Considering QB for retail store

General Ledger, payroll, etc. are often called "horizontal" accounting applications. Your store, the barbershop next door, and the gas station on the corner can all use the same program. Inventory control is often "vertical" - how it works is often dependent on the industry.

Generally, generalized systems (such as QB) do not know about the oddities of inventory control for many retail businesses.

For example, in the liquor business when you buy 12 bottles from a wholesaler you actually get 13 bottles. In the nursery business, a competent inventory system has a code to enter when the plant dies(!) as well as space for a 200-character Latin name (also, as the inventory ages it gets more valuable - the plants grow!). In auto parts, a given part number may have been combined eight years ago in a kit containing several parts which, in turn, was exploded into two different kits two years ago. The system has to chase the part number through several generations to get today's equivalent.

Further, QB has a significant limitation on the number of SKUs it can handle (11,000?). This is woefully insufficient for auto parts, books, groceries, and probably liquor.

I see where Counterpoint integrates with QB, so you'll need both.

If you wanted to use QB then you probably should look at the Retail Enterprise version + the QB POS to see if that can handle the high number of items/bar codes that a liquor store would have. You would also need to purchase the QB Payroll module for at least another $200 to complete the package.

I spent my summer working at my friends's liquor store as her bookkeeper. She uses LiquorPOS

for the inventory and cash register functions. All other financial functions (payroll, payables, receivables) were done in QB Premier 2005 (pro would have been fine). They have a demo and a manual that you can download at their site.

We do a journal entry each day to record the sales. We did not use the interface between QB and LiquorPOS mainly because there are frequently differences in the lottery sales due to human error. We needed to record the sales from the lottery machine rather than the lottery sales that ran through the register. House charges were also manually recorded in QB so that statements could be generated and payments could be tracked.

There may be other liquor store specific programs out there so I would suggest you investigate that angle.