Item Types: Bundle or Grouped Item — the Back-to-School Pack Set Up Both Ways
Part of Choosing an Item Type: the choice between a Bundle and a Grouped Item, which look alike on the item screen and behave differently on every invoice. It follows the types you will actually use.
The running example: for the school holidays GadgetSphere wants a back-to-school pack — an ultraportable laptop, a sleeve and a wireless mouse at one price.
Decide before you save: the edit screen will not let you change the item type afterwards, and the usual remedy for a wrong one is a new item code.
- Bundle or Grouped Item?: the one question that decides it.
- The back-to-school pack, set up both ways: what each does on one sales invoice, and the three things to set up with a bundle.
Bundle or Grouped Item? The one people get wrong
They share a parent-and-children table on the item record, and almost nothing else.
- 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 variants are what get sold and stocked, each on its own line.
- Bundle is several different products sold as one thing, at the bundle’s own price. When a bundle sells, stock comes out of the parts, not the pack — which is why the pack itself never shows a stock balance.
If the answer to “is this the same product or different products?” is the same product, it is a Grouped Item. If the customer is buying a pack at a pack price, it is a Bundle.
GadgetSphere’s back-to-school pack, set up both ways
Sold separately at GS-KV-01, the laptop is RM 3,099, the sleeve RM 129 and the mouse RM 99 — RM 3,327 together. The pack is meant to sell at RM 3,199. The moving-average costs on the day are RM 2,540, RM 41 and RM 33. All figures are before tax.
| On one sales invoice for one pack | As a Bundle (BTS-PACK) | As a Grouped Item |
|---|---|---|
| What you add | One line, BTS-PACK, 1 × RM 3,199. Until you finalise, it opens onto its three parts | Pick the grouped item, enter 1 against each of the three in its Grouped Item tab, and Add puts three ordinary lines |
| Invoice total | RM 3,199 | RM 3,327 — the pack price exists nowhere. Somebody has to take RM 128 off by hand, every time |
| The laptop’s serial | Chosen against the laptop inside the pack line | Chosen on the laptop’s own line |
| Stock at FINAL | One laptop, one sleeve, one mouse leave GS-KV-01 — through three part lines BigLedger adds under the pack, carrying quantity and RM 0 | The same three leave, through the three lines already there |
| Cost written back | RM 2,540, RM 41 and RM 33 on the part lines; none on the pack line | The same three costs, each on the line that also carries its revenue |
| Sales journal | RM 3,199 on one line, to the account the pack item resolves to | Three amounts, each to its own item’s account |
| Margin read line by line | Revenue on one line, cost on three others — read it by document | Each line carries both |
So the Bundle is right for GadgetSphere: the pack is the offer. The Grouped Item would be right for the laptop itself if it came in three colours.
Three things to set up with the bundle, because the invoice never shows them:
- Give every part the Basic Item type. The finalise check counts only Basic Item parts at the line’s location, and a sales invoice builds the pack’s part list from its active Basic Item parts only. A warranty added as a part does not reach the invoice.
- Leave Follow Child Pricing off on a pack whose price is a deal. A pack price row that follows its parts is re-summed whenever a part is repriced in that pricing scheme, so the next laptop price change would quietly reset
BTS-PACKto the parts’ total. See setting up pricing schemes. - Set the pack’s e-Invoice classification carefully. The part lines BigLedger adds copy the pack line’s e-Invoice classification, unit and tax type, not their own.
When the pack will not go final, the message names BTS-PACK and never the part that ran out — bundles and grouped items shows the arithmetic and how to find the part.
What success looks like for this part
BTS-PACK is a Bundle whose every part is an active Basic Item. On a draft sales invoice it adds one line at RM 3,199 that opens onto its three parts; its price row has Follow Child Pricing off; and its e-Invoice classification is the one you mean its parts to be reported under. After its first real sale, the finalised invoice shows the three parts under the pack line, each with a quantity and no money.
Common mistakes in this part
| What goes wrong | What you see | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Grouped Item used where a Bundle was meant | The pack sells at the sum of its parts, and the discount has to be given by hand | A bundle has its own price and sells as one line; a grouped item groups variants of one product |
| A bundle showing zero stock | Looks like a data problem | Correct — stock sits on the parts. Check the parts at the document’s location |
| A margin report showing a bundle at 100% margin and its parts at a loss | The pack line carries the revenue; its part lines carry the cost and RM 0 | Read the margin by document, not by line |
| A pack price that changed by itself | A part was repriced and the pack followed it | Follow Child Pricing is ticked on the pack’s price row. Untick it on a pack whose price is a deal |
| A part missing from the pack on an invoice | The part is not a Basic Item, or not active | Give every part the Basic Item type |
The rest are on the front page and on Tracking and the Final Check.
Related documentation
- Bundles and grouped items — bundle availability, the finalise check, and what the unwrap writes
- Setting up pricing schemes — pack prices, and the price row that follows its parts
- Costing internals — the cost written onto each line, and cost of sales at month end
- Item Types: Tracking and the Final Check — Steps 2 and 3