuickBooks is the ability to handle complex items like Assemblies. In SOS, an assembly is the output associated with turning raw materials into one or more finished goods, based on a bill of materials (BOM).
You can create a bill of materials (BOM) that specifies the components of the assembly, and then process transactions that build a specific number of the assemblies as of a certain date. SOS also supports process manufacturing based upon a recipe or formula.
Assemblies & Work Order Tracking
While you must "build" each Assembly item in SOS, just posting a build-in does not get the assembly manufactured. That is where SOS Work Orders come into play. In SOS, a work order is an order to manufacture a given number of items. SOS work orders can specify detailed instructions about manufacturing each assembly item.
This enables you to send the work order to your foreman, plant or factory to build the assembly and fulfill the work order. You can even organize your manufacturing into stages around "work centers," and then track the various states of each Work Order as the work progresses to the point it is finished. Typically, you see this level of sophistication only with far more "expensive" manufacturing/ERP systems.
Logistics and Reporting
SOS Inventory provides a variety of logistical support features as well as reporting capabilities.
Shipping Support
SOS also allows you integrate picking, packing and shipping with QuickBooks Online. You will create pick tickets and packing slips directly from your sales orders, QBO Invoices or Sales Receipts. In addition, SOS provides both UPS and ShipStation integration functionality at no additional cost to users.
The current UPS integration supports only US shipping services. Once you have your UPS account, the integration provides an easy way to ship your products and confirm the shipping charges once you have provided UPS with the necessary information.
In addition, it is possible to configure a printer to print UPS shipping labels. SOS also will connect to the ShipStation app to provide a way to ship your products using many different shipping vendors. Once a shipment is processed via the integrated ShipStation app, the selected carrier's shipping label is created, and the information is sent back to SOS for notification and tracking purposes. Appropriate shipping methods must be created in SOS to match those used in ShipStation.
eCommerce and EDI Integration
SOS allows for the import of sales orders and sales receipts from Shopify directly into SOS Inventory. SOS Inventory also will update Shopify with available inventory quantities. To accomplish these tasks, item definitions must be properly conformed; the SKUs or names must be defined correctly for "all" items to match between SOS and Shopify.
SOS allows importing sales orders and sales receipts from BigCommerce directly into SOS Inventory. In addition, SOS Inventory will update BigCommerce with available inventory quantities. To accomplish these tasks, item definitions must be properly conformed; the SKUs or names must be defined correctly for "all" items to match between SOS and Shopify.
SOS Inventory also will help integrate PayPal with QuickBooks Online. When payments are received via PayPal (for example, via an eBay auction), the accounting transactions are automatically sent to QuickBooks Online without manually entering transactions. Therefore, when using SOS for inventory management, it is necessary to configure PayPal transactions to send the SOS inventory item numbers so they can automatically update SOS inventory counts.
SOS Inventory also offers connections to EDI (Enhanced Data Interchange) integration with companies that provide the ability to send transactions in a secure common environment. EDI connections are enabled on an individual basis to connect your account to an EDI trading Partner.
SOS Inventory iOS App
The SOS Inventory iOS App is intended to serve as a companion to the web version of SOS Inventory. Once downloaded from the Apple App Store to an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad with the appropriate iOS version, SOS Inventory users can log in with the same credentials they use to log in to the web version of SOS.
The App allows users to work with their inventory items in several ways, including:
- Check stock (on hand and available for sale quantities)
- Check pricing (including customer-specific, price tiers, quantity pricing, etc.)
- Bin location
- Physical inventory (conduct a physical inventory count)
- Sales transaction (create a new sales transaction)
- Barcode comparison (compares data associated with two barcodes)
- Find menu allows you to access smart searches, find assigned information and open transactions using QR Codes scanned from the device camera
- The Lists menu is similar to the web app's Operations menu—most of the same lists can be reviewed, filtered, edited, supplemented and transmitted in the typical fashion.
- A Tools menu provides features related to how the app acts and interacts with SOS Inventory—for example, switching SOS Inventory companies when more than one account exists.
Reporting
You will easily track the results of your manufacturing orders and the value of your inventory stock values for both raw materials and materials committed to working in progress using the many reports that SOS has pre-configured for users. And, if you ever need a report not already in SOS, it is easy to export your data into Excel for custom reporting purposes.
SOS gives QuickBooks Online inventory and manufacturing capabilities it does not have otherwise. For example, suppose you need to expand QuickBooks Online to provide inventory and manufacturing functionality. In that case, you do not need to look any further than SOS Inventory, the first APP built to provide QBO with Inventory functionality. Just head over to the SOS landing page at the Intuit QuickBooks Apps Center or check out the SOS Inventory homepage to sign up for a Demo or a Risk-Free Trial.
Acknowledgments and Disclosures:
Graphics and content used within this feature were derived and/or adapted by the author in part from SOS Inventory source materials, including SOS Inventory Website Resources including: the SOS Inventory (Online) Support User Guide, SOS Inventory Video Material(s), SOS Inventory iOS Quick Start Guide, the SOS Inventory Website content, and SOS Inventory 'Free Trial' related content. Adapted source materials published within this feature by Insightful Accountant are for educational and product promotional purposes only.
SOS Inventory, as used herein, refers to one or more registered trademarks of SOS Inventory Software, LLC, privately-held by Saddle Oak Software, headquartered in Arlington, Texas.
QuickBooks, and QuickBooks Online, as used herein, refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit, Inc., a publicly-traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Various other trade names used herein refer specifically to registered trademark products held by their respective owners. And are used for informational and educational purposes only.