Maintaining the Item Master

This is the record every document line in BigLedger points at. Get it right once and sales, purchasing, POS, e-commerce and e-Invoice all behave; get one field wrong and the failure surfaces weeks later in somebody else’s screen. This page is about maintaining that record — what each part of it feeds, and which fields you cannot change afterwards.

The two records, again

Every tradeable item has two: the document item here — the commercial definition — and the inventory item in Inventory Item Maintenance, which is the stock-keeping record that ledgers, serial numbers and costing layers hang off.

Create items here. When you create a Basic Item, BigLedger creates the matching inventory record and links the two for you. Creating one on the inventory side leaves it unlinked and unusable on documents.

Meet GadgetSphere

GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd carries about 5,200 SKUs across three companies and 22 branches, sells online as well as in store, and issues Malaysian e-Invoices on every sale. Today we are setting up a new flagship smartphone properly, first time.

Before you start

• Your tax codes exist in the Tax Configuration applet.
• Your GL codes exist in the Chart of Account applet, if items in this category carry one.
• Your categories and category groups exist, or you are ready to create them.
• You know the item’s type. The edit screen locks it after save.

Step 1: Create the item, and get the locked fields right

Doc Item Maintenance > Items > Create

The fields that matter most on this screen are the ones you cannot take back. The item is TEMP until its first save, and that save is the line:

• Item Type and Sub Item Type (quantity tracking) can be changed only while the item is TEMP. After the first save the screen locks both and the save ignores any change to them, and no permission unlocks them.
• Item Code locks the same way, unless the applet setting EDIT_ITEM_CODE is switched on — one switch for the whole tenant, not per company or per user. Even then, a changed code does not follow the item into history: every document line stores its own copy of the code, so lines raised before the change still show the old one.
• Item Name, description and remarks stay editable for as long as the item exists.

So slow down on the first three. An item created with the wrong type has to be made obsolete and replaced — unless nothing has used it yet, when a Doc Item import of the same code can rewrite the type. The import checks nothing, and it rewrites the rest of the row too.

Also set:

• Base UOM — the unit stock is counted in. Defaults to PCS. Alternative units come later.
• Currency — defaults to MYR.
• Inventory — leave it ticked for anything stock-tracked. Un-ticking it also disables the serialised option.
• GL Code — optional in general, but required in practice for account-code items.
• EAN Code — the barcode. Your company may make this mandatory.

Codes must be unique among live items. A duplicate is refused. A code belonging to a deleted item can be reused.

Step 2: Set the tax codes

Item Edit > Tax tab

Tick Tax applicable, then set the input tax code (what you pay when you buy it) and the output tax code (what you charge when you sell it). The rate comes from the code — you do not type it. Withholding-tax codes have their own fields on the same tab.

Getting this wrong is expensive and quiet: the item posts to the wrong tax account on every document until somebody notices at a filing deadline.

Step 3: Fill in the e-Invoice tab — before the item is ever sold

Item Edit > E-Invoice tab

Three fields, all needed for a Malaysian e-Invoice submission:

• Item Classification — the LHDN classification code, chosen from the Classifications list. That list is not a live copy of LHDN’s: a scheduled clock (where your tenant has it) refreshes the wording of the codes already there, and never adds one — a code LHDN introduces is added by hand on Classifications > Create.
• Taxable Type Code — the LHDN tax type. Set it, but do not rely on it: unless the line ends up with a non-zero tax amount and a code other than 06, what you chose here is replaced at submission by a value worked out from the line’s tax amount. See what LHDN is actually told.
• E-Invoice UOM — the LHDN unit-of-measure code, which is not the same vocabulary as your base UOM.

There is no tenant default to fall back on. The tenant settings that look like one were disconnected in November 2025 and are read by nothing — every line that consumed them is commented out, and no backend code has ever read them. What does reach these fields is an Item Template default, an item category’s e-Invoice defaults, and the tab’s own hard-coded 022 Others on a blank classification. Fill them in.

Step 4: Add alternative units

Item Edit > Multi UOM tab

Each alternative unit takes a UOM, a ratio to the base unit, a status, an optional sort code (order them smallest first — 001 upward), its own EAN code if you scan it, and its own e-Invoice UOM.

A box of 20 has a ratio of 20. Get it right the first time; everything ever counted in that unit depends on it.

Step 5: Categorise it, price it, and say where it lives

• Category and Label tabs — the aisles. Price-book rules match on these, so an uncategorised item silently misses every category-based promotion.
• Pricing Scheme tab — the price lists this item appears in. Schemes themselves are maintained under the Pricing Schemes menu; the prices are entered per item.
• Entity Pricing tab — a price agreed with one supplier for this item, with its order quantity bands and lead time; replenishment reads it when it raises a purchase order. For many at once, use the Entity Pricing Import. The tab also accepts a sales price per customer, but nothing on the selling side reads that half — to price one customer differently, use a price book price set on that customer’s category.
• Branch and company linking — which of GadgetSphere’s three companies and 22 branches can use this item.
• Dimension tab — height, length, width, weight, for shipping and delivery planning.
• Marketplace tab — the marketplace listings this item is tied to.

Step 6: When it is not one item but two thousand

Four bulk tools sit in the left menu, and they are worth learning before you need them:

• Import Item — CSV import of items with their links, pricing and categories.
• Export Item — CSV export of pricing, GL codes and company, branch and label links. Export first, edit, re-import: that is the safe way to do a bulk change.
• Item Price Change — a read-only report of recorded price changes, old value beside new (see why a price changed). It changes nothing.
• Item Image File Import — bulk image upload.
• Item Templates — templates that pre-fill new items, for when you add the same shape of product repeatedly.

Retiring an item

Items are not really deleted; their status is what you change:

Use Inactive or Obsolete for anything that has ever been on a document. History depends on the record still existing.

What success looks like

Three checks on the item you just created, two minutes:

1. Raise a draft sales invoice line for it. The item is findable, the price fills in from its pricing scheme, and the tax is calculated.
2. On the item’s Main tab, Inv Item Code is populated — the inventory twin exists and is linked.
3. On the E-Invoice tab, the classification and UOM are the ones you chose — not 022 Others pre-filled by the tab. The taxable type is worth checking here too, but it is not the field that decides what LHDN is told: submit one line and read the taxable type on the submitted record instead.

If all three pass, the item will not surprise anyone downstream.

Common mistakes

Related documentation