What is the Process Sequence for Inventory Transactions on the Same Date?

Transactions are processed in the following sequence: Quantity, Amount, Cost Layer, Entry Sequence

Transaction Dates are very important when reviewing how Acctivate inventory transactions are processed. For example, the Cost of Goods Sold for a sales invoice is based on the inventory transactions on or prior to the invoice date. That’s a pretty obvious scenario, but what happens with multiple transactions are entered on the same date?

Multiple transactions entered with the same date are processed in a consistent sequence regardless of what time of day the transactions were actually entered. This is an important concept if you have products with different types of transactions on a given date.

Regardless of the Cost of Goods Sold method (i.e., FIFO or Average), the following sequence is used when evaluating inventory transactions for a single date:

Transactions are first sequenced by Transaction Type:

  1. Beginning Inventory from QuickBooks
  2. Receipts and Assemblies with positive quantities
  3. Inbound Transfers (the TO warehouse side of a transfer)
  4. Added Cost Receipts
  5. All Other Transactions
  6. Balance Adjustments

Transactions in one of the above categories are processed in the following sequence:

  1. Quantity
    • Largest quantity first
    • Smallest quantity last
  2. Amount
    • Transactions with same quantity are sequenced by Amount/Value
    • Largest amount first
    • Smallest amount last
  3. Cost Layer (FIFO/LIFO only)
    • Transactions with same quantity and amount are sequenced by FIFO/LIFO Cost Layer.
  4. Entry Sequence
    • Transactions for same quantity, amount (and layer) are sequenced by original entry sequence

NOTE: When it comes to negative quantities or amounts, the absolute values of numbers are not used.  In other words, -2 is considered larger than -5 and not the other way around.

For more about this, check out our docs page.