---
title: "Accounting Of Inventory Stock"
space: "ERPNext"
url: "https://docs.frappe.io/erpnext/accounting-of-inventory-stock"
updated: "2026-02-27"
---

The value of available inventory is treated as a Current Asset in the company's [Chart of Accounts](/erpnext/chart-of-accounts). To prepare a Balance Sheet, you should make the accounting entries for those assets. There are generally two different methods of  
accounting for inventory.

## Auto/Perpetual Inventory

**Note**: The user must define an inventory account (with Account Type set as Stock) either in the warehouse, the group warehouse, or at the company level (as the Default Inventory Account). If the user hasn't set an account in the warehouse or company, but an inventory account exists, the system will use that account to post GL entries against the respective warehouse.

In this process, for each stock transaction, the system posts relevant  
accounting entries to sync stock balance and accounting balance. This is the  
default setting in ERPNext for new accounts. By default, Perpetual Inventory is enabled in the [Company](/erpnext/company-setup#23-stock-settings).

When you buy and receive items, those items are booked as the company’s assets  
(stock-in-hand). When you sell and deliver those items, an  
expense (Cost of Goods Sold) equal to the landed cost of the items is booked.  
General Ledger entries are created after every stock transaction. As a result,  
the value as per Stock Ledger always remains the same with the relevant account  
balance. This improves the accuracy of the Balance Sheet and the Profit and Loss  
statement.

Read [Perpetual Inventory documentation](/erpnext/perpetual-inventory)  
to check accounting entries for a particular stock transaction.

### Advantages of Perpetual Inventory

Perpetual Inventory system will make it easier for you to maintain the accuracy of the company's asset and expense values. Stock balances will always be synced with relevant account balances, so no more periodic manual entry needs to be done to balance them.

In case of new back-dated stock transactions or cancellation/amendment of an existing transaction, all the future Stock Ledger entries and GL Entries will  
be recalculated for all items of that transaction. The same is applicable if  
any cost is added to the submitted Purchase Receipt later through the Landed  
Cost Voucher.

> Note: Perpetual Inventory completely depends upon the item valuation rate.  
> Hence, you have to be more careful entering the valuation rate while making any  
> incoming stock transactions like Purchase Receipt, Material Receipt, or  
> Manufacturing/Repack.

---

## 2. Periodic Inventory

In this method, accounting entries need to be created manually in order to sync stock balance and relevant account balance. The system does not create  
accounting entries automatically for assets at the time of material purchases  
or sales.

In an accounting period, when you buy and receive items, an expense is booked  
in your accounting system. You sell and deliver some of these items.

At the end of an accounting period, the total value of items to be sold, need  
to be booked as the company’s assets, often known as stock-in-hand.

The difference between the value of the items remaining to be sold and the  
previous period’s stock-in-hand value can be positive or negative. If  
positive, this value is removed from expenses (Cost of Goods Sold) and is  
added to assets (stock-in-hand). If negative, a reverse entry  
is passed.

This complete process is called **Periodic Inventory**.

If you are an existing user using Periodic Inventory and want to use Perpetual  
Inventory, you need to follow [a few steps](/erpnext/migrate-to-perpetual-inventory) to migrate.