Many of you have been asked for donations for a local school auction, a charity raffle, or any number of community events.

There's a simple way to track your donations - for keeping your inventory correct and for tax reporting purposes. Do this by setting up a customer called "Donation". Whenever you give away a product as a donation to a charitable cause, "sell" it to your customer called "Donation" and give them a 100% discount for their purchase.

This lets you accurately track your markdowns and keeps your on-hand inventory count correct. Plus, whenever you need it you can run a customer report for "Donation" and in seconds you can find out:

       o  How much you've given away to charity.
       o  Which items you've given away to charity
       o  Which employee's are giving items away to charity (we suggest restricting this to managers)

For added detail, use the Shipping Address area to enter the name of the charity or event and the date that its held - a great help as a reference for itemizing donations during tax time.

That's all for this time... Check back next week for another great tip.   Norma