QuickBooks POS: About Different Point of Sale Documents

About POS Documents

Note: References to tracking item quantities or costs in this topic do not apply to Point of Sale Free.

There are two general document types used in Point of Sale: transactional documents and order documents.

Transactional documents record changes to inventory and provide a permanent history of those changes. Transactional documents can never be deleted, and in most cases cannot be edited after being saved. For this reason, transactional documents, after being saved, are also referred to as history documents. History documents are used to run reports, to build customer, vendor and item histories, and if you use QuickBooks Desktop financial software are sent to update your financial records.

The transactional documents available in Point of Sale include:

• Sales and return receipts, which record item sales, returns, and exchanges, i.e., quantities removed from or returned to inventory. Upon saving, receipts are added to your sales history list.

• Receiving and return vouchers, which record item quantities added to or removed from inventory when received from or returned to your vendors. Vouchers also update item costs and may, in the case of items being received for the first time, also update item price(s) in inventory. Upon saving, vouchers are added to your receiving history list.

• Adjustment memos, which are used to record changes to item quantities or costs not covered by other transactional documents. Adjustment memos are automatically created by Point of Sale for certain activities, such as when you conduct a physical inventory or manually edit an item’s quantity or cost in inventory. Adjustment memos can also be manually created to correct errors or update inventory for shrinkage, donations, or the removal of damaged merchandise. Upon saving, adjustment memos are added to your adjustment history lists (separate lists for quantity and cost memos).

• Transfer slips (Pro), which record the movement of item quantities between stores. Transfer slips have no affect on your company inventory value, but are used to maintain an accurate count of item quantities at each store, as well as recording freight charges related to the transfer. Upon saving, transfer slips are added to your transfer history list.

Order documents are used to plan the purchase or sale of merchandise or services. The information recorded on an order document, such as items, costs, prices, deposits, fees, and terms can be easily transferred to a transactional document when the merchandise is actually received or sold. Once recorded on a transactional document, the order document can be safely deleted.

The order documents available in Point of Sale include:

• Purchase orders (Basic), which are used to record the planned purchase of merchandise from a vendor. A purchase order indicates to your vendor that you wish to purchase a specified quantity of an item or items at a specified cost. When the ordered merchandise is received, it is recorded on a receiving voucher, which updates inventory accordingly.

• Customer orders (Pro), including layaways, sales orders, and work orders, which are used to record the planned sale of merchandise or services to customers. Customer orders typically involve taking a deposit when the order is placed, optional additional deposits over a period of time, and ultimately final payment when the merchandise or service is recorded on a sales receipt. Items listed on customer orders are deducted from inventory only after you record them on a sales receipt to fulfill the order.

Originally published at BlackRock.