If you sell your own products (products you have made or manufactured) and you also use the General Financials system in Argenta, there’s a specific way you should enter the transactions.
This article shows how to enter products into inventory at the same time as the sale, so you can group the transactions in your general journal. This is not a requirement of Argenta. You can enter your inventory whenever you choose, then sell it through the invoice/sales system at any time.
Making Your Organization a Vendor in Argenta
In order to sell your own products through Argenta, you must be designated as a Vendor. To create a vendor record for your organization:
- Make
sure you’re already entered as a constituent. If not add your organization in
the Constituent section. Need help creating a new constituent, see KB article Add Constituents.
- Choose “Products and Inventory” > “Product Vendors” from the dashboard on the left of the screen.
- Click the “Add New” button above the Vendor List.
- This will bring up the “Add A New Vendor” window.
- Click the “Lookup” button to select your organization from constituents.
- Select or create the Vendor Type you would like to use. Wholesaler is a good choice for organizations who make/manufacture their own products.
- Click the “Add This Vendor” button. The window will close, and you’ll see your organization in the Vendor List.
Creating the Accounts Needed to Sell Your Products
If you use the General Financials system in Argenta you’ll need to create accounts, in your Chart of Accounts, that you can use to record product related transactions. This is only a guide, using best practices. You can set up your accounts in whatever way works best for you.
Argenta uses double entry, nonprofit accounting so you’ll need a total of 4 accounts.
Choose General Financials > Chart of Accounts from the main menu.
First, create an asset account for the inventory.
You can add an account for each product, or just one account for all the inventory you make and sell. Argenta has an extensive product inventory management system, so it’s not necessary to use your chart of accounts for inventory tracking. We recommend one inventory account.
To add an asset account for your product inventory, click the “Add New” button in the Chart of Accounts.
The “Add A New Account” window will come up.
Make sure to select “Yes” for “Will account be used with a register?”.
Fill in the other fields as follows:
- Account Type = Asset
- Account Detail Type = Select or click “Add New” to add “Inventory”.
- Account Number = Any number beginning with ‘1’ for asset accounts.
- Account Name = Choose an appropriate name for the account.
Next, make sure you have an asset account for customer payments. This should be either a bank account or your accounts receivable account. Just like the inventory account, this account must be designated as being used with an account register.
Next, create an income/revenue account for your customer payments.
Fill in the fields as follows:
- Is this an installment account = No
- Will this account be used with a register? = No
- Account Type = Income
- Account Detail Type = Select or click “Add New” to add “Sale of Product Revenue”.
- Account Number = Any number beginning with ‘4’ for income/revenue accounts.
- Account Name = Choose an appropriate name for the account.
Finally, create an expense account for the cost of creating/manufacturing the product.
Fill in the fields as follows:
- Is this an installment account = No
- Will this account be used with a register? = No
- Account Type = Expense
- Account Detail Type = Select or click “Add New” to add “Cost of Goods Sold”.
- Account Number = Any number beginning with ‘5’, ‘6’, ‘7’, ‘8’ or ‘9’ for expense accounts.
- Account Name = Choose an appropriate name for the account.
Adding Products
After you’re set up as a vendor and your accounts have been created, you’ll need to add the products you plan to sell into the Product Management section.
Choose Products and Inventory > Products, from the dashboard.
This will direct you to the Product List.
To add a new product click the “Add New” button above the Product List.
The “Add A New Vendor Product” window will come up. Designate yourself as the vendor by choosing your organization in the Vendor Lookup. Fill in all the other fields appropriately.
Adding Products into Inventory
Inventory gets added in Argenta using Product Orders. Even though you’re the vendor for your own products, you’ll still need to create orders to account for your inventory.
To add an order, choose “Products and Inventory” > “Product Orders” from the dashboard.
This will direct you to the list of orders already in the system.
Click the “Add New” button above the list.
This will direct you to the “Add Product Orders” screen. Because you’re selling your own products, you must be designated as the vendor.
You can add products to the order in the “Choose Products…” section (circled above).
- Use the “Product ID” lookup field to find the product you want to add to inventory.
- The unit of measure and cost will auto-fill from the product details you entered earlier in the product section.
- Enter the quantity you’re adding to inventory.
- Click the “Add Selected Product” button to add the product to the order.
- Repeat the process for each product you want to add to inventory.
- When all products have been entered, click the “Complete Order” button above the product list to finish adding the order.
Once an order has been added it must be fulfilled. Orders aren’t fulfilled when they’re created because typically you’re waiting for the product to arrive from the vendor. In this case, you are the vendor, so it can be fulfilled at the time it’s created. Fulfilling the order will close it and place the designated quantity into your inventory.
To fulfill an order, open it from the Order List using the corresponding open icon shown here…
When
the order is open, you’ll see the product(s) in the “Fulfill Items…” section.
Click the “Fulfill All Items In This Order” button…
Back at the top of the screen, in the “Order Details” section, make sure all the information, including the dates, are correct. You probably won’t have a Payment Type or Check/PO Number. These fields are typically used to record the method of payment to the vendor.
Next, check the “Add This Transaction To General Financials” box to add the transaction to the general journal using the appropriate accounts.
Fill in the other fields as follows:
- Asset Account Used for Payment = The asset account you created for inventory.
- Account Type = Expense
- Account Detail Type = Cost of Goods Sold
- Account = The expense account you created for the cost of making product(s).
Click the “Save All changes & Exit button to complete the order fulfillment.
The order is fulfilled. The products have been added to inventory and accounted for in your general financials system. Now you can create invoices to sell your products to your customers.
Selling Your Product(s)
To sell your products to your customers using Argenta, you need to create invoices to keep track of sales.
Select General Financials > Invoices/Receivables from the dashboard.
This will direct you to the Sales & Invoice Manager and the Sales/Invoice List.
To create a new invoice/sale, click the “Add New” button above the list. This will direct you to the "Add A New Invoice" screen.
- If the customer is already in the system click the “Lookup” button to select them. If not click the “Add New” button to add them.
- Enter the invoice date, which in this case would be the date of the sale.
- Enter the payment due date which would also be the date of the sale.
- Skip the Recurring Invoice fields and click the “Add Invoice & Enter A Product” button.
This will bring up the “Add A Product To An Invoice” window.
- Click the “Lookup” button to select the product you would like to sell.
- The “Invoice Price for Item” field will auto-populate based on the price designated in the Argenta Product module. To change the price, you should update it in the Product section.
The window will close, and you’ll see the product on the screen.
- Click the “Add A Product” button to repeat the process for each separate product the customer is purchasing.
- When all the products have been entered, click the “Done/Complete Invoice” button to finish adding the invoice.
You’ll be directed back to the invoice list and you’ll see your new invoice in the list. Open the invoice to close it out and add a payment to complete the sale.
Change the Invoice Status from New to Paid/Closed and enter the Date Paid in Full field accordingly. Click the “Save All Changes & Continue” button.
Make sure you have saved the changes then switch to the “Invoice Payments” tab to add the customer’s payment to the General Financials system.
On the payment tab click the “Add A Payment” button to add the customer’s payment. That will bring up the “Add Invoice Payments” window…
Enter the information in each field as follows:
- Payment Date = The date of the sale.
- Payment Amount = The total amount the customer is paying for all products on the invoice.
- Payment Type = How the invoice was paid, check, credit card, etc.
- Check/PO Number = Enter if applicable.
- Asset Account Used for Payment = The asset account where you’ll deposit the funds.
- Account Type = Income
- Account Detail Type = Sale of Product Revenue
- Account = The income/revenue account you created for the products you make/manufacture.
Click Add Invoice Payment to complete the sale.
View the Sale in the General Financials Module
If you would like to see the sale in the General Journal, choose General Financials > General Journal from the main menu. You’ll notice 2 transactions appear for one sale.
If you chose to enter the order and the sale as a grouped transaction, all four entries will appear on the same date. Double entry accounting balances the transactions correctly in all the appropriate accounts.