Item Families
An Item Family is a simple category you assign to your Items, Services and Kits to group and filter them on the item list, on most of your inventory and sales reports, and on planning screens such as Reorder Level, Demand Planning and Sales Budgets. Unlike Item Classes (Business Lines), a Family does not build a hierarchy or link to ledger accounts — it's just an operational grouping catalog.
What is it and what is it for?
The Item Families catalog is a simple list of names that you later select on each Item, Service or Kit, in its Family field. Once assigned, AdmCloud uses it in several places without any extra work on your part:
- Filter the Items list by family.
- Group and filter most inventory and sales reports (Stock, Availability, Inventory Rotation, Stock Movement, Sales by Item, Items to Order, and more) by family.
- Configure and filter Reorder Level by item family.
- Batch-generate Demand Planning and Sales Budget entries for every item in a family at once.
- Filter Price Lists by family.
- If your company has a Web Store active, group that family's items in the public catalog and show a representative image for the family.
The Families screen itself only manages that catalog (create, browse, edit, delete); assigning the family to each product is done from the Item's, Service's or Kit's own record.
How to use it
- Open the Item Families list and click New Family.
- Type the family's Name (required and must be unique).
- If your company has a Web Store active, select the Web Store this family belongs to and upload its Image; it will show in the public catalog next to that family's items.
- Add optional Notes if you need to document anything extra.
- Click Save. The family is immediately available on the Family field of Items, Services and Kits, and on the reports and planning screens that use it as a filter.
- To review it, click its name from the list (opens read-only); to change it, use Edit.
Main capabilities
- Dropdown family selector available on the Item, Service and Kit form.
- Filter by family on the Items list and on most inventory and sales reports.
- Filter and batch generation by family on Reorder Level, Demand Planning, Sales Budgets and Price Lists.
- Image and Web Store link for the family, shown in your eCommerce public catalog, when the Web Store feature is active.
- Also available through the REST API (browse, create, edit and delete) for external integrations.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the family. Required, must be unique, and has a maximum of 200 characters. |
| Web Store | The web store the family belongs to. Only shown if your company has the Web Store (eCommerce) feature active. |
| Web Store Image | The family's image, shown in the public catalog. Only shown together with the Web Store field. |
| Notes | Optional free text to document extra details about the family. |
Validations when saving
- Name is required and has a maximum of 200 characters.
- Name cannot be duplicated: if a family with that same name already exists, AdmCloud rejects the record.
Deleting a family
You can only delete a Family if no Item, Service or Kit has it assigned. If it's already in use, AdmCloud rejects the deletion and lists the SKU of every item using it, so you can assign them another family or clear it first.
Availability, permissions and conditions
- The Families catalog is included from the Basic plan onward (not available on the Billing or Start plans). On the Enterprise edition, it requires your company to have the Inventory module active; otherwise the screen shows a "not available on this edition" message.
- The Web Store and Web Store Image fields are only shown when your company has the Web Store feature active (a plan with eCommerce, or the eCommerce module on the Enterprise edition).
- Access to this screen is controlled with the "Item Families" permission of the user group, with separate levels for browsing, adding, editing and deleting.
Tips and common mistakes
Set up your families before loading your item catalog, so you can assign them right away and immediately take advantage of the report filters and inventory-planning screens that use them.
Don't confuse Family with Item Class (Business Line) or Brand: the Family is just a simple grouping for reports and inventory planning; the Item Class builds hierarchies and links to ledger accounts to automate accounting; and the Brand identifies the product's manufacturer. These are three independent catalogs you can freely combine on an Item's record.