Skip to content

G/L accounts for manual inventory transactions

Adapted from the Leahy Consulting white papers "How do I know what G/L accounts will be used when processing manual inventory transactions?", prepared for Macola® Progression (updated February 2004) and Macola® ES (updated April 2005).

Transfers, miscellaneous receipts and issues, and cost and quantity adjustments are keyed by hand, and every one of them posts to the general ledger. The processing rule is the same for all of them, and it is short.

The rule

  1. Macola® looks in the Material Cost Type/Location file for a record matching the item's material cost type and the transaction's location. The account to use depends on the type of transaction, so one record covers receipts, issues, adjustments and transfers.
  2. If no matching record exists, Macola® uses the corresponding accounts in I/M Setup.

If you carry more than one inventory account, you should be using the Material Cost Type/Location file. The setup screen alone cannot tell a raw material receipt from a finished goods receipt.

Which transactions this covers

Macola® ES and 10

Go to BOM_IM menu → Inventory Management menu → Enter Inventory Transactions.

  • Transfers
  • Miscellaneous receipts
  • Miscellaneous issues
  • Cost adjustments
  • Quantity adjustments
  • Bin adjustments
  • Serial/lot adjustments
  • LIFO/FIFO adjustments

The Material Cost Type/Location file is at System menu → Distribution menu → Material Cost Type/Loc. The fallback accounts are at System menu → Company menu → Package Settings → Distribution → Inventory Management setup → Default Accounts tab.

Material Cost Type/Location Maintenance in Macola® ES, showing the account fields and the variance accounts
Material Cost Type/Location Maintenance in Macola® ES. The Progression screen below carries the same fields under an older interface.

Macola® Progression

Go to Inventory Management → Trx → Transactions.

  • Transfers
  • Miscellaneous receipts
  • Miscellaneous issues
  • Cost adjustments
  • Quantity adjustments

The Material Cost Type/Location file is at I/M → Maintain → Material Cost Type/Loc. The fallback accounts are at I/M → Maintain → I/M setup.

Material Cost Type/Location Maintenance in Macola® Progression
The Progression version of the same screen. The account list and the processing rule are identical.

What posts where

Transaction Account debited Account credited
R=Receipt Inventory Asset Inventory Receipt
I=Issue Inventory Issue Inventory Asset
T=Transfer Inventory Asset of the TO location Inventory Asset of the FROM location, plus Transfer Cost for any cost difference
C=Cost Adjustment Inventory Asset on an increase, Cost Adjustment on a decrease Cost Adjustment on an increase, Inventory Asset on a decrease
Q=Quantity Adjustment Inventory Asset on a positive adjustment, Quantity Adjustment on a negative one Quantity Adjustment on a positive adjustment, Inventory Asset on a negative one

Physical and cycle counts post the same way as a quantity adjustment.

Manual transactions are usually a symptom

Manual inventory transactions are the most common cause of inventory getting out of step with the general ledger. If the other Macola® programs are being used properly, this screen should rarely be needed — on-hand corrections belong in the Physical Count and Cycle Count programs, and receiving and issuing belong in P/O and production. Fix errors where they happened instead. See Avoiding inventory integrity errors.

Transactions in other modules — order entry, purchase order and receiving, accounts payable, production order processing — follow different rules. They are covered in Posting customer invoices and P/O receiving, A/P vouchering and POP production reporting.

Support & contact

Our team is glad to help with anything from a quick question to a full implementation.