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Professional services

Inventory for an accounting practice: the little you hold, and what to ignore

A practice sells time, not goods, so most firms never open the stock screens. The exception is anything you buy and resell to clients, and that is worth tracking properly.

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In short

SimpleERP lets a accounting firm or consulting practice skip inventory entirely, or track only what it resells, such as hardware security keys, at weighted average cost, while stationery goes to expenses and laptops to the asset register.

Illustration of stock on hand by warehouse at average cost, with a low-stock row highlighted and a movement ledger.

An inventory day at Whitlam and Ng Accountants

The only shelf that matters at the practice is the one behind the front desk with a box of hardware security keys. New company directors need one to sign in to the government business portal, so the practice buys keys from a dealer in the city and bills each one to the client with the setup fee.

Last June the box was empty on the day three incorporations needed setting up, and a graduate trainee spent the afternoon in a taxi fetching more. Nobody knew whether the eight keys bought in January had all been billed or whether two went out free to a long-standing client.

Everything else the office buys, from printer toner to A4 reams, is spent the week it arrives and never needs counting. SimpleERP lets the practice track the keys as stock and leave the rest as plain expenses.

What should a practice track as stock, and what can it ignore?

The test is simple: if you bill it to a client as a separate line, track it. If it is used up running the office, expense it. If it lasts years, register it as an asset.

  • Services carry no stock, so a fee invoice never touches inventory.
  • Expense categories such as stationery and repairs, ten seeded for you.
ItemWhere it goesWhy
hardware security keys resold to clientsProduct with stockBilled on invoices, so stock and margin matter
Printed annual report copies billed per setProduct with stockOnly if you charge for them per copy
Printer toner, paper, files and foldersExpense with a categoryUsed up in the office, never resold
Laptops and the office serverFixed assetLasts years and depreciates monthly
Audit, tax return and company filing workService, no stockTime, billed as a service line
Client documents and working papersNot in SimpleERPKeep them in your document system
Where each thing a accounting practice buys belongs in SimpleERP.

How do we keep the hardware security key box from running empty?

Set a reorder level of five on the token product. When a supplier bill brings ten tokens in, stock rises; each invoice that bills a token to a client takes one out at average cost. Once the count drops below five, the token shows in the needs-attention list on the dashboard.

  • Low-stock list built from the reorder level you set.
  • Movement ledger that names the invoice each token left on.
  • Stock adjustment with a reason for a token given free or found faulty.

Illustration of stock on hand by warehouse at average cost, with a low-stock row highlighted and a movement ledger.

Stock on hand with the reorder level for each product.

Can a practice switch the stock screens off?

They never switch on for you in the first place. With one office and no products, SimpleERP shows no warehouses and no stock menus in the day-to-day screens. A partner who only bills engagement fees, pays salaries and reviews the bookkeeping retainers will not meet a stock screen at all.

  • One location means no warehouse to choose on any document.
  • Add a product later and stock appears only for that item.

One system

What it connects to

Honest limits

What SimpleERP does not do yet

  • No batch, lot, serial or expiry tracking, and no barcode scanning
  • Weighted average cost only; there is no FIFO
  • No automatic reorder suggestions: the reorder level shows what is low, you decide what to buy
  • No register of client documents or working papers taken in and returned

Getting started

Start with inventory

  1. Sign up with your email

    Name, email and a password. No card for the seven-day trial.

  2. Tell us about the business

    Pick your country and, if you are registered, type your tax number. Accounts, tax rates, units, roles and numbering are seeded for that country.

  3. Add products and opening stock

    Add hardware security keys or anything else you resell as a product with its tax rate, and enter the keys on the shelf today as opening stock.

  4. Post a bill and an invoice

    Stock rises on the purchase bill and falls on the invoice, at weighted average cost, with nothing to count by hand.

FAQ

Questions, answered

We are a twelve-person practice with no goods. Do we pay for inventory we never use?

Pricing does not change with the modules you use. A practice that only bills fees, pays its team and keeps its own books simply never adds a product, and inventory stays out of the way.

Should stationery be stock or an expense?

An expense. Record the stationery shop's bill with a receipt photo under a stationery category, with the tax you can reclaim shown separately. Counting reams of paper adds work and tells a partner nothing useful about the practice.

How do we record a token we gave a client for free?

Post a stock adjustment that takes one token out with a reason such as complimentary for an existing client. Its cost goes to the ledger, so the free token shows up as a cost rather than disappearing.

Where do the partners' laptops go?

Into the fixed asset register, with the partner or graduate trainee who holds each one. Depreciation posts every month, and the register shows which laptop to collect when someone completes their articleship.

Related

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