About the Item Database
When you create your inventory by adding items into your software, you lay the foundation for the most important software applications: Order Entry, Purchasing, and Reports. Your items also affect applications such as General Ledger. The items database comprises the largest body of information in your system. One of the most important tasks you face when setting up your system is creating item information that gives you maximum pricing, purchasing, and reporting power. For that reason, give careful thought to the stock classes and departments you set up. Every item must have a master item department. This allows you to group similar items, indicate the G/L sales minor account where the item is posted, and indicate whether the item is taxable. You can also indicate which items are commissionable or which items have a different percentage of commission. The item department numbers relate directly to G/L sales minor accounts. You can also assign a different item department number for a specific location.
The Item Database includes the following features:
Pricing Services: You can create items provided by a pricing service. This reduces the time it takes to build and update an inventory. Each major wholesaler offers a pricing service, or you can choose OPUS, which is a multiple-vendor pricing service. The first time you load items, you complete only certain boxes in the Item window. Not all wholesalers load the SIC code, weight, or page. The Units of Measure box is completed only if you load multiple units of measure. The Direct Buy / Cost boxes in the Item Master tab are not completed when loading items. In this case, you have the option of copying the information from the Primary [Whl] / Cost boxes creating unique direct buy information.
Multiple Vendors: You can maintain multiple vendors for each item. You can create multiple vendors in the Item Vendors tab, or you can create a list of available vendors automatically for each of your items through an OPUS update. The multiple vendor feature makes the list of all your available vendors an interactive part of your Order Entry and Purchasing flow. During Order Entry, Purchasing, and from the Item window, you can quickly view a list of all your vendors for a certain item.
Multiple Locations: You can set up multiple locations to define physical inventory locations (pulling locations) and General Ledger (G/L) locations (profit centers). The system defines an inventory location as a physical location, a place where you get merchandise. For example, if you have a commercial office supply business, your warehouse is an inventory location. If you have a retail business with three stores, each store is an inventory location. You use G/L locations to define profit centers. A profit center is its own entity or individual business; you have separate bank accounts, accounts receivable, and so forth for each profit center. A profit center is not necessarily a physically separate location. For example, you may have a main warehouse with a commercial or retail branch across town. Typically, these two physically separate parts of your business are treated as two G/L locations. However, you may have one main warehouse that houses four different parts of your business. In this case, you could treat the facility as one G/L location or as four.
Note: If you have one profit center and one inventory location, you do not need to set up locations. Your assets, liabilities, and sales are automatically tracked.
Multiple Bins: You can easily assign multiple bins to an item. You can use as many bins as you need for any particular item. The quantities in each bin are automatically tracked. You can specify which bin to pull the merchandise from when ordering and which bins to stock when receiving. In Order Entry, you can automatically pull from the bin with the most quantities, or you can determine which bin to pull from by setting up bin codes.
Contracts: You can set up a contract for a specific customer, or you can set up special pricing for all customers. If you have arranged special prices or a discount for a customer, you can specify those arrangements through a contract. You can also create vendor contracts, which allow you to specify arrangements that let you buy certain items from a vendor at a special price.
Multiple Units of Measure: You can maintain multiple units of measure for a single item, for example, cartons and boxes. There are two ways to use multiple units of measure: set up your items with information units only, or set up your items with two selling units and one information unit. Each of these are used for different things. For more information, see About Multiple Units of Measure.
Item Aliases: An item aliases is a second name for an item. You can create aliases using the numbers or names your customer prefer. You can also use aliases to link UPC numbers to your stock numbers. Aliases are also helpful for retrieving items in Order Entry. You can also use aliases to create bar code numbers for your items.
Bill of Materials: You can use the Bill of Materials application any time you sell more than one item as a single unit or in an assembly. You can use supplies, machines, furniture, and printing products with this application. For example, you could use Bill of Materials to set up a desk assembly, which might include a top, panel ends, and a choice of pedestals; or you could set up an office kit, which might include a stapler, staple remover, tape and dispenser, scissors, pens, and pencils and trays. When you place items on an assembly, you have the option of making the components required, not required, or you can choose to make this decision in Order Entry. You can give the customer a color option or some other choice for an item by placing options on the assembly. By specifying that the options are not required, the order-writer can choose the option to place on the order in Order Entry.
Item Reports: Inventory reports can include information about each item in your inventory. Inventory reports are printed through the (R) Inventory Selectors screen and the (RR) Inventory Reports screen.
Item History: You can build and maintain an accurate, informative item history. Information from Order Entry and Purchasing builds a history for all items in your Item database. Item history is located in the Item History window. The Inventory tab displays current, month-to-date, and on-hand stock information. History for multiple locations and bins displays at the bottom of the Inventory tab. The History tab displays usage information, broken down by the month, covering the past 24 months.
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