if you change the WIP account to the inventory, would the WIP items count in the inventory?

your component qty on hand shoudl show what is on WIP but upon WO issue from a GL side the value gets moved to the WIP account identified on the assembly

I will probably have to create a saved search to have all WIP at month end

why not create a seperate inventory account and call it WIP?

Hmm you mean subaccount of inventory? I think we have that