Accounting...... I can not seem to figure this out help please.?

beginning inventory plus purchases less ending inventory equals cost of goods sold. sales less cost of goods sold equals gross margin. If you know 2 of the three, you can back into the third. In your case, it sounds like you are short at least two items. You would need to take an ending inventory first.

The best way to get the inventory numbers is with a physical count of the goods on hand. In fact, that's required of an audit.

Once armed with that, the reset is pretty simple. Beginning Inventory + Net Purchases (Total Purchases minus Purchases Returned) - Ending Inventory = Cost of Goods Sold.

You get your purchases from your records; you are required to keep accurate records so this is easy IF you are keeping the books up-to-date.

The same goes for Sales. You should record all sales in your sales journal on a daily basis and back them up with copies of the receipts or register tapes and bank deposit records.

Basically, merchandise starting inventory, minus sales, plus purchases, should equal ending merchandise inventory

Ending= Starting - Sales + Purchases.

There might be some "shrink," caused either by theft, damage, etc...

What you are trying to find, if I understand your question correctly, is the cost of goods sold.

Unless accounting procedures have changed greatly since I studied accounting back in the dark ages, what you need to do on a worksheet is:

Beginning Inventory $1,000.00

Purchases $ 9,000.00

Ending Inventory $ 5,000.00

= Cost of Goods Sold $5,000.00