Parameter Settings > Inventory Tab

Inventory parameters are used to set a number of preferences regarding inventory.

Stock Valuation Display

These radio buttons selecting the cost to use for display of monthly stock valuation records for items. Choices include either WAVG (weighted average) or Market cost. Stock valuation records maintained for items record both the average and current market cost when they are created. The current market cost is a manually set cost unless the "Set Market Cost with Last Receipt Change" (see below) is also set (in that case, current market is updated by every receipt). This parameter, if checked, only alters the display of costs in the Item Maintenance and Inquiry forms where stock valuation is being displayed.

Set Market Cost with Last Receipt Change

When checked, this option causes the "market cost" for items to be modified each time the "last receipt" cost is updated. When this option is not enabled, market cost is a manually set cost which is intended to be used as a comparison cost reflecting the current market value of the item. If this option is enabled, previously entered market costs are retained but only until the next change in "last receipt" cost for the item. From that point forward, both costs are updated and will match unless the market cost is modified in between receipts by a user.

Include Adjustments

Check the "Include Adjustments" if adjustments (freight, etc.) should be included when updating the market cost when the last receipt is changed. Last Receipt will not include adjustments even if this parameter is checked. Weighted Average cost always includes adjustments regardless of this parameter setting. Caution: If this parameter is selected (checked), the software will assume that the "Set Market Cost with Last Receipt Change" is also being used. Due to this, market cost will be updated when last receipt changes (even if that parameter has not been selected)!

Update Last Receipt Cost on Transfers

Transfers of inventory do not default to update the "last receipt" cost for items in the receiving branch's inventory file. Whether or not your company chooses to enable this option depends on the primary reasons for transfers. In the case of a "warehouse" branch (central purchasing location), it's probably best to update the last receipt cost after transfers to keep branch costs up-to-date, for example.

Last receipt cost will only be updated by transfers if this parameter is checked. The cost used for transfers is always the weighted average cost. This parameter just determines whether a transfer updates the item's "last receipt" cost for transfers as well as regular receipts.

In addition to the last receipt cost, the "last receipt date" is also updated by transfers, but only if this parameter is enabled (checked).

Physical Inventory by Location Code

If enabled (checked), this parameter replaces the default Group/Section column in the Enter Counts item grid with a Location column. By doing this, the grid can then be sorted based upon location code instead. To perform a permanent sort, a column matching the sort must exist in the grid.

Material List Detail Printing

If checked, this determines whether or not parent entry's "print details" is used when determining whether any linked children records are automatically suppressed. For example, you might have one or more embedded material lists within another list. If the parent list does not "print details" but another list linked to that parent is set to print details (true), the parameter (if checked) would override the parent's setting and print those details anyhow; otherwise, the parent's "print details" setting is applied to any subsequent lists or details linked to it.

Enable Unit Item Tracking

This enables the Unit Item Tracking feature. This replaces the "unit tracking" (wholesale) feature introduced with release 11 (2016). For more information, please see the Unit Tally topic found under the Special Topics, Tally Items section.

Custom Item Flags > Enable Custom Flags / Flag Heading

If this check box is selected, the characters entered in the Flag Heading field will print on cash receipts, invoices, customer orders and quotes. You can use this field to address local laws which may dictate a receipt-level identification for hazardous materials. Another use for this field is to flag certain types of items for any purpose your company chooses; for example non-returnable items, final sales, US-origin, etc.

Unit Item Tally user defined fields

With the unit item tally feature, you can enter up to three user-defined text areas for unit tally item tracking. This allows additional information about the unit to be entered when the unit is received. There is also an additional field for comments.

Label Preview Item

The item to use when generating a label preview document in the label Design feature available from Tags & Labels.

Label Preview Printer

When generating a preview document, a valid printer must be accessible to process the document for viewing. You must select an accessible printer for use of the preview feature available from the label designer.

Import from Catalog - Default Template Item

If the "Import from Catalog" feature is enabled for a branch location, this item will be used as the default template when creating inventory items from the catalog.

Enable Qty Adjustments via Item Maintenance

Select this check box to enable authorized users to adjust item quantities from the Item Maintenance form.

Default GL Mapping for Qty Adjustments

Select the default GL account for item quantity adjustments in the Item Maintenance form. This selection is not required when the Enable Qty Adjustments via Item Maintenance check box is enabled.

Price Levels

This area gives you a way to establish up to seven pricing levels that your company will use for item costs. Each price level to be used must be assigned a text description and default value. Price levels that are not completed won't be available. The store retail is the only mandatory level. Once inventory pricing is established, a default price level can be assigned to accounts. Price levels can be based upon discounts off suggested list, markup or margins using various costs, set (or fixed) pricing, and discounts off the store retail (the first level).

"Grid Name" is a shortened version of the level's full name used for grid display (pricing selection from a grid area). There is less room in the drop down selection panel for text descriptions, so shorter names are suggested for this purpose if needed. The "%/Amt" column is used for specifying either a percentage (used for discounts, markups, and margins) or an amount (used for the fixed price only).

ABC Percent Rankings

An "ABC" report lists items based on and sorted by sales totals. Percentages are used to determine where the report stops to print totals. This could be used, for example, to produce sales totals for the items making up the top 10% of inventory, next 30%, and remaining 60%. A scheduled service runs monthly that classifies or ranks all inventory based upon sales. The ABC report is provided so that users can analyze their items using these rankings.

Users define the percentages for A, B, and C breaks. The three percentages must add up to 100%. Items ranked as A are the top percentage of your company's inventory, C is the lowest percentage, and B is the percentage of inventory between A and C.

All inventory is ranked, regardless of whether the items have been sold or not. Some companies prefer to keep item records for goods they rarely or never stock whereas others only maintain item records for goods they actually maintain and sell regularly. For this reason, percentages will vary significantly by company.

An Example of How ABC Percentages Work

If a company has a large inventory and most items have no sales history, it's best to set the A and B parameters to very small figures to get the best results. For example, if your inventory is large, let's say 50,000 items, but 10,000 of those goods are active, ranking the A, B, and C using percentages like 20, 30, and 50 respectively isn't going to do much.

Why not? This is because all the active goods fall within the top 20% of the overall inventory. This causes the active portion of inventory to be reported entirely as "A" items while the B and C items become assigned to the remaining 80% (or 40,000 items).

Using the same example, let's assume that we instead specified 5% for A, 5% for B, and 90% for C in our parameters. When monthly processing occurs, our 10,000 items would be ranked in a more usable fashion. The first 2,500 items with the highest sales would be assigned a rank of "A," the next 2,500 a rank of "B," and the remaining 5,000 active items would now be grouped under the "C" category (along with the 40,000 items with no activity).

Companies who maintain smaller more active inventories have far less to consider as far as ABC rankings as long as somewhere close to 100% of their inventory is actively used. It's always possible to tweak the percentages; however, changes only affect the next monthly ranking (this occurs once monthly only).

Merge non-stocked Items after N days sold

This parameter sets the number of days after an inactive generated item is sold that it will be merged back with its originating item. In order for an SO item to merge, either the "last sale date" or the "established date" (for items that have never been sold) must be older than or equal to the date determined by this parameter. Merging takes time for each item, so we limit each daily merge to a maximum of 500 items. Note that if the "After N Days Sold" value is set to "0", it will prevent the SO item from merging.

Merging is done automatically as a daily scheduled service. Non-stocked generated items will only purge if all quantities are zero (on-hand, on-order, committed, etc.) and as long as they are also not linked with any open documents. This prevents an item from being merged that has a stock value (due to a return for example) or is associated with an open transaction (purchase order, etc.). Some manual changes to a generated item's settings in Item Maintenance can potentially prevent the item from merging as well.

"Generated" items are created at time of processing after an "origin" item is used for initial entry on specific types of transactions (customer orders, work orders, purchase orders, etc.). The generated item is automatically assigned a unique SKU based upon the source transaction, document ID, and sequence. Item setting are based both on the source item and information required during entry (such as pricing, costs, and a description). The item type of a generated item is initially set to "renumbered" and after some level of processing to "resale."

The resulting items are used temporarily and are created when non-stocked items meeting certain criteria are processed with specific transactions.

The original (base) item must also have the following characteristics in Item Maintenance to be used for generating another item during processing:

The item must be non-stocked (Stocked = N)

The item must require a description (Description Reqd = Y)

The item must NOT track on-hand quantities (Track Quantities On-hand = N)

The item must NOT have any on-hand quantity.

Often these base items are used somewhat generically; however, it's usually best to use several different SKUs so that you can separately evaluate sales and other information after items are merged. Origin or base items may indicate a type of product (such as "SOFLOORING" or "SOWINDOWS," for example) or your company might prefer to create origin items which link to specific vendors.

In the case of a customer order, once a renumbered item has been ordered, received, and sold, the item is no longer necessary except perhaps for reference purposes or in case the customer returns the goods. This parameter sets the number of days these items should be retained before the sales history of the item is merged back into the origin item.