Need advice on setting up Quickbooks for my brewery

I setting up the accounting system for my brewery and need some advice from those who have experience or have set Quickbooks up for a brewery.
I have Quickbooks Premium 2012 for Manufacturing and Warehouse Edition

Are you talking about a legit pro brewery or just your home brewing brewery?

jheld00 said:

Are you talking about a legit pro brewery or just your home brewing brewery?

Click to expand...

Legit 3000bbl/yr production brewey

Hire an accountant...

jheld00 said:

Hire an accountant...

Click to expand...

This might be taken as sarcasm or snotty, but its on the money (pun!). Consider spending your time doing stuff that you are an expert in (beer, your business) and let someone who knows what they are doing do the accounting. It will probably save you money in the long run. I don't think I've ever heard anyone with a small business say, "Golly, I wish I did my accounting myself."

mjohnson said:

This might be taken as sarcasm or snotty, but its on the money (pun!). Consider spending your time doing stuff that you are an expert in (beer, your business) and let someone who knows what they are doing do the accounting. It will probably save you money in the long run. I don't think I've ever heard anyone with a small business say, "Golly, I wish I did my accounting myself."

Click to expand...

+1
At that size you should be able to have a person handle your books 1 day per week, you don't need someone every day, book keeping can be done in half a day and an accountant or the book keeper can then compile your monthlies as well

As a CPA I agree w this......at least start out w a good bookkeeper to get you set up.....bad books will cost you more at the end of the year than a few hours w a bookkeeper now.

Good Luck

jheld00 said:

Hire an accountant...

Click to expand...

Go all the way and get an ERP....go with an ERP integrator

QB doesn't really handle beer accounting that well especially because of the TTB.

http://wearethepractitioners.com/2012/03/02/quickbooks-and-beer-dont-mix/

It can but youll probably need an add on like fishbowl or misys...or numbercruncher (according to people on probrewer never played with it though) your erp integrator will advise.

Here are some cost estimates

http://www.mikeonmanufacturing.com/...s-a-manufacturing-software-package-cost-.html

check out beer orchestrated(sap business one) as well...and beerrun(sage)..these are turn key brewery ERP systems

here is an example of NB crazy set up..



Best of Luck!

I will echo what riverfrontbrewer said. Being a banker and dealing with very large farming operations, I am sometimes at a loss for the quality of financials that I see. If you are that large and trying to track inventory, etc, then it would definitely be well worth your money to get this done. Especially, if you are going to require any type of financing. Also, as you look to grow and your financing needs expand, you'll likely be looking at needing review quality financial statements, at a minimum compiled, and it is much, much cheaper to have an accountant on the front end. It will also help you for tax planning when you get to year end.

I sure wish somebody would have given advice on how to set up Quickbooks for a brewery, because from what I understand if set up correctly is can help with the overall management. It can generate the numbers you need to have to fill out your State and Federal paperwork with the click of a button (which otherwise can take hours). It can help you manage your supply chain to help you keep inventory for grains, hops, yeast etc. so you don't run out. It helps you keep track of your inventory of beer and its distribution. Not to mention if you self distribute like us, you need to keep track of all your retailers, information, orders, invoices, delivery and deposits. If it is setup wrong, then you are really at a disadvantage. I am researching how to setup Quickbooks for my brewery, so It will help me manage it. I have an accountant, but she just handles the money, not brewery management.

John
Texas Big Beer Brewery

Here is a nightmare story about setting up a Brewery in Qucikbooks, but it has a lot of information on how to do it and how to go from raw ingredients to brewed beer to final packages.
http://wearethepractitioners.com/2012/03/02/quickbooks-and-beer-dont-mix/

Hey John, I have just recently started a kombucha brewery and have been teaching myself QuickBooks for it too. I find it is a very manageable program and not too hard to learn at all. I do not know how to give you advice on specifically setting it up but I do no that I had a hard time with QuickBooks Mac, and QuickBooks for dummies and Intuit QuickBooks support has been very helpful in the process. If you have any specific questions let me know and I may be able to help you out.
-Kelsey

Setting up QB for a basic system is not that difficult, and similar to setting up any business as long as you understand the asset/liability system. When setting up the system look more at how everything balances out on a balance sheet verse trying to set it up on an income statement level, it will help you understand accounting a lot better. Like many have reitterated hire a CPA, even if it is short term to have them set up your system. Book keeping is the basic part, understanding the accounting side is a whole different beast. Right off without even setting upi QB as a full software package I can see where it will stumble. While yes it will track your inventory and help with ordering, it will not be able to track efficiency and those numbers wil constantly need to be manually changed. As costs changed frequently you will also need to look at how you are calculating them and controllling the inventory, will you use LIFO, FIFO, or average? They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but which is better for you? If you do not understand that...great reason to hire an accountant.
Once set up yes you can easily do the book keeping portion quite easily, there will still be times though you will still need an accountant that QB will not help you out with. An accountant on retainer really isn't that big of an investment for the size of business that you are doing and cheaper than having the required lawyer you will need to suceed.

OP has probably figured this out by now, but a homebrewers forum is probably not the place for this. Probrewer.com may be more helpful.