Item Master: Units, Categories, Prices, Bulk Tools and Retiring an Item

Steps 4 to 6 of Maintaining the Item Master, and retiring an item: alternative units, categories, prices and where the item is visible, the menus that deal in many items at once, and the status that retires an item. It follows Step 3, the e-Invoice tab.

The running example: LAP-ULT-1401 is sold one at a time at GadgetSphere’s branches and by the carton of five to corporate buyers through GadgetSphere Distribution (GSD).

Get the carton ratio right before the first transaction in that unit. A document line stores the ratio it used, so a ratio corrected later leaves every line already raised at the old one. And bind each category slot to a group in Application Settings before Step 5, or its drop-down shows nothing (Before you start).

1. Step 4: add alternative units.
2. Step 5: categorise it, price it, and say where it lives.
3. Step 6: the five menus that deal in many items at once.
4. Retiring an item: the status that keeps an item for history and stops offering it on new documents.

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. Adding a unit here adds the matching unit to the inventory twin as well.

For LAP-ULT-1401 the carton is CTN with a ratio of 5. The ratio is always in base units, never in the unit on the row above, so a carton of four boxes of five is 20, not 4.

Get it right the first time. A document line stores the unit it was raised in, the ratio it used and the base quantity it worked out, so correcting a ratio later fixes the next line and leaves every carton already bought or sold counted at the old one.

The e-Invoice UOM on a carton row is an option, not a conversion. LHDN always receives the quantity in base units, so a line that picks the carton code for 20 laptops reports 20 cartons. Leave the item’s own code on the line unless you know why not (which unit each line reports).

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

• Item Category tab — the aisles. Price sets match on the numbered Category 1–10 rules on every document and at the till, so an uncategorised item silently misses every category-based promotion. These categories are this applet’s own list; the inventory applet keeps a separate one, so a category missing here may exist only over there. The Label tab matters to price sets at the till only: an Item Category rule matches labels there and never matches on a sales document (which rules match where).
• 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. A line keeps the unit price it was given when it was added, so a price change reaches new lines only (pricing schemes).
• 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. LAP-ULT-1401 needs GS and GSD at least, or the GSD invoice in the worked example could not find it.
• 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

Five entries in the left menu deal in many items at once. Learn what each one does before you need it, because two of them behave differently from the edit screen in ways nothing on them shows:

• Import Item — CSV import of items with their links, pricing and categories. The Doc Item template is an upsert: a row whose code matches a live item updates it — item type and sub item type included, which the edit screen locks — and a file with a few bad rows writes the good ones and still ends FAILED. Treat every re-upload of existing codes as an edit of those items, and read the upload’s Error tab before running it again (what the import does).
• Export Item — CSV export of pricing, per-company GL code links and company, branch and label links. It does not export the item’s own fields. For those, e-Invoice codes included, use the item listing’s Export button: its file uses the column names the Doc Item import reads.
• 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. Used alongside the create screen, a template is the one thing that puts a real classification on the E-Invoice tab instead of the tab’s own 022, so a template per product family — ultraportable laptops, flagship smartphones, wireless audio — is the cheapest guard against Step 3’s mistake.

Retiring an item

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

Delete refuses an item that any document has used. It checks document lines and stock movements for the item and its inventory twin, and stops with Unable to delete item. Existing transactions found. That is the history protecting itself: retire the item into Inactive instead.

Inactive reaches the inventory side in the background, and not always all of it. Saving Inactive here pushes the status across after the save returns. The item’s default inventory record always follows; a second, non-default inventory record follows only if it holds no stock at any location — so an item with stock left on that record vanishes from sales screens and stays on stock reports. Move or adjust the stock out first, then retire (the status push).

What success looks like for this part

The Multi UOM tab shows CTN at a ratio of 5. The Item Category tab is set, the item sits in the pricing schemes it should, and it is linked to GS and GSD, so a draft GSD sales invoice finds it and fills its price from its pricing scheme. Any Doc Item upload you ran had its Error tab read before it was run again. An item you retired reads Inactive and is no longer offered on a new document line, and any stock on a second, non-default inventory record was moved or adjusted out before you retired it. The whole item’s checks are on the front page.

Common mistakes in this part

The rest are on the front page and on The E-Invoice Tab.

Related documentation

• Doc Item Maintenance applet — every menu, tab and field, the reference
• Maintaining items — the inventory twin of this record
• Designing pricing rules — which category rules match where
• Setting up a price book — where categories and pricing schemes are used