We are having trouble accurately reflecting inventory and costing related to inventory purchases in the following circumstances and looking for alternatives to our practice. 1) Purchase Order created. 2) Inbound Shipment Created (for landed cost purposes) 3) Inbound Shipment received into virtual location once container has BOL overseas. 4) Transfer Order created to move goods from virtual location to actual warehouse. 5) Item Fulfillment to ship goods from Virtual location to Warehouse (creates receiving document for WMS). Once received at the physical warehouse, we sort the inventory to determine if what we ordered was what was shipped. Example: We ordered 10 As, 12Bs, 15Cs. Upon examination, we deem that we received 8 As, 15B, 5Cs, 4 Ds. We only pay the Vendor after the examination findings. So ultimately, what we ordered versus what we received is different. Further, these orders span multiple periods so we don’t have the ability to update POs in same period. Currently, examination is not an option at BOL time. Examination must be done at the physical warehouse.

Do you need to show the inventory quantity on your ledger while it’s on the water? Or just the inventory value in an in transit account?

We have to show it on our books, so we receive in the inbound to the virtual location. The real crux of it is: What we order and what we get may be materially different after inspection. The right fix is: Get what was paid for, which we’re still pushing for. Until if/then, I’m looking to see what others have done in this type of scenario.

Well my thought was if you don't need the quantities while it's in transit, you could post a Journal Entry from the PO that would post all the $ balances for each item into an in transit account (which would show as inventory value on your ledger). Then when you physically receive the goods, you can post an item receipt from the PO for what you actually received. This would bring the actual inventory into NetSuite at the correct quanitty and cost. Then post another journal that moves the balances from In transit back to Accrued Purchases and posts the difference to a Vendor variance account. Then you don't need to use the Inbound Shipment at all...just regular PO and IR and a few Journals that get your intransit impact and variances ironed out With a few scripts you could even automate the JE process

Thanks! We try to not use journals wherever possible. But this might be a use case for it. At the end of the day, it is likely just the value that’s important, but I’ll need to consult with the business. Could be much cleaner than what we have going on.