Inventory element in Castaway

Inventory is a special type of element in Castaway designed to record cost of goods sold, inventory purchases, the opening & closing inventory balance and associated cash flow terms.

The inventory element can be found and added in the Profit & Loss section of the chart of accounts under Direct Costs, Overheads, Other Expense and Non Operating Expense sections.

It is represented by the I icon.

Whenever an inventory element is set up in the chart of accounts it will create a Current Asset inventory element in the balance sheet and a line in the opening actuals Balance Sheet (Forecast >opening & actuals) for you to record your opening/actual inventory balance.

There are many ways to record, calculate and link the COGS and purchases of inventory so make sure you review the available methods in the dropdowns (the COGS Method and Purchases Method under the properties of the inventory element in particular)

Calculating Opening and Closing inventory unit balance

To be able to show opening and closing inventory unit balances, the purchases method will need to be set to either Units X Rate or Driver X Rate and the COGS Method needs to be one of the two Average Rate methods (Enter Units or Link to Sales Units). Using these settings allows you to enter the opening stock under the purchases tab in inventory element properties.

When entering your opening balances or having imported them (Forecast > Opening Balance) you can click on the 3 dots beside the inventory balance sheet element to enter the units associated with the $ balance

Stock adjustment revaluation or write off

If you need to adjust the inventory balance, you can use one of the Inventory write off Methods, use a positive value/percentage to show a decrease/write off or use a negative value/percentage to show an increase.

Alternatively, add a provision element in the liability section of the chart of accounts, set it to General inventory write down and use it to adjust the inventory balance. 

Tip: Using a provision will adjust the total inventory balance, if you need to adjust specific Inventory balances, it is best to use Inventory write off option under the element itself.

For more information on this refer to Modelling Inventory Write-Offs