How To: Use Miscellaneous Stock Items

There are three occasions when you may wish to use miscellaneous stock items:

  1. During the customer returns process, where you wish to reimburse your customer for something that didn't appear as a stock item on their original sales order (e.g. where you are refunding a delivery charge).
  2. During the sales process, where you sell-on a 'one-off' non-stock item (e.g. spare part or consumable item).
  3. During the purchasing process, where you wish to purchase a non-stock item as a 'one-off' and therefore don't want the hassle of creating and maintaining a stock item for it.

Note: If you wish to link stock items on a Sales Order to a specific Purchase Order (e.g. as occurs in a drop-ship scenario with back-to-back Sales and Purchase Orders) and analyse cost of sales using the difference between sales and purchase prices for the specific item, you must create it as a stock item in its own right.

Customer Returns

The stock item "SYS_MISC" has a special meaning within Khaos Control, where it should be used only as a miscellaneous item for credit. In certain circumstances (e.g. VAT rounding error of 1p), the system will automatically add a "SYS_MISC" item.[1]

Sales Orders

Where you wish to add miscellaneous items to Sales Orders, we recommend creating one or more stock items for this specific purpose (e.g. "SYS_MISCS").[2]

Typically you may wish to add a new stock item called something like "SYS_MISCS" with a default description like "Miscellaneous sold item (use on SO only)" and the 'free text descriptions' option set, see Creating miscellaneous stock items below.

The stock value associated with "SYS_MISCS" must be set and maintained at zero. It is important that you only sell this "SYS_MISCS" item and never purchase it. Should you sell items at different VAT rates, you may wish to create a separate stock item for each VAT rate used (e.g. SYS_MISCS_EX, SYS_MISCS_RED, SYS_MISCS_STD and SYS_MISCS_Z).

Purchase Ordering

Where you wish to add miscellaneous items to Purchase Orders, we recommend creating one (or more) stock items for this specific purpose. Typically you may wish to add a new stock item called something like "SYS_MISCP" with a default description like "Miscellaneous purchased item (use on PO only)" and the 'free text descriptions' option set, see Creating miscellaneous stock items below.

The stock value associated with "SYS_MISCP" will likely vary as goods are received and purchase invoices posted, but this will not matter because you will only ever purchase this miscellaneous item: you will never sell it.

Why do we use separate codes?

The main point, however, is that the same MISC code should NOT be used for purchases and sales, because the Cost Of Sale (which is calculated by subtracting the stock value from the Net sell price) is impossible to control.

Creating miscellaneous stock items

To create "SYS_MISC", "SYS_MISCS" (Optional) and "SYS_MISCP" (Optional) stock items follow How To: Create a New Stock Item with the following attributes:

Stock Code SYS_MISC[1] SYS_MISCS SYS_MISCP
Suggested Description Miscellaneous stock item for credit Miscellaneous sold item
(use onSales Orders only)		 Miscellaneous purchased item
(use on Purchase Orders only)
Suggested Stock Type: System and Miscellaneous System and Miscellaneous System and Miscellaneous
Buy Price / Sell Price / Stock Value: 0.00 (zero) 0.00 (zero) 0.00 (zero)
Stock controlled? NO NO NO
All stock options unticked except:
Free Text Descriptions green tick green tick green tick
Automatic Quality Check green tick green tick green tick
Discounts Disabled green tick green tick green tick
Hide Item on Price Lists green tick green tick green tick
Non-physical item[3] green tick red cross green tick
COS Excluded item green tick green tick green tick
Exclude delivery labels green tick red cross green tick
Nominal Code Setup:
PNominal: Miscellaneous Purchases[4] Miscellaneous Purchases[4] Miscellaneous Purchases[4]

Notes

  1. ? 1.0 1.1 If "SYS_MISC" does not already exist as a stock item in its own right, it will be created automatically without operator intervention.
  2. ? Because of the way they analyse sales, some businesses prefer to create separate miscellaneous purchased items for each of their stock types.
  3. ? Ticking the "Non-physical Item" stock option means the stock item is considered non-pickable and non-packable. Therefore it will not be printed on the Picking Ticket report (it is printed on Sales Invoices).
  4. ? 4.0 4.1 4.2 By default, the system nominal 'Miscellaneous Purchases' uses the nominal code '0136' (which has a system type of 'Purchase' and an account type of 'Stock Item'. As with all system nominals, the specific account code and the short description can be changed to match your Chart of Accounts, providing the nominal code account retains its original meaning.

See Also


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