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Basic Operations

“Where do I turn on serial number or batch tracking for an item?” On the item’s create screen, in Sub Item Type, before the item’s first save. From that save the screen locks it, and a wrong choice means a new item code. That one answer explains why this section reads in the order it does: an item is decided before it is maintained.

This section is for whoever sets up and maintains items, because items are what every other part of BigLedger reads: a sales order, a purchase invoice, a stock count, a price rule and an e-Invoice line each copy something from the item when they are raised. The example throughout is GadgetSphere’s serialised 14-inch ultraportable laptop, LAP-ULT-1401. Start with the first card and read in order.

Read these in this order

1. Choosing an item type
Type and tracking: the two fields the edit screen locks once you save — start here
2. Creating an item and maintaining the item master
A new item end to end, then tax, e-Invoice classification, units, categories, pricing — and what reaches documents already raised
3. Maintaining items
The inventory side — categories, units, reorder levels, serial tracing
4. Editing an item
Changing one that is already in use

The two things that explain the whole section

1. Every item has two records. The document item is the commercial definition (price, tax, e-Invoice classification, what a document line can pick); the inventory item is the stock-keeping record that balances, serial numbers and costing hang off. Create items in Doc Item Maintenance, which creates and links the inventory record for a Basic Item; if the link is still missing when a document posts, the posting makes it. Maintaining items explains the split.

2. Three fields on an item are locked. The item code (unless the applet setting EDIT_ITEM_CODE is on), the item type and the sub item type lock at the item’s first save, and no permission unlocks the last two. For an item already in use the repair is a new code, which is why the first guide is about deciding, not doing. Editing an item lists what each lock means.

What an item reaches once it exists

Nothing on the item screen posts anything. Each document line takes its own copy of the item when the line is added, so a correction to the item reaches new lines only, never documents already raised: the blast radius runs forward, never back. Editing an item says what each change reaches, and Choosing an item type what a wrong type costs.

An item is never finished alone. A Basic Item is paired with its inventory record (stock), a pricing scheme (price), its tax codes and e-Invoice classification (or an Item Template that supplies them) and its company and branch links (who can pick it). Check each one on the first item of a new kind, and the rest of that kind follows.

Where the rest of your master data lives

These must exist before the first item, because the item reads them. Each is documented with the applet that owns it:

And beside items, not before them:

What success looks like

Open your first new item in Doc Item Maintenance. Under a minute:

  1. Main tab: Inv Item Code is filled in. Blank on a Basic Item means the inventory record has not been linked yet; the first document that moves its stock creates and links one (Stock Management explains).
  2. Item Type and Sub Item Type are greyed out and read what you meant. If either is wrong, this is the cheapest moment to replace the item.
  3. E-Invoice tab: the classification is one somebody chose, not a 022 the tab filled in.

Maintaining the item master adds the check on a draft sales line, and each guide’s Common mistakes names what goes wrong at its step.

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