There is both a physical and an accounting perspective to SKUs.
If you keep any level of inventory you need joined up visibility of both perspectives to manage your stock accurately and efficiently.
Joined up, real-world model
SKUs are represented as Stock Items in the system. These Stock items are joined up models of the physical and accounting perspectives of an SKU. This is the optimal strategy for:
- 100% accurate stock tracking
- a high degree of process automation
Physical
You can use the warehouse management system (WMS) to model SKUs as instances.
For example, Instances with a quantity of 1 can be tracked by serial number, and instances with a quantity greater than 1 can be tracked as Lots.
Instances can store detail about themselves, i.e. Location, Purchased from, Sold to, Warranty, Service history, etc.
Because instances enable you to create a real-world representation of a physical SKU, you can track stock to the level of granularity you require to achieve the best possible optimization of your inventory management.
See ‘Warehouse management system 101: Part 1 – Fundamentals’
Accounting
The system’s accounting functions enable you to track the costs, sales, and value of your stock assets. The system uses the average cost method to track the cost of goods.
The system automatically keeps track of all stock ‘adjustments’ so it can dynamically calculate the stock’s value.
When you purchase stock, the system increases the stock value. When you sell the stock, the system automatically recalculates the value based upon the unit costs.
See ‘Using Accounting’
Customizable Instances and Item Masters
You can adapt instances to fit exactly with the business needs, and go further to increase the detail and value of your insight of SKU lifecycles.
You can add custom fields and functionality to Item masters to store more data, and do more with it.
Categories and Attributes
Location
You can track the entire physical journey of every instance of stock from intake to being received by a Customer.
The Stock manager tracks the Item’s journey through the Document workflows i.e.
- Purchase Order > Item Receipt > Purchase Invoice,
- Sales Order > Shipment > Sales Invoice > Delivery note,
- Transfer between Customers.
The WMS (warehouse management system) tracks the physical journey of the stock i.e. Goods In > Location > Pick > Pack > Staging > Skid/Pallet
Status and Availability
Lot Tracking
Preferred Supplier
Stock Item: Reference
Sales | Prices tab |
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| Item Code | A unique alphanumeric identifier | |
| Sales Description | ||
| Matrix Parent | Select an Item (see ‘is Matrix’) | |
| Barcode | For barcode readers. i.e. Item part # or UPC code. This will be printed on Order, pick, pack and ship documents. | |
| Serial Number | Don’t use, check out the Warehouse Management System (WMS) | |
| Item is Active | Is available for use on a new Document | |
| Item is Sold | Is available for use on a Sales Document | |
| Is Matrix | Check and save to make this ‘Matrix master | |
| Commodity Code | Google commodity code for your respective country | |
| Lot Number | not in use | |
| Pricing details | ||
| Unit Price | The base selling price | |
| Sales Units | The sales unit of measure i.e. ‘each’ – see ‘Unit of Measure relationships’ | |
| Item Tax | The Item is taxable | |
| Foreign Price | The default price commensurate with the customer’s default currency. In other words, if your base currency is USD and your customer pays you in CAD, then this is a fixed price for this Item in CAD. | |
| Selling Information | ||
| Free text area | If you enter information here, and ‘i’ will appear on the Line Item when you add this Item to a Sales Document. Links and text allowed | |
| Related website | I.e. a product page on your website | |
| Cross | upsell information | ||
| Free text area | If you enter information here, and ‘i’ will appear on the Line Item when you add this Item to a Sales Document. Links and text allowed | |
| Size and Weight | ||
| Dimension Units | i.e inches, centimetres etc | |
| Height | ||
| Width | ||
| Length | ||
| Weight Units | i.e lbs, kg, etc | |
| Weight | ||
| Volume Units | i.e. lb/ft³ etc | |
| Volume | ||
| Shipping Information | ||
| Item is drop shipped | Not in use | |
| Pack separately | Info only | |
| Weigh before shipping | Info only | |
| Number of units per box | Info only | |
| Shipping instructions | Info only | |
Purchasing | Costs tab |
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| Item is Purchased | Item can be sued on Purchase Documents | |
| Default Order Type | Standard, Drop Shipped or Special Order | |
| Costing details | ||
| Unit Cost | The latest purchase cost as manually entered by you. | |
| Purchase Units | See ‘Units of Measure’ | |
| Item Tax | Tax code relating to Item or Item Tax option id. (USA only) taxable or not | |
| Foreign Cost | The default price commensurate with the Supplier’s default currency. i.e. if your base currency is USD and your Supplier invoices you in CAD, then this is a fixed price for this Item in CAD. | |
| Preferred Suppliers | ||
| The information in the list is used by these automations: On Sales Order, Create Dropship Purchase Order, Create Special Order. On Purchase Order Generator, ‘by Item’ and ‘by Order.’ | ||
| Supplier | ||
| Item Code | The Supplier’s SKU / Item code. | |
| Description | ||
| Unit Cost | The latest cost you manually added here | |
| Stock | The current stock level for this Item | |
| Minimum Order Quantity | Used for information and by the Purchase Order generator. | |
| Average Lead Time (days) | ||
| Use on Docs | Available for use on Purchase Orders | |
| Default | The default used by the automations. | |
| Purchasing Information | ||
| Free text area | If you enter information here, and ‘i’ will appear on the Line Item when you add this Item to a Purchasing Document. Links and text allowed | |
| Related Website | i.e the Supplier’s product page | |
| Reorder Level | ||
| Size and Weight | ||
| Dimension Units | i.e inches, centimeters etc | |
| Height | ||
| Width | ||
| Length | ||
| Weight Units | i.e lbs, kg etc | |
| Weight | ||
| Volume Units | i.e. lb/ft³ etc | |
| Volume | ||
| Delivery Information | ||
| Free text area | Text and Links allowed. | |
Stock tab |
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| Current status and availability | ||
| On Hand | The total quantity you currently have in your warehouse, regardless of whether it is available for use or sale. It includes unallocated as well as allocated stock. You can allocate stock for: Assembly or disassembly. | |
| Initial Valuation | The opening balance in the Stock Asset account for this Item. Only visible on the initial creation of the Item. | |
| On Sales Orders (Allocated) | The quantity of this Item allocated to Sales Orders. | |
| Free Stock | Available for allocation i.e. on hand stock minus allocated stock | |
| On WMS Kits (WMSI) | The quantity of Items assigned to Kits. | |
| Quarantined (WMSI) | Quantity of Items in stock, but not available for allocation or assignment. | |
| Average Cost | The average value of a stock over an accounting period. | |
| On Sales Orders (Not Allocated) | ||
| Shortfall | The qty required to fulfill open orders. | |
| On Purchase Orders | The qty of this Item on Purchase Orders with a Document Status of ‘Open’ or Partially Received. | |
| Stock Status by Site | ||
| Site by site view of the current status and availability of this Item. | ||
| Units of measure relationships | See Using Units of Measure | |
| Stock Units | i.e. Each, Case etc | |
| 1 Purchase Unit = | i.e. 10 | |
| 1 Sales Unit = | i.e 1 | |
| Permit fractional Stock Units | Express the above as floating point numbers e.g. 1.30 | |
| Multi-packs | See Using Multipacks | |
| Multipack name (WMSI) | Enter a descriptive name i.e. Six pack | |
| Barcode (WMSI) | The barcode for the ‘six pack’ | |
| Stock Units (WMSI) | The quantity of SKUs in the pack e.g. 6 | |
| Stock take information | ||
| Location | Info only | |
| Last Stock Take | Info only | |
| Units counted | Info only | |
| Stock Locations by Site | ||
| Site | ||
| Location | ||
| Description | ||
| Pick Order | See WMS documentation | |
| Put Order | See WMS documentation | |
Classification tab |
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| Categories | ||
| Category | A top-level key i.e. Manufacturer | |
| Attributes | ||
| Name | I.e. the product color | |
| Value | I.e. red, amber, green | |
| Auto description | Used by Matrix Items | |
| Class | ||
| Item Class | Classification for the item when it is put on the Line item, and used in the general ledger. | |
Images tab |
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| Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4 | Placeholder for an uploaded images | |
Accounting tab |
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| Income | where the income is posted on the general ledger (profit & loss) | |
| Cost Of Goods Sold (COGS) | where the cost is posted on the general ledger (profit & loss) | |
| Stock Asset | Where the asset value is posted on general ledger (balance sheet) | |
E-commerce tab |
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| Customer Portal | ||
| Available in Portal Cart | Will display this Item in the TAP (Trade Acceleration Portal) | |
| Shopping Cart Information | ||
| Cart Mapping | The cart it’s used on | |
| Utility Fields | ||
| Price Impact | Contact support. | |
Custom fields tab |
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Stock Item: Actions
| Action | Description |
| Retire | The Item will no longer appear in the look-ups. Unchecks the Active box. |
| Show WMS Stock | Show SKU qty and location |
| Find | On Sales Orders (Allocated): List Documents with this Item On Sales Orders (Not Allocated): List Sales Order Documents with this Item where stock is not allocated. On Purchase Orders (Not Received): List PO Documents with this Item that are not yet received. On Purchase Orders (Not Billed): List PO Documents with this Item that are not yet billed. |
| Actions | New Stock Adjustment: See Using Stock Adjustments New Stock Transfer: See Using Stock Transfers Show History: Shows the audit trail of the Item. |
| Delete |