Assembly FG: An Education Case Study Using QuickBooks as the AIS for a Small Manufacturing Business

Abstract

This education case is the first to use QuickBooks Premier Accountant to teach students foundation functionalities common to all Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems that support discrete manufacturing. Students learn how to configure QuickBooks so that direct materials, direct labor and applied manufacturing overhead costs charged to work-in-process parts manufactured at lower levels of the BOM are rolled up into the costs of higher-level work-in-process parts and, ultimately, into the costs of the finished goods parts. Students set up raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods part numbers so that quantities and costs of parts on-hand are tracked in inventory on the Perpetual Inventory System to provide an inventory subsidiary ledger that continuously matches the manufacturing inventory account balances in the Chart of Accounts. Students learn the importance of configuring Off the Shelf (OTS) manufacturing systems in accurately costing manufactured discrete products, including setting up manufacturing accounts, employees, part numbers, and the BOM. As such, the case is designed to be used in Accounting Information Systems (AIS) courses that are already using QuickBooks to help students' better understand the general concepts covered in AIS textbooks on the Production Cycle that are not addressed in extant textbooks on QuickBooks.