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.
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. Filter first: with no advanced search active it takes the current page only, and even with one it stops at 10,000 rows.
There is no delete button. Items are retired by setting their status, not removed.
Step 1: Put the item in the right categories
Doc Item Maintenance > Items > the item > Item Category tab — not this applet.
Categories are two levels: a category group holds categories, and a category can have a parent. Think department and aisle. The groups and categories themselves are shared between the two item applets and can be maintained from the Category Groups and Categories menus here.
But the categories a price rule reads are the ones on the document item. The till and the sales screens match a Category 1-10 rule against the doc item’s category slots and an Item Category rule against the doc item’s labels; the inventory record is never consulted. So add the earbud to the accessories category on the doc item, where the tab is also called Item Category and offers up to 21 slots. An item with no category there matches no category-based price rule, silently — which is the commonest reason a promotion “does not work”.
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. Leaving an edited cell saves both levels for that row at once — silently, with no message on success or failure, so reopen the tab to confirm.
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
Read these tabs; do not expect to save them. Main shows the code, name, FI Item Code, type and sub-item type, an optional GL Code, the base unit, an abbreviation, the EAN code, the currency and the status — and its Save button never enables, because the form carries a hidden required field that nothing on the screen fills in. Everything on this tab was copied from the doc item once, when the record was created, and is maintained from Doc Item Maintenance or through the API afterwards.
Two of its fields mislead if you take them at face value:
- GL Code here is read by nothing that posts. The journal takes the account from the document line, which the sales and purchase screens copy from the doc item’s GL code, and otherwise from the doc item’s per-company GL code link — never from this field.
- EAN Code here was copied once and is never re-synchronised. When the doc item’s barcode changes, a scan can find the item in one applet and not another; fix the barcode on the doc item and ask support for the scan-code alignment run.
On Dimensions: height, length, width and weight. They feed the Main form and go through the same Save, so they cannot be changed here; they too are copied from the doc item at creation.
On Manage Image: Add uploads nothing and shows no message. Manage images on the doc item.
On Company: Add shows a green Success for half a second and writes nothing. For GadgetSphere, an item sold by both GS and GSO is linked to both from Doc Item Maintenance › Company. Remove on an existing link here does work.
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 doc item’s Item Category tab in Doc Item Maintenance. 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 here, FI Item Code is populated. If it is blank, either the record was created in this applet with no doc item behind it, or a doc item with the same code was created later and linked only from its own side — search Doc Item Maintenance for the code before you create anything.
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 doc item | Category-based price rules never match, with no error | Set it in Doc Item Maintenance › Item Category; the inventory item’s own category tab saves nothing |
| Wrong Type or Sub Item Type | Both are read-only on the item screens after creation | Retire the item and create a replacement — check the type before saving |
| Choosing a currency on Item Edit › Main to clear Please select currency | The message goes; Save still never enables | The Main tab cannot save anything; set the currency through the API if something needs it |
| Editing Main, Dimensions, Company or Manage Image here | Nothing is written — Company even shows Success | Maintain the record from Doc Item Maintenance. From this applet only Multi Uom, Location min/max, the two imports and Process Template write |
| 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 |