[GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?

Eric Chapman ecnews at etchapman.com
Tue Dec 20 09:55:12 EST 2022


I am wondering how, in GnuCash, to account for assets bought to resell 
or other assets that will later be expensed as used.

I'm in the USA context. As far as terminology goes, I think UK and other 
English speaking locales use the word "stock" to refer to inventory, 
but, in my experience, that is not common in the USA (indeed, the first 
definition of "stock" from Apple Dictionary: "the goods or merchandise 
kept on the premises of a business or warehouse and available for sale 
or distribution"; that is basically the definition of "inventory" at the 
bottom of the wiki article referred to below). I will try to use the 
word "inventory" so I do not confuse the term I'm talking about with the 
one meaning ownership securities of a company ("He owns 100 shares of 
XYZ Company stock.").

I found something relevant in the wiki: 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Inventory_Handling. Best I can tell, 
GnuCash does not have any dedicated way to handle inventory flows: 
purchases, sales, revaluations for market fluctuations, identification 
of lots/batches).

If I want to deal with inventory now in GnuCash v. 4.13, any best 
practices? I'm not talking about massive amounts of items or quantities.

Thank you!
Eric




More information about the gnucash-user mailing list