QuickBooks Negative Inventory Repair

What is Negative Inventory?

Negative Inventory (also known as Negative Quantity on Hand) occurs when sales transactions are entered before purchase transactions. In other words, QuickBooks registers an item as sold before it is recorded as received. This can create serious problems in your accounting records, leading to:

• Data corruption that requires frequent file rebuilds to fix errors.
• An out-of-balance cash-basis balance sheet, making financial reports inaccurate.
• Incorrect profit and COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) calculations, affecting financial statements.
• Discrepancies in the balance sheet’s inventory account amounts , leading to reporting errors.
• Inaccurate vendor reports , affecting payments and order tracking.
• Common error messages, including:
• LVL_ERROR – Invalid balance. Amount overflow has occurred.
• Verify Account Balance failed: Calc bal = 0.00, List bal = overflow
• An overflow error has occurred: Account balance exceeds QuickBooks limits.
• "It looks like something in your company file is causing your balance sheet to go out of balance."
• Item history errors (cost mismatch, target value mismatch, bad target COGS).

These issues can make financial reporting unreliable and cause major disruptions in QuickBooks functionality.

How to Identify Negative Inventory in QuickBooks

To check if your QuickBooks data file contains negative inventory, follow these steps:

1. Open QuickBooks and go to Reports > Inventory > Inventory Valuation Detail.
2. In the Dates drop-down menu, select All.
3. Look through the On Hand column for any negative amounts.

How to Fix Negative Inventory in QuickBooks

To resolve negative inventory issues, you must ensure that purchase transactions are recorded before sales transactions. Follow these steps:

1. Open Reports > Inventory > Inventory Valuation Detail.
2. Select All Dates to review your entire inventory history.
3. Locate any items with negative values in the On Hand column.
4. Adjust the transaction dates so that the bill dates come before the invoice dates.
5. Repeat this process for each item with a negative quantity.

⚠ Important: Simply updating the current quantity on hand (QOH) is not enough. You must correct every past instance where QOH went negative. If not fixed properly, negative inventory will continue to cause financial inconsistencies.

Professional File Repair Service for Negative Inventory

At QB Advisors LLC, we offer a specialized QuickBooks file repair service to permanently resolve negative inventory issues. Our process includes:

• Thoroughly analyzing your QuickBooks data file to identify when and where negative inventory occurred.
• Correcting all instances of negative QOH , ensuring accurate financial records.
• Ensuring the repaired file successfully verifies in QuickBooks without errors.
• Adjusting COGS and Inventory Asset account balances to reflect accurate values.
• Making necessary adjustments to the Opening Balance Equity account for inventory corrections.

Note: After the repair, your bookkeeper may need to create adjusting journal entries to maintain accurate records.

Contact Us for QuickBooks Negative Inventory Repair

If you need expert assistance to fix negative inventory in QuickBooks, get in touch with us today! Fill out the form below, and our team will reach out to you as soon as possible.