Inventory Subitems
For peak efficiency, manufacturing and merchandising companies need to precisely track the types and quantities of items of every type stored in inventory. MYOB Advanced provides flexible tools for identifying and tracking various types of such items.
Inventory IDs
Each inventory item is tracked in the system by its inventory ID. This unique identifier can be just a number, or you can configure it to provide basic information about the item type, brand, or use. Well-designed inventory IDs can help you sort and group items for reports.
As with other identifiers in MYOB Advanced, inventory IDs can be configured on the Segmented Keys (CS202000) form. Identifiers for stock and non-stock items are configured using the same segmented key: INVENTORY. For the key, you can define how many segments it will have, what values may be used, whether they should be validated, or whether auto-numbering should be used for generating inventory IDs. To have inventory IDs automatically generated on creating new inventory items, you can configure the INVENTORY segmented key as having a single segment with the Auto-Number option selected for this segment and a numbering sequence specified in the Numbering ID box. If you have a restricted number of possible items and the users will enter arbitrary inventory IDs manually, you can configure the INVENTORY key as having a single segment with non-validated values. If the type of items should be indicated by their IDs, consider configuring the INVENTORY key with two segments, for one of which you create a list of pre-defined values.
When configuring the INVENTORY segmented key, decide whether you will use alternate IDs for stock and non-stock items. With alternate IDs (item identifiers used by vendors and customer of the items), the users will be able to specify items by typing their alternate IDs as well as inventory IDs in the Inventory ID boxes on sales and purchase orders without errors. For more information on using alternate IDs and on how to configure the INVENTORY segmented key in this case, see Item Cross-References.
If required, you can change the inventory ID for any non-stock or stock item manually by clicking Change ID on the More menu of the Non-Stock Items (IN202000) or Stock Items (IN202500) form, respectively, and by specifying another inventory ID in a dialog box that opens.
Subitem Codes
In addition to inventory IDs, MYOB Advanced supports subitems (or subitem codes), which can be useful for otherwise-identical products that have different colors, sizes, or other properties tracked because they are important to customers. Thus, under the same inventory ID, you may have a number of subitems—products that share all the settings of the inventory record but have additional properties that differ, such as size or color.
You decide whether to use subitems on a system-wide level, based on the particular products you stock. If products with differing properties represent a small part of all products stocked in your warehouse, you can assign individual inventory IDs to each product variation. If such products represent a significant percentage of all stock, you may want to save the effort of creating and maintaining inventory records for each variation and instead use subitems, each with a subitem code. See below for a simplified example of subitems in use.
Example of Using Subitems
Suppose the merchandise sold by your company is men's apparel: T-shirts, shoes, and socks. While each model of T-shirts, shoes, and socks has a different inventory ID, the ID offers no information about the material used, the color, and the size. If you used a different ID for every possible permutation of size, color, and material, it would significantly increase the number of IDs in use and would require a significant effort to enter all those inventory records.
Suppose that your men's apparel company stocks and sells only three products with the following properties.
| Product Type | Color | Size | Fabric/Material |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-Shirt | Yellow, White, or Red | S, M, L, XL, or XXL | Cotton or Viscose |
| Socks | Black | 6, 7, 8, or 9 | Polyester |
| Shoes | Black, Brown, or White | 38, 39, 40, 42, 42, or 43 | Nubuck or Leather |
For all types of products at the warehouse, we break down all the properties—such as color, size, and fabric or material—that split the products into subitems and all possible values of these properties as shown in the table below.
| Property | Property Values |
|---|---|
| Color | Yellow, White, Red, Black, Brown |
| Size | S, M, L, XL, XXL , 6, 7, 8, 9, 38, 39, 40, 42, 42, 43 |
| Material | Nubuck, Leather, Polyester, Cotton, Viscose |
You would then design the subitem code. It can be segmented, with each segment describing a specific property. For the above example, we could create a subitem code that consists of the following three segments: color, size, and material.
Imagine if you added soap (with the inventory ID SOAP) to this merchandise; the soap has only one size and one "signature" scent. The color, size, and material properties, then, do not apply to soap. For products without specific properties, you need non-specific values (those that mean "not applicable") for the respective segments. We recommend that you use similar non-specific values for all segments, such as zero values or N/A strings. In this example, we could use 000, 000, and 0000000000 for color, size, and material, respectively.
By using these properties, you can describe variations of all product subitems. The subitem code consists of the following possible values for the specified three segments.
| Segment | Property | Length | Segment Values |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Color | 3 | 000, YLW, WHT, RED, BLK, BRN |
| 2 | Size | 3 | 000, S_;_;, M_;_;, L_;_;, XL_;, XXL , _;_;6, _;_;7, _;_;8, _;_;9, _;38, _;39, _;40, _;42, _;42, _;43 |
| 3 | Material | 9 | 000000000, Nubuck, Leather, Polyester, Cotton, Viscose |
Thus, we have the following subitems:
- For the SHOES inventory ID: BLK-038-LEATHER, BRN-038-NUBUCK, BLK-039-LEATHER, BRN-038-LEATHER, and so forth, with 36 total subitems
- For the TSHIRT inventory ID: YLW-S_;_;-COTTON, YLW-XL_;-COTTON, YLW-XXL-COTTON, and so forth, with 36 total subitems
- For the SOCKS inventory ID: BLK-_;_;8-POLYESTER, BLK-_;10-POLYESTER, and so forth, with 6 total subitems
- For the SOAP inventory ID: 000-000-000000000 (the only subitem)
Implementation of Subitems
Subitems allow you to use the same inventory ID with all financial, warehousing, and processing settings for multiple variations of an item. Subitem codes are used in addition to inventory IDs. If you decide to use subitems, subitem codes must be used with each inventory ID, even if the product does not have variations (as with soap in the above example).
Once subitems are enabled in the system, users need to enter a subitem code for every inventory transaction in the Inventory, Purchase Orders, and Sales Orders modules. When entering a subitem code for an item on any document, users browse through the possible values of each segment.
By default, the subitem code is independent of inventory items and the system permits all combinations between them, although most combinations make no sense. For example, the inventory item SOAP does not actually have the subitem MGT-XXL-Polyester, and the inventory item SOCKS doesn't have the valid subitem YLW-42-NUBUCK.
Configuration of Subitems in Your System
To configure subitems in your system, perform the following general steps:
- To use subitems in the system, enable the Inventory Subitems feature on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form.Important: The Inventory Subitems check box has been removed from the Enable/Disable Features form because the functionality associated with the Inventory Subitems feature will be phased out. If you have this feature enabled in your system, the associated functionality remains available. To disable the feature, contact your MYOB support provider.
- Define the segmented structure of subitems by using the INSUBITEM key on the Segmented Keys (CS202000) form.
- Add values for each subitem segment by using the Segment Values (CS203000) form.
- Create stock items by using the Stock Items (IN202500) form.
- On the Cross-References tab, assign to each inventory ID-subitem pair alternate IDs, if such IDs are used by vendors or customers.
- By using the Restriction Groups tab of this form, assign the item to appropriate subitem restriction groups.
Subitem Cost Calculation Options
Products with different inventory IDs are always costed separately. Products with the same inventory ID and different subitem codes can be costed as one item or as several items. For each subitem segment defined on the Segmented Keys form, the Include in Cost check box controls how cost will be calculated:
- If the check box is selected, costs of products with the same inventory ID and different values in this subitem segment are calculated as if for different items.
- If the check box is cleared, in cost calculations, items with different segment values in their subitems will be considered as one item. In this case, the segment should have one value marked as aggregating value on the Segment Values form. The cost will be shown for the item with the subitem that has this aggregating value in the segment.