Choosing an Item Type
When you create an item in BigLedger you choose its type, and you cannot change it afterwards. Get it right and everything downstream behaves; get it wrong and the only remedy is to retire the item and start again, carrying whatever history it has already accumulated.
This page is five minutes spent before you create your first item, and it will save you a morning later.
Meet GadgetSphere
GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd sells smartphones (serialised), accessories (plain quantity), a screen-protector-plus-case bundle at one price, extended warranties, and gift vouchers. It also charges delivery on larger orders and posts the occasional non-stock cost from a document. That is six different item types on one product list, and each one is a decision.
What the type actually controls
Two things:
- Which tabs appear when you edit the item. A Basic Item has a Stock Card; a Service does not. A Made-to-Order item gets configuration tabs nothing else has.
- How every transactional applet treats a line carrying that item — whether it moves stock at all, whether it expands into child lines, whether it posts to a GL account directly.
The types you will actually use
| If the thing you are selling is… | Use | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A physical product you hold in stock | Basic Item | The default, and the only type with a Stock Card |
| The same product in several variants — colours, sizes, capacities | Grouped Item | A parent that groups child items sharing attributes |
| Several separate products sold together for one price | Bundle | Stock comes out of the child items, not the parent |
| Labour, a fee, anything not held in stock | Service | No inventory tracking on the line |
| A shipping or delivery charge | Delivery Charge | Gets its own configuration tab |
| A non-stock cost you want to post straight to an account | Account Code | The item is a GL account; give it the GL code |
| A gift voucher | Voucher | Records voucher stock in and out, and shows up in Voucher Management |
| An extended warranty sold against products | Warranty | Sold against eligible categories, items or pricing bands |
| A membership plan | Membership | Carries attributes, a dues schedule and expiry |
| Something assembled to the customer’s specification | Made to Order | Enables the configuration and add-on tabs |
| A downloadable or electronically delivered product | Digital Goods | Non-physical |
| A company asset you are tracking | Fixed Asset Register | Carries an asset category and type |
| A contract-based sale | Sales Contract | Links to a sales contract template |
| A trade-in with no stock behind it | NSTI | Non-stock trade-in |
There are a handful more — group discounts, currency, aliases, member-point discounts and external catalogue items — used by POS promotions, multi-currency working and marketplace catalogues. You will meet them if you need them.
Bundle or Grouped Item? The one people get wrong
They sound similar and behave completely differently.
- Grouped Item is one product in several variants. A phone in black, blue and green. The parent exists so the catalogue has one entry; the child items are what get sold and stocked.
- Bundle is several different products sold as one thing. The screen protector plus the case at a single price. When a bundle sells, stock comes out of the children, not the parent — which is exactly what you want, and also why the parent’s stock report will always read zero.
If the answer to “is this the same product or different products?” is the same product, it is a Grouped Item.
Step 2: Choose the sub item type
Only for Basic Items (and aliases). This decides how quantity is tracked.
| Sub item type | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Basic Quantity | You just count units. Accessories, cables, most things |
| Serial Number | Every single unit has its own identity — one serial per unit. Smartphones, laptops |
| Batch Number | Units are identical within a batch, and the batch matters — expiry dates, recalls |
| Bin Number | Quantity is tracked by physical container or bin |
| Unity | Single-unit items |
Choose Serial Number only if you mean it. Every movement of a serialised item — every receipt, sale, transfer and count — has to name the serials, and your company may refuse to finalise a document whose serial allocation does not match the line quantity. It is the right choice for a RM 4,000 phone and the wrong one for a RM 12 cable.
Like the item type, the sub item type is normally fixed after creation — it can only be changed if your company has granted a specific permission.
Step 3: Check yourself before you save
Before clicking Create, three questions:
- Is the type right? It cannot be changed.
- Is the code right? Also normally immutable, and it is what everybody will search by for the next ten years.
- For a Basic Item, is the sub item type right? Serialising later is not a setting change; it is a new item.
Then fill in the rest — name, base unit, currency, tax codes, e-Invoice classification — as described in maintaining the item master.
What success looks like
Two minutes on the item you just created:
- Open it for editing. The tabs you expect for that type are present — a Stock Card on a Basic Item, configuration tabs on a Made-to-Order item, nothing stock-related on a Service.
- Add it to a draft sales invoice line. A bundle expands into its children; a serialised item asks for serials; a service takes a quantity and no stock.
- On the Main tab, Inv Item Code is populated for anything stock-tracked.
Discard the draft.
Common mistakes
| What goes wrong | What you see | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong item type chosen | It cannot be changed | Retire the item, create a replacement. Decide before you save |
| Grouped Item used where a Bundle was meant | Stock does not come out of the components when it sells | A bundle deducts from its children; a grouped item groups variants of one product |
| Everything serialised “to be safe” | Every receipt, sale, transfer and count now needs serial entry | Serialise what genuinely has unit identity and nothing else |
| A Service item expected to appear in stock reports | It never does | Services have no inventory tracking; that is the point of the type |
| A bundle parent showing zero stock | Looks like a data problem | Correct — stock sits on the children |
| An Account Code item with no GL code | Documents will not post | Set the GL code on the Main tab; for this type it is required in practice |
| A type missing from the dropdown | Looks like it does not exist | An administrator has restricted the available types |