Many clients have inventory and struggle with how to manage the inventory effectively and easily.  Although QuickBooks does have inventory functionality in QuickBooks Pro/Premier and Enterprise, there are various add-on solutions that are also be helpful for your specific needs.  To determine the correct version and add-ons I’ve created the summary below. Retail businesses should also review the Point of Sale section. 

Quick Books Pro

Inventory functionality is very basic.

1.  Inventory features are designed for businesses that buys and sells the same items over and over again (ie Antique Shops buy and sell different items).
2. These businesses do not assemble items or repackage them and only have one location.

QuickBooks Premier

Inventory functionality of QuickBooks Pro and

1. Ability to assemble items (remove raw materials from inventory and replace with finished goods or repackage in smaller quantities.)
2. Create Sales Orders to manage partial shipments of goods and manage unfulfilled orders

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions

Inventory functionality of QuickBooks Premier and

1. Ability to use custom fields in transaction to configure orders
2. Ability to add-on Advanced Inventory (annual fee)
   1. Use Multiple Inventory Locations
   2. Track Lot and Serial Numbers
   3. Bar Code Tracking

QuickBooks Point of Sale (POS)

This is a separate program that integrates with the other QuickBooks programs mentioned but is designed to work in a retail environment and function as a cash register.   

1. Ability to run daily cash register reports.
2. Ability to track individual cashiers
3. Bar Code Tracking
4. Multi-Store ability
5. Styles view to see inventory availably by 2 designated features (i.e. size, color)