This topic provides miscellaneous details about entering quantities in QuickBooks transactions, as related to the special ManagePLUS features for quantity entry support.

Quantity Tips

Tip:  Reducing unit-of-measure confusion

In your transactions, all quantities for an account need to be entered in one unit of measure—the same unit  of measure you have associated with the account, in the Chart of Accounts window. Quantity totals cannot be correct if some transactions are recorded in tons and some in pounds, for instance.

For things you always buy or sell in the same unit of measure, like fuel, this is easy. But what about things you might buy or sell in a couple different units of measure? Often the solution is to add subaccounts to your chart of accounts, for each unit of measure you may use.

Example:  Chemical X, bought in pounds and gallons

Suppose you use a product called Chemical X in your production process, and that you have an account set up for purchases of it, in your chart of accounts.

Chemical X is available in two different formulations, dry and liquid, and at different times you purchase either one depending on price, availability, and convenience. Since the unit of measure is different for the two formulations, the best way to represent quantities of Chemical X in your transactions is to set up two subaccounts, one for each formulation, like this:

Chemical X
Chemical X – dry flowable (lbs.)
Chemical X – liquid (gal.)

Set up this way, you’ll use the appropriate subaccount when entering purchases of either formulation, and you’ll be able to assign a different unit of measure to each subaccount in the ManagePLUS Chart of Accounts window. Your ManagePLUS reports will correctly show the average price paid for each formulation; in dollars per pound and dollars per gallon, respectively.

This technique often applies when using items. You might set up two QuickBooks Items for recording purchases of each formulation. If both Items referred to a single Chemical X account they could be used to correctly record dollars of expense for Chemical X, but quantity totals would be a combination of “pounds and gallons”—useless information! The solution is to set up subaccounts, as above, and have each Item refer to the appropriate subaccount.

Tip:  Understanding how ManagePLUS extracts quantities from transactions

Other topics tell how to fix quantity errors in transactions, and usually it’s easy to do. But beyond the basics, it may help to understand ManagePLUS’ “rules” for gathering quantity information from transactions.

When ManagePLUS refreshes transactions it will try to extract quantity information from the Memo or Description field of a transaction only if…

Rule 1 The account associated with the transaction has at least one unit of measure assigned to it,  in the Chart of Accounts window,
and…
Rule 2 The transaction’s Quantity field is empty,
or
The account has two units of measure associated with it,
and…
Rule 3 The first character in the Memo or Description field is a digit (0…9) or one of the supported mathematical symbols (+. -. etc.)

Comments:

Rule 1 This rule explains why quantity errors can suddenly appear in a group of transactions where none existed before. If you assign a unit of measure to an account which previously had none, transactions involving that account will be evaluated for quantity information the next time you refresh transactions. Since they haven’t been evaluated for quantities before, ManagePLUS may find errors in some of them.
Rule 2 The first part (before the “or”) is saying that when an account has just one a unit of measure associated with it, ManagePLUS will always try to use information from the transaction’s Quantity field first. Only if the Quantity field is empty will ManagePLUS try to extract quantity information from the Memo or Description field.
 
The second part (after the “or”) is saying that when an account has two units of measure associated with it, ManagePLUS will try to get the first quantity from the Quantity field and the second quantity from the Memo or Description field. But if the Quantity field is empty, ManagePLUS will try to get both quantities from the Memo or Description field.
Rule 3 This rule means that if the first character of the Memo or Description field is anything other than a digit or supported mathematical symbol, ManagePLUS will not try to get quantity information from it.

Tip:  If you can’t “see” quantities in reports…

If you question whether all of your quantity information is present, follow these steps to assure that it has gotten all the way from the originating transactions in QuickBooks, to your ManagePLUS reports:

1. Check that you’ve actually entered quantities in your transactions.
In most cases there’s nothing special to do—you just enter quantities in the Quantity column of your QuickBooks forms. Or, if you’re using any of the special quantity features supported by ManagePLUS, follow the steps provided in these topics: quantities in the Memo or Description field, entering two quantities in transactions, and quantities as mathematical formulas.
2. Add units of measure for the desired accounts in the Chart of Accounts window.
This “turns on” ManagePLUS’ quantity-handling features for those accounts.
ManagePLUS does not monitor changes you’ve made in QuickBooks. So if you edit or add transactions there but fail to refresh them in ManagePLUS, ManagePLUS will be working with a stale copy of your transactions.
4. Review transactions for errors.
An Errors button will be present in the Transactions window if ManagePLUS has found any quantity errors in transactions. If it’s present, use it to find and fix the transactions which have errors.
If you want to review information for just one account or class, etc., use the grid’s grouping features in the Transactions window to show only the transactions related to that account or class.
5. Prepare a report, being sure it includes columns for the quantity information you want to see in the report.
6. Verify whether the quantity information is correct.
Sometimes information is correct even though at first glance it doesn’t appear to be! Consider the accounting period on which the report is based, and any report filters in effect, which may prevent some transactions from being included.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

“What’s the difference between a Memo field and a Description field? Some QuickBooks forms have both, and I’m confused about where to put quantity information.”

Please see Memo or Description Field…Which is It?

“If I enter a quantity in the Memo field of a transaction but make a mistake, will ManagePLUS catch the error?”

ManagePLUS will alert you when what appears to be quantity information has been entered in a way it cannot figure out.

Suppose you type “83a4″ at the beginning of the Memo field. It begins with a digit so ManagePLUS will try to extract a quantity from it (if there is a unit of measure associated with the account used in the transaction). But “83a4″ also contains the letter “a”, which is neither a number nor a mathematical symbol. So when ManagePLUS refreshes transactions it will flag the transaction as having a quantity error, and the Errors button will appear in the Transactions window to help you find and fix the error.

“Can I enter a ‘negative’ quantity in the Memo or Description field?”

Yes, just use a minus sign ahead of the quantity entry.

“Can I type a number at the beginning of a Memo or Description field, but NOT have ManagePLUS treat it as a quantity?“

Yes:

· ManagePLUS will not try to extract quantity information from a transaction if the account involved has no unit of measure assigned to it. Accounts which represent no particular unit of measure, like Office Supplies, should not have a unit of measure assigned to them. For those accounts then, you can type anything in a transaction’s Memo/Description field with no complaint from ManagePLUS.
· If you type a blank space before any digits, ManagePLUS won’t try to extract a quantity from the field.

 Example:  ManagePLUS would normally try to extract a quantity from the Memo field text “2×4 lumber”, because it begins with a digit. But if changed to ”  2×4 lumber” (note the blank space ahead of “2×4″), the leading blank space would prevent ManagePLUS from interpreting “2×4″ as a quantity.

· Rearrange the text so digits don’t come first.

 Example:  If you enter “7530 JD oil & hydraulic filters” in a Memo/Description field, ManagePLUS will see “7530″ as a quantity. Changing the text to read “JD 7530 oil & hydraulic filters” would eliminate the problem.

· On a QuickBooks forms where you’re using items…
If you are entering a single quantity for an item, you will be entering it in the Quantity column. In that case it doesn’t matter what you type in the Memo or Description field—ManagePLUS won’t try to extract a quantity from it, because the transaction already has a quantity, in the Quantity column.
If you are entering two quantities for an item, the second one must go in the Memo or Description field. If you have a second quantity to enter there, then everything will work as expected. But if you don’t, and you want to type other digits at the beginning of the description, you’ll have to type a blank space ahead the description as described above, to prevent the digits from being interpreted as a quantity.

“I’ve switched to using two quantities for one of my accounts, and I’ve added the second quantity in that account’s transactions in QuickBooks. But ManagePLUS still only shows one quantity for that account on reports. What’s wrong?”

Have a look at the steps in Tip:  If you can’t “see” quantities in ManagePLUS…

Quantity tips, notes, and FAQ