I need some help on how to post an inventory purchase, as a manual journal entry.

I've made the purchase, the invoice came in BEFORE the product. I paid the invoice in full, before the product came in, and when the product arrived half of my order was missing.

Thanks for any help!
April

Lesson here: don't ever pay an invoice before you have the goods in hand, counted, and inspected. Then check the invoice against the receipt and purchase order if it exists. Not following this system can cause all sorts of problems.

As for the half order that you don't have, put that into a prepaid account. You don't have the inventory so you can't have it there. You've paid it up front and still have something coming to you. It's actually still an asset, just not inventory. If you have other prepaid accounts, you can lump it in with those. Otherwise you can create something called prepaid inventory if you like. Or call it a deposit. The name is not terribly important as long as the idea is there.

Now... as to the half you received. Did you receive it before the end of the period? If so, it stays in inventory. If not, then we have some other technicalities.

(NOTE: All of the following is under the assumption that if you hadn't gotten your inventory, that you have no control over, or responsibility for, that inventory and it legally would not be considered yours. If this is a fairly typical exchange, that will be true.)

You actually go by who owned it when. As a general rule, whoever paid for shipping owns it while it's in transit. If it was not shipped before the end of the period, then it still belonged to the seller. If you had it before the end of the period, then it's yours. If it was in transit, it belongs to whoever paid for shipping, unless you have other complications. The easiest way to do it is keep consistent with what you normally would do. Do you usually record inventory in transit in your inventory account? Then stick to that.

If you feel that half doesn't belong in inventory either, then stick that in with the prepaid/deposit.

I hope that didn't confuse you further. Believe it or not, that was the easy version. :-)

Since you mentioned this as a "manual" entry, I'm assuming you're referring to your software; that is, you entered through the supplier in your vendors and don't want to mess with the vendor account, right? (Cause you have no current invoice and don't owe them.) You can do this manually, and then manually reverse the entry when you get the stuff. That way you don't mess up the vendor account at all.