Inventory workaround -- war stories please

[Hedley Finger]

Although retired, I am working as casual contractor for two clients.
Because the government is paying me a pension, they require a profit and
loss report every three months.

My business keeps a small amount of inventory which can be tracked on a
spreadsheet used as a database for SKUs.  GnuCash is used to track the
financials of purchases and sales of inventory, including the GST (Goods
and Services Tax -- similar to VAT in UK and GST in Canada).

Is anyone -- especially fellow Australians -- out there in a similar
position?  Do you used perpetual or periodic inventory?

If using perpetual method, how do you use splits on an Invoice to reduce
Assets:Inventory on Hand and increase Expenses:COGS [cost of goods sold]?
 Can you use negative amounts to reduce an account and positive amounts to
increase another account?  Or do you have to use a GL journal entry to  do
this transaction?

Account registers seem to be just used for viewing the history of an
account.  Or if you can do transactions in them, how would purchase,
invoicing, and sale of goods be done, and which account registers do you
use?

If it is not obvious by now, I am new to GnuCash, so struggle with the lack
of specialised transactions windows such as found in Quickbooks, MYOB
AccountEdge, and so on.  (Even though I was a technical writer producing
user documentation at MYOB for various bookkeeping and accounting programs!)

If some guru out there has been in inventory land before, I am sure many
others beside me would like to read the step-by-step answers, especially if
some screenshots can be placed on one of those FTP sites.

Regards,
Hedley

P.S. Can Invoices be used as credit notes if negative quantities are typed
into them?  I would experiment but am terrified of getting into some fix
that can't be undone easily by this newbie.

-- 

Hedley Finger

28 Regent Street   Camberwell VIC 3124   Australia
Tel: +61 3 9809 1229   Fax: (call phone first)
Mobile (cell): +61 412 461 558   Skype: hedley.finger
Email. "Hedley Finger" <hedley.finger at gmail.com>