Inventory Item Attributes

For each stock item, MYOB Advanced provides a basic set of properties of the item. These properties include the item's identifier, description, price, cost, units of measure, default warehouse, and default vendor information.

Stock items can have additional properties, known as attributes in MYOB Advanced, that do not affect item processing in the Inventory module but may help your organization analyze stock movements or item sales. Attributes may differ for different types of inventory items.

Types of Attributes

In MYOB Advanced, product attributes are completely customizable. You can create attributes on the Attributes (CS205000) form. You can decide what attributes are needed, what values are allowed for each, and what control (type of element) is used to implement the attribute on the interface. Attributes may be of the following types:

• Free text: Users can enter any text as the attribute value.
• Masked text: The attribute text users enter must comply with a certain mask or validation rule (defined as a regular expression).
• Date/time: The user selects a date-time value.
• Check box: The attribute is a Boolean value, which means that the user can only select or clear it (such as yes/no, true/false, or on/off).
• Combo box: The user selects the attribute value from a predefined list that consists of values you specify when you create the attribute. For each value, you specify its ID (such as 1M), its description (such as Less than 1,000,000), and its sort order. Values with smaller sort orders are listed nearer to the top of the combo box list.

Also, you can define an attribute as an optional or required. This allows items to have no value for the attribute. Alternatively, you can define a special value such as None or N/A (not applicable) for use with such items.

Attribute Assignment

You assign attributes at the item class level by using the Attributes tab of the Item Classes (IN201000) form. The same attribute can be used for one or several item classes. The attributes for a newly created item class are by default those of the parent item class. If the created item class has no parent, the default attributes are those of the class that is specified in the Default Stock Item Class box (if you are creating a stock item class) or the Default Non-Stock Item Class box (if you are creating a non-stock item class) on the Inventory Preferences (IN101000) form.

When a user creates a new inventory item and assigns it to an item class by using the Stock Items (IN202500) form, the system will display the list of attributes assigned to the item's class. All items of the same item class will have the same set of attributes, although their values may differ for different items. For example, if you define a color attribute for an item class, each item in the class will have this attribute but the items can have different colors (or this attribute can be optional).

Because item classes have different lists of attributes, users can have more complete information about each item. You can design custom reports to allow users to analyze information provided by item attributes.