QuickBooks Enterprise vs Premier for Manufacturing and Wholesale

When Premier is enough, and when you've outgrown it.

For manufacturers and wholesalers, accounting is really an inventory problem. What's on the shelf, what's in production, what it really cost to make, and what's promised to customers. Get that right and the rest of the books follow.

QuickBooks Desktop offers two good options for these businesses: Premier Manufacturing and Wholesale and Enterprise Manufacturing and Wholesale. This guide explains where Premier is perfectly capable, where it runs out of road, and how to know it's time to move up.

The Short Version

• Premier works well for a small manufacturer or wholesaler with one location, a few hundred to a few thousand items, simple assemblies and five or fewer people in QuickBooks.
• Enterprise is the better choice when you have multiple warehouses, need barcodes, serial or lot tracking, FIFO costing, more users, or your Premier file has become slow.

Side-by-Side for Manufacturers

Where Premier Shines

Premier's inventory assemblies let you define a bill of materials, for example a table made of four legs, one top, eight screws and two hours of labor. When you build tables, QuickBooks removes the components from stock and adds finished tables at the combined cost. You can track pending builds when you don't have enough components yet.

Add sales orders, purchase orders and the manufacturing reports, and a small shop has everything it needs to see what to build, what to buy and what each product costs.

Signs You've Outgrown Premier

• You store stock in more than one place and keep separate spreadsheets to track it
• Picking errors are costing you, and barcode scanning would fix them
• Customers or regulators need lot or serial number traceability
• Your accountant wants FIFO costing
• You've hit the five-user limit, or people are waiting to get into QuickBooks
• The company file is huge and reports take minutes to run
• You need to hide margins or payroll from certain staff

If two or more of those sound familiar, it's time to look seriously at QuickBooks Enterprise.

Upgrading From Premier to Enterprise

The upgrade is straightforward. Enterprise opens Premier company files directly; everything comes across, including items, assemblies, customers, vendors and history. The steps:

1. Back up your Premier company file.
2. Install Enterprise on every computer that will use it, and Database Server Manager on the server.
3. Open the company file in Enterprise and let it update.
4. Turn on and configure the new features you need, like Advanced Inventory sites and permissions.

Wholesale-Specific Tips

• Use price levels (Premier) or Advanced Pricing (Enterprise) for different customer tiers.
• Track landed costs like freight and duties on received inventory so your margins are real.
• Run Inventory Stock Status by Item weekly to stay ahead of stock-outs.
• Use sales orders for every customer order so you can see what's committed before you promise more.