tschaj said:

But when I create an "item" under the linked accounts, there is no proper choice for the Debit Account, as I can only choose from the range of assets.

Create a 'Service Item' instead.  You will be able to select a most expense accounts.  (except for some 'linked' accounts)

If you frequently buy the same things, and want to keep track, it's probably easiest to use 'service items'.

If you just need to know dollar amounts, you can just put in as little or much description as you want, put in the dollar amount and account, and post.

Thanks Randy, I'll give it a shot and go with service items. Then I would be able to track items, or at least cover similar stuff under one item like phone bill and cell phone bill or toner and paper under printer supply.

However, I wasn't aware that service items are actually intended to be used for these expenses.

tschaj

I am not 100% sure the designers intended for people to use service items for this purpose. Typically consumables are not tracked that carefully. However, that doesn't mean we can't use the tools at our hands to do something different than then designers intended, if it works.

Inventory items is definitely the wrong choice because you do not sell the items you indicated (at least I am assuming you use them for your business). Service items expenses are intended to associate costs when you farm out jobs or part jobs to contractors to be associated with the services you sell so you can get a quick idea of the net profit. It's not the same as net profit from inventory on a sale by sale basis but it's a loose interpretation of the same thing for a time period.

You will find as you get more involved with the program, that it is a very flexible tool and you can do the same thing more than one way, though there is usually a better way for most circumstances and alternatives.

Richard S. Ridings said:

Service items expenses are intended to associate costs when you farm out jobs or part jobs to contractors to be associated with the services you sell so you can get a quick idea of the net profit.

I had the idea of using 'Service Items' for consumables some years ago, after noticing that QuickBooks' 'inventory' and 'non-inventory' items were about the same as Sage 50 'Inventory' and 'Service' items.   For actual services that we buy and sell, we use 'Activities' that can be entered on time sheets (Premium? and Quantum only).

Before setting up 'service items', there were 'safety supplies', 'shop supplies', 'shop materials', 'lubricants', etc. Abandoned G/L accounts from previous attempts to get a handle on costs littered the trial balance.  A query showed that gloves had been recorded to 11 different G/L accounts, and in the process someone would have typed a description about 1700 times.  

After setting up consumable supplies as 'Service Items' for operations, data entry is faster and consistent, and the purchaser can report on who gave the best deal on wire wheels.  And for those customers that won't pay estimated consumables, it's easy to bill them for the actual 2 tubes of silicone, 37 buffer pads, six cans of primer, etc. used.  And I never have to rummage for costs, and only had to spell 'Hydraulic' correctly once.

Accounting and reporting is better, because of a simplified G/L with consistent entries.  There's one expense and one revenue account for consumables  - even I can tell whether the consumables rate is reasonable. 

Richard S. Ridings said:

You will find as you get more involved with the program, that it is a very flexible tool and you can do the same thing more than one way, though there is usually a better way for most circumstances and alternatives.

Sage 50 of course requires entering a bare minimum of detail to get the required output.  Balancing the effort to add detail now against probable future 'required output' is the trick. 

The flexibility of Sage 50 will let you make incremental additions and improvements to your system as time goes on.  It's impossible to predict at startup whether you will someday have a dozen people entering data regarding 7 sets of inventory G/L accounts for 20,000 items at 4 warehouses, 2 departments, for hundreds of customers at 6 price levels, and 2,000 Projects. 

So don't add too much complication at the start, each complication should "pay its own way", and the right way is the easiest way that gets the correct result.  

Be careful that you don't get too ambitions about making the system overly complicated at the start and over-extending yourself.  Systems implementation failures of any size are more likely to fail if they go beyond a 'minimum working system.   Always get the basic 'life support' functions of billing & collection, payroll, purchasing & payment,and tax reporting covered first!

I agree with Randy. Data entry ease, consistency and accuracy are important. Some people use a combination of service items with recurring entries, some just one or the other. As Randy said, the trick is balancing what you might need in the future lookups and reporting with the time it takes to do the data entry.