Materials Subsidiary Records
A perpetual in enters system enters each increase and each reduction of inventory to maintain up-to-date material records. These records, in either hard-copy or electronic form, constitute a subsidiary ledger controlled by the materials account in the general ledger. In addition to showing quantity and price for each kind of material received, issued, and on hand, the records commonly detail the account number, description or type of material, location, and maximum and minimum quantities to carry. New materials records are created and old ones are deleted as changes occur in the kinds of materials carried in stock. The record arrangement parallels the familiar debit, credit, and balance columns, but uses the headings received, issued, and inventory. (Examples are shown in the discussion of materials costing methods in the appendix to this chapter.) Additional columns can be added to record receiving report numbers and materials requisition numbers.
The approved invoice (with purchase order and receiving report) goes to the materials clerk for entry in the received and inventory sections of materials ledger records. If goods in the received and inventory sections of materials ledger records. If goods in the storeroom are found to be unsatisfactory after part of the same shipment has been used in production, the remainder may be returned to the vendor and its quantity and cost entered in brackets in the received and inventory sections of the materials record.
when the storekeeper issues materials, a copy of the requisition is sent to the materials clerk, who enters the date, requisition number, lot (or job or department) number, quantity, and cost of the issued materials in the issued section of the materials record; a new balance is entered in the inventory column. These operations can be performed electronically in an EDP system.
the alternative to a perpetual inventory system is the periodic inventory system, in which purchases are added to the beginning inventory, the ending inventory’s count and cost are subtracted, and the difference is considered the cost of materials issued. Even in a perpetual system, periodic physical counts are necessary to discover discrepancies between the actual count and the materials records. Discrepancies may be due to errors in transferring invoice data to the records, mistakes in costing requisition, unrecorded invoices or requisition, or spoilage, breakage, and theft. In some enterprises, plant operations are suspended periodically for a physical inventory to be taken. In others, internal auditors or inventory crew count one or more stock classes each day or each week throughout the year so that every materials item is inventoried at least once per year.