Overview
An Item is something you buy, sell or consume. Items are the backbone of the system in that Items are used in every Transaction and drive sales, costs of sales and inventory. An Item can be physical like a Part or Assembly, but it can also be a Service or Other Charge, like Shipping. Therefore, before an Item is added to the system, the following points are to be considered:
- Whether to track inventory for the item?
- Whether to use a bill of materials or kit?
- Is the item part of a style?
- Does the Item have serial or lot numbers?
Item Types
- Part - Use for products that you track, buy, sell or use in production but do not assemble.
- Non-inventory Part - Use for products that you do buy, sell or use in production but do not track.
- Service - Use for the services you perform for other companies, as well as a component in an assembly, representing the labor applied to finished goods.
- Other Charge - Use for miscellaneous things you charge your customers or pay your vendors.
- Assembly - Use for products that you track, buy, sell, use in production and assemble. An assembly will contain a 'bill of materials' which list of components that may be parts, non-inventory, services, other charges and assemblies that comprise the finished good. You will use a work order to build assemblies out of components.
- Job - Use for 'fixed contract' service in which you do not wish to list specifically all the labor and parts you use. You will use a work order to complete a job.
- Kit - Use to sell a group of items together. A kit is different than an assembly, in that the Kit itself is not an item, whereas the assembly is an item. When you ship a kit, you are actually shipping the individual items within the kit. Where as when you ship an assembly, you DO NOT ship the individual components, but rather the assembly. That being said Order Time allows you to create a configured assembly which you can use to give your customers options at time of order. These are sometimes referred to as bundles.
- Style - Use to sell an item with multiple variations. Refer to our Style article for more information. The Variations Tab under a Style Item can be used to refer to Colors, Sizes, SKUs, UPCs, etc. This is especially helpful for Items with many variations like clothing.
- Repair - Use for Items that need to be stocked in order to perform a Repair. This can also be used for Repair Service like the labor cost for the Repair.
