Editing an Item
Editing an item that nobody has used yet is easy. Editing one that is on three years of invoices is a different job, and that is what this page is about: what you can change, what you cannot, what a change quietly affects, and how to retire something without breaking history.
Meet GadgetSphere
GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd is discontinuing a smartphone model, repricing a range of accessories, and has just discovered that one item has carried the wrong tax code since March. Three edits, three different levels of care.
What you cannot change, ever
| Field | Status |
|---|---|
| Item Code | Locked after save, unless your company has specifically enabled editing it |
| Item Type | Locked. No exceptions |
| Sub Item Type (quantity tracking) | Locked, unless your company has granted the permission |
| Inv Item Code | Read-only — it is the link to the inventory record |
If one of these is wrong, the item cannot be fixed. It has to be set to Obsolete and replaced. See Retiring an item below, and do the replacement properly rather than living with the wrong one.
What you can change freely
Item name, description, remarks, abbreviation, alias, EAN code, product manager, default supplier, comments, and the delivery and production checkboxes. These are labels. Change them whenever they are wrong.
What you can change, but should think about first
These four ripple outwards.
Tax codes. Changing the output tax code changes what is charged on every document raised from now on. It does not touch documents already posted. So if an item has carried the wrong code since March, fixing the item is only half the job — the posted documents need their own correction, and that is a conversation with your accountant, not a field edit.
The e-Invoice classification. Same shape: it travels on every line submitted after the change, and does nothing to what has already gone to LHDN.
Categories. Price-book rules match on an item’s categories. Move an item between categories and you move it into and out of every promotion keyed on them — usually silently, and usually noticed at the till.
Pricing scheme prices. The new price applies to lines added after the change. Documents already raised keep the price they were raised at, which is correct and occasionally surprising.
Multi UOM ratios. Change one and every quantity ever recorded in that unit now means something different. Treat a wrong ratio as a data problem to investigate, not a field to correct.
Changing many items at once
Editing one item at a time is fine for three and a mistake for three hundred.
- Export Item → edit the CSV → Import Item. The safe pattern for any bulk change: you can see what you are changing before you change it, and you have the before state on disk.
- Item Price Change for a bulk price move.
- Entity Pricing Import for customer-specific prices.
- Item Image File Import for images.
- On the inventory side, Min-Max Quantity Import File for reorder levels across locations — and the Export button on the item listing, which is the only bulk read of min and max levels anywhere in the product.
Retiring an item
Items are not really deleted. Their status is what you change:
| Status | What it means | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Selectable on new documents | It is on sale |
| Inactive | Kept for history, not offered on new documents | You have stopped selling it but may again |
| Obsolete | Discontinued | It is gone for good |
There is no delete button on the inventory item listing or edit screen. On the doc-item side a delete is a soft delete, which frees the code for reuse — which is exactly what you do not want for an item with history, because a future reader will find two different products sharing one code.
For anything that has ever been on a document, use Inactive or Obsolete. Reports, audits and warranty lookups all depend on the record still being there.
Before you retire an item, check three things: no open sales or purchase orders reference it; it is not a child of a live bundle or grouped item; and it is not named in a live price set.
What success looks like
Two minutes after any edit:
- Raise a draft document line for the item. It behaves the way your change intended — the new price, the new tax, the new category’s discount.
- Open a posted document from before the change. It is unchanged, which is correct.
- For a retirement: search for the item when raising a new document. It is not offered — and it is still visible on the old documents that used it.
Discard the drafts.
Common mistakes
| What goes wrong | What you see | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Fixing a tax code and assuming it is done | Posted documents still carry the old tax | Correct the item and the posted documents, with your accountant |
| Deleting an item with history | Documents lose their reference; the code becomes reusable | Set Inactive or Obsolete |
| Changing a Multi UOM ratio to “fix” a quantity | Every past quantity in that unit now means something else | Investigate the data; do not re-base the unit |
| Moving an item between categories casually | It leaves or joins promotions silently | Check which price sets key on those categories first |
| Editing three hundred items by hand | Days of work and typos | Export, edit, re-import |
| Retiring an item that is a bundle child | The bundle stops working | Check bundle and grouped-item membership first |
| Trying to correct an item type | It cannot be changed | Obsolete and replace |