Inventory/Materials Tracking

This type of inventory in your warehouse involves consumables. Chronicle can tracks these consumables used on jobs and their associated costs. Once you enter these items into Chronicle you can identify which inventory/materials were used on a job and the costs. These costs can then be reflected in individual job costing and in the financial reports in the job manager.

There are two ways to find th screen that allows you to enter these items into the database:

1. Upper left hand corner of screen> the red globe is your Tools List> click Inventory/Materials in the list> (edit tools if you need to add it to the list).
2. Equipment tab> Click the “View/Change” inventory button in the tool bar.

Seeing Inventory in Stock

The INVENTORYADD security context controls whether someone can get to this screen; that security level defaults to 5 but you can change it in the Security settings in the Main System Setup.

To Add New Items to the List: Click Add New Item above the list.

Description: Enter a name or description for the item that will clearly identify it in the list.

Unit Type: This lists a few standard unit types (box, gallon, item, etc.) along with any unit types you have previously entered. You can either pick a unit type from the list or you can just type a new one into this entry.

Quantity: Enter the number of items you have in stock.

Cost Per Item/Total Cost: You can enter either a unit cost or a total cost; we'll calculate the other value from whatever you enter. The cost that you enter here will be reflected in job costs for any job that you use the corresponding items on.

Allow Fractional Uses: Check this to let people use partial items; leave this unchecked if you only want people to be able to check out whole items.

The Audit Log tracks who has added or changed items in this list.

Seeing Where Inventory has been Used

In the inventory screen shown, click the Use Report (second tab) to see in one place what's been used across all jobs. (The job file shows what's been used on each individual job.)

You can sort by any column heading by clicking that heading.

Checking Inventory Out to a Job/Reviewing Inventory Used on a Job

In the job file, at the top of the Equipment/Inventory tab, you can see what's been used on the current job and lets you check out inventory to the job or return items that you checked out to the job but are returning to the stock. (The new INVENTORYUSE and INVENTORYRETURN security contexts control whether someone can check out or return inventory; that security level defaults to 2 but you can change it in the Security settings in the Main System Setup.)

Inventory Costs Reflected in Job Costs

In the Accounting/Job Cost screen for the job, inventory costs are now reflected at the bottom of the costs column. In addition, the inventory tab at the bottom of the screen shows the detail that contributed to the cost shown. (Cost is determined by the number of items used on the job multiplied by the unit cost that you entered when you added the inventory item.

 Financial Reports Concerning Inventory Costs

Inventory Cost is now also a column that you can add to the Financial report in the Job Manager. (Inventory costs are reflected in the Total Costs regardless of whether you show the Inventory Cost column.)

The field Labor % Excluding Expenses in the Job Manager subtracts sub/materials and also inventory costs from the total revenue and then calculates what percentage labor was of the remaining amount.

The Job Manager lets you show/hide these columns.