[GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?

[Adrien Monteleone]

There are plenty of apps out there of various sorts, many of course are 
open-source and free, as in beer, and not just as in speech. (usually 
'community editions' of paid-for apps, but some are just free, like GnuCash)

Some are quite complicated and maybe more than you want to chew on, such 
as Odoo. (the heard of elephants sized 
jack-of-all-business-management-things) Others are designed to be much 
simpler for small businesses or hobbyists like Inventree or PartKeeper.

An hour or so with thoughtful, well crafted, and refined web searches 
should turn up more, and maybe a few hours of reading can land you a 
candidate or two for installation and evaluation. Only *you* know what 
will work for you.

Of course, to not complicate your life, you'd want something that 
exports resulting 'book' transactions in CSV, or some other format 
GnuCash can import. (CSV is likely best though) That will avoid 
double-entry. You might even be able to automate or script moving info 
from your outside app to GnuCash.

Also, I see you're asking lots of 'accounting' questions. That's fine, 
as long as you understand, we can't give specific accounting advice 
here. The best we can do are general examples that *might* be right for 
you, and then how to implement them in GnuCash. Nothing we say here 
should ever be relied upon for anything serious or legal. (especially 
affecting tax-related transactions) Always seek the advice of a 
qualified accounting and/or legal professional in such cases. They 
aren't all as expensive as some guess them to be, and their price is 
usually well worth avoiding the headache and cleanup if you mess up your 
life without consulting them first.

There are plenty of good references on accounting. I'm sure you can find 
a decent used college text for introductory courses for cheap, maybe 
even for checkout at your local public or collegiate library, but there 
are now also plenty of websites dedicated to the general overview of the 
topic. One I have used frequently as a refresher for my ACCT101 days:

https://www.principlesofaccounting.com/

It is simple, well phrased, and to the point.

Specifically to this post, Chapter 5 deals with Merchant issues such as 
recording Sales and Inventory transactions.

Regards,
Adrien

p.s. - cool business! I'm just tackling gardening in earnest for myself 
this past year. I'm not sure I ever want to get to the point of selling 
anything, but I've seen advice to 'treat your garden like a business' 
for management purposes, especially if you use/need it as a primary food 
source such as in a homesteading approach. If I stumble upon anything 
geared specifically for that niche, I'll be sure to pass it on.

On 12/20/22 11:09 AM, Eric Chapman wrote:
> Thanks, John,
> 
> At this point, our needs for this are indeed simple. But I could see 
> them getting more complex in the future. I do understand cost accounting 
> and loved it when I studied it years ago.
> 
> I wonder if there are stand-alone inventory management programs/apps 
> that would work if our needs become more complex. If anyone knows of any 
> worth researching, please let me know.
> 
> The set of books I'm looking at this for is for a very small market 
> gardening (farming) operation which started in 2022. Only sold their own 
> produce in 2022. But later may branch out to sell stuff bought from 
> others, or – to complicate things more – may start producing prepared 
> products like jams, jellies, breads, even crafts and such for sale. Then 
> the cost accounting gets much more involved.
> 
> So I'm just researching and trying to look ahead to what may be needful 
> in the future.