Maintaining Items

Your item records sit underneath everything else: every sale, every receipt, every stock count and every price rule reads them. This page is about keeping them right after they exist — categories, units, reorder levels, images and the serial-number trail. Creating an item for the first time is covered separately in creating an item.

The thing to understand first: there are two item records

This trips up almost everyone, and once you see it the rest of the applet makes sense.

Every item you trade has two records.

The document item (Doc Item Maintenance) is the commercial record: price, tax code, e-Invoice classification, and whether a document line can pick it at all. Your merchandiser or finance team owns this one.
The inventory item (Inventory Item Maintenance) is the stock-keeping record: the row that stock ledgers, balances, serial numbers, bins and costing layers hang off. Your warehouse or inventory controller owns this one.

They are linked. When somebody creates a Basic Item in Doc Item Maintenance, BigLedger creates the matching inventory record automatically and links the two — which is why the normal way to add an item is from the doc-item side.

An item created directly in the Inventory Item Maintenance applet has no document item. Its FI Item Code field on the Main tab is blank, and it cannot be put on any document — not a sales order, not a purchase invoice — until somebody links a doc item to it from the other side. If you have an item that exists in stock reports but cannot be found when raising an invoice, this is why.

The rest of this page is about the inventory record. For price, tax and e-Invoice classification, go to document item maintenance.

Meet GadgetSphere

GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd carries around 5,200 active SKUs across 22 branches. Today we are tidying up a wireless earbud: it needs the right category so the accessories price rule picks it up, a “box of 20” unit for branch transfers, and reorder levels at the three busiest branches.

Finding the item

Inventory > Inventory Item Maintenance > Items

The listing shows Item Code, Item Name, Type, UOM, Modified Date and Status, newest change first. Quick search matches code or name. The filter icon opens the advanced search — item type, location, modified-date range and status.

Export is more useful than it looks. It exports the current search result together with the minimum and maximum quantity of every location. That is the only bulk read of reorder levels anywhere in the product, so it is how you audit them.

There is no delete button. Items are retired by setting their status, not removed.

Step 1: Put the item in the right categories

Item Edit > Item Category tab

Categories are two levels: a category group holds categories, and a category can have a parent. Think department and aisle.

Add the earbud to the accessories category. This is worth doing carefully rather than quickly, because price-book rules match on an item’s category labels. An item with no category matches no category-based price rule, silently — which is the commonest reason a promotion “does not work”.

Category groups and categories themselves are maintained from the Category Groups and Categories menus in the same applet.

Step 2: Add alternative units of measure

Item Edit > Multi Uom tab

The base unit is set when the item is created and is the unit stock is held in. Alternative units are added here, each with its ratio to the base unit and, if you scan them, its own EAN code.

For the earbud: base unit each, and a box of 20 for inter-branch transfers. Get the ratio right the first time — everything that has ever been counted in that unit depends on it.

Step 3: Set reorder levels per location

Item Edit > Location tab

One row per location, with Min Qty and Max Qty editable directly in the grid, alongside the current stock balance. Set them at GS-KV-01, GS-KV-03 and the fulfilment centre; leave the quiet branches alone.

For a serialised item, selecting a location row lists the serial numbers held there.

For more than a handful of items, use the Min-Max Quantity Import File menu instead: upload a CSV, and the listing shows the processing status with a per-row grid of validation errors. Same pattern as every other import in BigLedger — upload, check the errors, fix, re-upload.

Step 4: Fill in the details that other things read

Item Edit > Main and Dimensions tabs

On Main: the GL code (optional, but it is what posting uses if set), the base unit, an abbreviation, the EAN code, the currency and the status.

Type and Sub Item Type cannot be changed after creation. If an item was set up as the wrong type, it has to be retired and replaced — so check the type before you create, not after. And an item with no currency cannot be saved at all: the screen shows Please select currency and stays put.

On Dimensions: height, length, width and weight — used by shipping and delivery planning.

On Manage Image: item images by category (main, promotion, additional), with an optional campaign date range on promotional images.

On Company: which companies in your group the item belongs to. For GadgetSphere, an item sold by both GS and GSO needs both.

Step 5: Use the tools when something looks wrong

Three screens in this applet exist for the awkward questions:

Trace Serial No — the full movement history of one serial number: every document, location, date, customer or supplier, reference and quantity. This is what you open when a customer brings back a unit and you need to know where it came from. Exact Match compares the whole serial; Keyword Search is a contains-match. Price and amount columns appear only for users who hold the relevant permission.
Stock Card (a tab on the item) — the ledger lines for one location and date range. Where the item’s quantity came from and went to.
Stock Aging Report — on-hand quantity and value per item and location, split into a column pair per month of receipt. This is how you find the stock that has been sitting since March.

What success looks like

Two minutes on the item you just edited:

Open the Location tab. Min and max quantities are set at the branches you intended, and the stock balance column looks plausible against reality.
Open the Item Category tab. The item is in the category your price rule keys on — and, if you have one, raise a test sales line for a qualifying customer and confirm the discount lands.
On the Main tab, FI Item Code is populated. If it is blank, this item cannot be sold or purchased.

Common mistakes

What goes wrong	What you see	The fix
Creating an item in the inventory applet only	It exists in stock reports but cannot be picked on any document; FI Item Code is blank	Create items from Doc Item Maintenance, which makes and links both records
No category on the item	Category-based price rules never match, with no error	Set the category on the Item Category tab
Wrong Type or Sub Item Type	Both are read-only after creation	Retire the item and create a replacement — check the type before saving
Saving without a currency	Please select currency; the item will not save	Set the currency on the Main tab
Editing min/max one item at a time	Hours of clicking	Use Min-Max Quantity Import File; use Export from the listing to audit what is set
A wrong Multi UOM ratio	Quantities look wrong in the unit nobody uses daily, often months later	Get the ratio right at the start; check it before any bulk transfer
Looking for a delete button	There is not one	Set the status instead