Buying One Part from Many Vendors – New Alternate Vendor Feature in QuickBooks Enterprise Advanced Inventory
Does your business purchase the same item from multiple vendors?
If so, the new “Alternate Vendor” feature in QuickBooks Enterprise 2020 may be of interest to you.
ONE PART (INVENTORY OR NON-INVENTORY) FROM MULTIPLE VENDORS
First, let’s review this handy video tutorial that Intuit created to give you the details of this new feature:
Now that you’ve seen it in action, let me know your thoughts.
Will it be a good solution for your business?
ALTERNATE VENDOR FEATURE IN ADVANCED INVENTORY ONLY
Ok, so here is something to consider…
This feature is only available in the Advanced Inventory module of QuickBooks Enterprise. That means only the Platinum or Diamond level subscriptions.
It won’t be found in the Silver or Gold subscriptions of Enterprise.
And of course, this means it doesn’t exist in QuickBooks Pro or Premier either.
It’s really too bad that an enhancement such as this isn’t available to a wider group of devoted QuickBooks users. It should be.
HALF OR FULLY BAKED ENHANCEMENT?
Some observations from watching the video:
- The setup process seems to be quite taxing. For example, why isn’t the name of items available from a drop-down list when adding these details?
- Granted, there is an import process to speed up the process. That means getting the data held outside of QuickBooks into an acceptable format to import
- Did you notice that you can’t just select the alternate vendor and have the purchase order populate with their details? You have to manually input the unit cost and all other details (i.e. Manufacturers Part Number) into the PO manually. Not sure why that is?
My hope is that Intuit will continue to enhance this feature to add more functionality AND make it available to a wider audience. Many inventory based businesses have a need to track “one part – multiple vendors”.
WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?
Curious to know your thoughts about this new feature. Like it? Already using it? Please let me know…
ADDING ADVANCED INVENTORY TO YOUR QUICKBOOKS ENTERPRISE SUBSCRIPTION
Want to get this going for your business? I can easily help you with an upgrade into QuickBooks Platinum or Diamond. Details and pricing can be found on my site.
