Items
The item catalog registers the products your company buys, sells, manufactures or keeps in stock. Each item stores its prices, costs, units of measure, taxes, GL accounts and traceability controls, and from its card you can review its inventory movements, its costs and even a forecast of its future demand.
What is it and what is it for?
Each item is a master record that the rest of the system reuses: when you create a quote, an invoice, a purchase order or a production, the document automatically takes the item's price, unit of measure, taxes and GL accounts. Keeping the catalog complete and up to date prevents errors on every document and makes your inventory reports reliable.
This screen manages inventory items (physical products). Services and kits (bundles of items sold together) are managed on their own screens, although they share the same catalog.
A single item can play several roles at once by checking the corresponding boxes on its card: Sales item, Purchase item (both enabled by default when creating), Finished product and Raw material (with the Manufacturing module), Spare part (with the Maintenance module) and Non-inventory item (items that carry no stock control and post directly to an expense account, if your company has the feature enabled).
Screens in this area
| Screen | What it does |
|---|---|
| Item list | Lists the catalog with quick links to show only Active, Sales products, Purchase products, Finished products, Raw materials, Spare parts, Inactive or All, plus filters by item, class (including its subclasses), family and brand. You can customize the visible columns (image, SKU, barcode, references, tax schedules and more) and save your setup. From here you create, delete and open the Summarized and With vendor detail reports. |
| Create / Edit | The item card form, with sections for general data, Prices, Locations (with reorder levels), Vendors, barcodes, subsidiaries, photos and linked files. It lets you duplicate an existing item to start from its data, customize the form, create custom fields and, if your company has the features enabled, fill in the card with Smart Paste (artificial intelligence) from copied text or an image (a screenshot or a photo), whose text is read automatically, or generate the web-store description with AI. When generating the description you can type an Additional context with information you want the AI to take into account (for example: material, measurements, target audience or the commercial tone you want). |
| Details | The same card in read-only mode, with the history of activities and changes. Costs are only shown if you have the "Item costs" permission. |
| Item dashboard | A 360° view of an item: its image, stock by location, pending receptions (purchase orders), pending dispatches (sales orders), its sales with a chart, and its related quotes and orders. |
| Inline editing | A grid to quickly fix the SKU and name of several items without opening each card. Requires the edit level of the items permission. |
| Movements | The item's stock ledger: inputs, outputs and running stock document by document, with filters by date range, location, document type and subsidiary, and export to Excel or CSV. The detailed version adds columns and filters by lot, serial number, bin, customs declaration and attributes, depending on your plan. |
| Cost analysis | The movements with their unit cost, extended cost, accumulated warehouse cost and average cost, according to your company's costing method. The detailed version breaks down by lot, serial, customs declaration and attributes. Requires the "Item costs" permission. |
| Demand analysis | A 12-month demand forecast for the item generated with artificial intelligence from its sales of the last 3 years, comparing two prediction models. Available with the Demand Planning module. |
How to create an item step by step
- Open the list and click New. You need the "add" level of the items permission; if you don't see the button, ask your administrator for access.
- Enter the name and the SKU. The name is required. If your company has automatic numbering for items, the SKU is assigned automatically; otherwise enter a unique code.
- Define the units of measure. Choose the conversion table (UOM plan) and the report, purchase and sales units; all three are required and must belong to the chosen table. If you only have one unit, the system proposes it automatically.
- Classify it and assign taxes. Class, family and brand are used to filter and group in reports. The system proposes your company's default tax schedule for both sales and purchases; adjust them if the item is taxed differently.
- Register the prices. On the Prices tab add one line per price level, currency and unit, with its price and an optional discount.
- Set up traceability if it applies. Check Serialized, Requires lots, Requires bins or Requires customs declarations depending on how you control the item. Decide this before registering movements: once it has history you can no longer change it.
- Complete locations and vendors. Per location you can define a reorder level, reorder quantity and lead-time days; per vendor, their reference, currency, price and which one is the default.
- Save. After saving you can open its dashboard, review its movements or use it right away on sales and purchase documents.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Name | Identifies the item in searches and documents. It is required, and can be complemented with alternate, sales and purchase descriptions. |
| SKU | The item's short, unique code. It can be generated automatically if you configure numbering; in that case only an administrator can change it later. |
| Conversion table and units | The conversion table (UOM plan) and the report, purchase and sales units. Required; they determine how quantities convert between boxes, units, etc. |
| Class / Family / Brand | Classify the item for filters, reports and sales analysis. |
| Prices | One line per price level, currency and unit, with an optional discount. These are the prices proposed on sales documents. |
| Tax schedules | One for sales and one for purchases; they determine the taxes calculated on documents. |
| GL accounts | Sales, cost of sales, inventory, discounts, returns and adjustments. If left empty, the company or class defaults are used. |
| Item roles | Sales, purchase, finished product, raw material, spare part: they control on which documents the item can be used. |
| Serialized / Requires lots / Requires bins / Customs declarations | Enable control by serial number, lot, bin or customs declaration on every movement. Available depending on your plan. |
| Barcode | To scan the item in sales, purchases and inventory counts. It cannot be repeated across items. |
| Locations | Reorder level, reorder quantity and lead-time days per location: they feed the purchase recommendations. |
| Vendors | Who the item is bought from, with their reference, currency and price; one is marked as the default. |
| Non-inventory item | The item carries no stock or inventory cost; it posts to an expense account. A feature enabled per company. |
| Web store | Commercial description, image and visibility on the online store and the customer portal, if your plan includes the web store. |
| Subsidiaries | If your plan handles subsidiaries, controls in which of them the item is available. |
| Inactive | Hides the item from searches without deleting its history. |
| Custom fields | Additional fields defined by your company; they can be marked as required on custom forms. |
Validations when saving
- Name required and within the maximum allowed length.
- Unique SKU. It cannot repeat another item's code; if it is missing and there is no automatic numbering, the system requires it.
- Conversion table and report, purchase and sales units required, and all three units must belong to the chosen table. If you change the table on an item with movements, the units already used must exist in the new one.
- Consistent GL accounts: they must exist and their currency must match the company's. The expense account is only allowed on non-inventory items.
- Traceability locked once there is history: on an item with movements you cannot change serialized, lots, bins, customs declarations, attributes or the non-inventory condition.
- Consistent non-inventory setup: it cannot require lots or be serialized, nor have cost-of-sales or adjustment accounts.
- No duplicate barcodes across items and no empty barcode lines.
- Only one default vendor; if you register a single one, it is marked automatically.
- Web-store requirements: to publish on the store, the item must be a sales item and have a family, a brand with an image, a price in the store's currency and price level, and an image.
- Required custom-form fields completed, if your company defined any.
- Attached-files limit according to the contracted edition (plan).
Availability, permissions and conditions
- Access is controlled with the "Items and Services" permission of the user group, with separate levels for browsing, adding, editing and deleting.
- Viewing costs (on the card, the movements and the cost analysis) additionally requires the "Item costs" permission; without it, the cost analysis does not open.
- The Finished product and Raw material checkboxes appear with the Manufacturing module; Spare part, with the Maintenance module.
- The lot, serial, bin, customs-declaration and attribute controls depend on your plan including each capability; they also add columns to the detailed movements and cost analyses.
- The Demand analysis and the "Include in demand planning generation" field require the Demand Planning module.
- In the cost analysis, if your company costs by average per location, FIFO or LIFO, you must choose a location; with general average costing no location filter is allowed.
- Smart Paste (AI-assisted fill-in) and non-inventory items are features enabled per company.
- With subsidiaries enabled, items can be limited to specific subsidiaries and the lists are filtered by the active subsidiary.
- Additional fields such as color, model, division, barcode types, dimensions or reception/dispatch instructions appear depending on your plan's capabilities.
Tips and common mistakes
Define traceability before the first movement. Once the item has transactions, you can no longer enable or disable control by serial numbers, lots, bins or customs declarations. If you made a mistake, create a new correctly configured item and mark the old one as inactive.
You will not be able to delete an item with history. If the item appears on documents, budgets, bills of materials, kits, projects or fixed assets, the system blocks the deletion to protect your information. Mark it as inactive instead.
Use the Item dashboard before buying or promising deliveries. On a single screen you see its stock by location, what is on its way in (purchase orders) and what is committed (sales orders), along with its sales history.
Set reorder levels per location. With the reorder level, quantity and lead-time days, the system can recommend what to buy before you run out of stock.
Need to fix many names or codes? Use Inline editing to adjust the SKU and name of several items in a row without opening each card.