3. Item card for materials

Item card for materials #

Buttons on the item card: #

Save	Saves changed data on the form
Copy	Saves and opens a popup to create a new item by copying the current item.
Delete	Delete an Item that is not in use. If an Item has been used for any order it is not possible to delete it. In this case mark its status as ‘Inactive’.

Item basic information #

Description	A description of the Item. The description can be modified when in use.
Resource template	Cannot be edited. This is defined when the Item is created.
Resource type	General material for material items
Status	Set as ‘Active’ or ‘Inactive’. Inactive Items cannot be used elsewhere in the system.
Unit of measure	The base unit of measure for purchasing and internal control. Will appear automatically on orders etc.
Item family 1, 2 and 3	Define the available families in ‘Company’ information. Consideration should be given at system set up to the correct use of Item families. A good design of families will allow easier searching of Items in the system and more useful management reporting.
Plan for purchasing or manufacturing	This will define the planned source of the item. If manufacturing, then it is also necessary to create or select a manufacturing template for this item. The manufacturing template contains the necessary data to plan the manufacturing operations of the item. This includes the structure (parts list) and routing.
Manufacturing template	If the item is planned for manufacturing, choose a manufacturing template from this list. In normal usage there will be only one template per item. However if multiple versions of the template are in use, then choose the correct one that is to be used for planning. Multiple versions of the template are managed in the Production section.

Status tab #

Summary

Business unit	Shows which business unit’s data is shown here. If your system has more than one business unit, you can select another from dropdown list.
Last cost	The cost of the last inward transaction to the stock. If the last transaction was a purchase order receipt, this is the landed cost of the receipt either specified in the purchase order or in the purchase invoice.
Average cost	Simple weighted average of inward transaction costs since the system was taken into use. This value is only relevant if the current stock value is zero or negative; this situation enables the correct calculation of FIFO costs.
FIFO cost	The current weighted cost value of items in inventory according to the FIFO principle (First in first out). This is the primary number used for the cost of an item throughout the system. It can only be calculated if there is a positive stock quantity for the item. See later for details on how the FIFO value is calculated.
Stock quantity	Total stock quantity is the current stock (inventory) quantity for all locations. It does not include materials that have been issued to work orders (WIP – Work in progress).
Free in stock	The free in stock quantity is that part of the total stock that is not allocated to any sales or work orders. In other words, this is the quantity that can be used without affecting any planned operation. Because it is possible that the demand for an item gets larger than the stock quantity, the free stock quantity can become negative.
Stock locations	Stock quantity may be at several different locations. Each location has a line of its own. Possible locations are defined in the partners section. Each partner address is a possible location. Note that it is possible to exclude a certain location from being available for allocation by checking the appropriate box on the partner form. Items can be moved to a different stock location by going to the Warehouse home page and selecting “New Material transfer” from the blue bar. Also items can be purchased to, and sold from, a particular stock location.

Stock values are calculated according to the FIFO principle (‘First In, First Out’).

FIFO is a method for calculating an average where the last items to arrive in inventory are used for the weighted calculation. The calculation algorithm first calculates how much of the Item is in stock and then calculates the average from each of the last arrivals into inventory, going backwards in time until the required quantity has been reached.

This means that every time a stock change occurs, the proportion of the oldest procurement prices decreases (this concerns both negative and positive stock changes). On the other hand, if the batch sizes are approximately the same, unit costs of the latest batches will be emphasized.

Materials are issued to work orders with the FIFO cost. Similarly the margin of a product sale is according to the FIFO cost, not the manufacturing cost of an individual item.

Average cost depends on the batches that are left in stock.

Note that to find the FIFO value, the quantity must be known. The FIFO value on the item card shows the value per unit of the total quantity in stock. If some of the items in stock are taken to a work order or sold, then the FIFO value of these items will not necessarily be the same because the calculation will be weighted by that part of the total quantity that was taken from stock. So if costs are increasing over time, the cost of a part of the stock sold will be less than the unit cost of the whole stock. After these items are removed from stock the per unit stock value will increase.

Note that it is impossible for FIFO to be calculated when stock quantities are zero or negative. In this case if items are removed from stock, the value of those items will be calculated as the average of all transactions for that item since the system has been taken into use. If items have been received with variable costs over time, then operating the system with negative stock quantities may give unexpected costs for work orders and sales order margins.

Note that unit cost will change when:

Stock quantity is edited manually in the Warehouse section
Stock quantity is updated using an inventory spreadsheet transfer.
Increasing the stock quantity manually. (When increasing the stock quantity manually, enter the unit cost directly in the ‘Unit Cost’ field. This cost will be included in the calculated unit cost after the changes are saved. In the spreadsheet ‘Import Inventory’, unit costs can be defined for each stock location.)

In templates

If an item exists in the product structure of an item, this is shown here. This also lists itself in its own template.

Future stock

Shows the planned future stock transactions. Positive numbers are arriving in stock and negative numbers refer to consumption in work orders or item sales. It is possible to hide or remove the effect of tentative orders in the grid. See the Sales section for information of tentative orders.

Previous stock

Shows the history of stock transactions for the item.

Quotations (Purchase items only)

Shows current supplier quotations for an item. Supplier quotations are entered in the Purchase section.

Price history

Shows a history of invoice prices for the item. Invoices are entered in the Invoice section.

Forecast needs

‘Needs / day’: shows the planned future stock activity together with the results of scheduled comparative forecasts.

‘Needs / week’: (Purchase items only): a summary of planned requirements summed by week.

‘Needs / month’: (Purchase items only): a summary of planned requirements summed by month.

Lot information

If an item (or item component) has Lot tracking enabled, then this tab details information regarding the Lot tracking – this includes the Lot ID number, Lot tracking dates and quantities.

Commercial tab #

Customs ID	Customs ID will be used in pro forma invoices printed for customs. If a customs ID is entered in delivery details, it will be updated here.
Default sales delivery days	When entering a sales order, the promise date of the line will be this number of days into the future. If zero then no delivery date will be entered.
EAN number	The unique identifier for this item. Commonly used in the barcode labelling of a product for wholesale or retail sales. The EAN number can be used to retrieve the item in the Direct Sales operation.
Configuration ID	If the material is used in a configured product, this is the description that will be shown on the description of the product.
Sales unit of measure	The unit of measure used in sales. Sales orders show both the sales unit of measure and the basic unit of measure. Leave this field blank unless you wish to show your customer two units of measure on the various papers. For instance if you stock cloth in rolls but wish to show your customer how many metres he is buying, then set the base unit as “rolls” and the sales unit as “m”. Then add the conversion between rolls and metres in the scaling box. By default papers will show both measures.
Sales unit of measure scaling	The multiplier for the above.
Purchase account	Optionally specify the default purchase account for this item. If not specified the default used in invoicing will be taken from the supplier’s information in the Partners section.
Product country of origin	The country of origin will be printed on shipping documents.
Landed cost increment %	Specify the landed cost increment in purchase orders and purchase invoices. The landed cost will be used to update inventory values and not the purchase order price. The idea of landed cost is to include freight and other charges into the inventory value of purchased items. The inventory will be updated by the landed cost in the purchase order when the goods are received. When the invoice is written into the system the landed cost will be updated by the value written at that time.
Default dispatch from country	Used for intrastate reporting of purchased items. This is the default value for the dispatch from a country entered to a purchase invoice for this item
VAT Rate	The VAT (tax or GST) code to be used on this item instead of the default (which comes from the sales or purchase account of a partner). Leave this blank for normal items and set only for a “reduced rate” item, for instance children’s clothes in the UK
Purchase lead time (days)	The number of days before the Item must be ordered to be able to receive it on time. This is used by the purchase planning automation to calculate when a purchase order should be made. Note! Change of this value affects the purchase planning only after the next night run.
Purchaser	When automatic purchases are created, it is possible to group the purchase needs by purchasers that are defined here.
Cost centre	Optionally specify the default cost centre for this item. If not specified the default used in invoicing will be taken from the supplier’s information in the Partners section.
Supplier by offer	When automatic purchase orders are created, suppliers will be selected by best quotations. Otherwise the selection is by preferred supplier. See suppliers’ quotations in the Purchase section.
Intrastat 2^nd quantity	Used where required for Intrastat reporting.
Intrastat 2^nd unit	The unit of measure for the above.
Exclude from cost calculations	The costs of this material are excluded when work order costs are calculated.
Economic order quantity	The EOQ for an item is entered here. Line quantities on purchase orders can then be rounded to this figure if desired. The EOQ needs to be calculated in an external system e.g. spread sheet. The system will not calculate it automatically, but the desired value is stored here and used by the purchase planner.
Delivery handling cost	Specify an item’s delivery handling cost here. This can be used for calculating EOQ in an external system.
Yearly unit storage cost	Specify a yearly unit storage cost for an item here. This can be used for calculating EOQ in an external system.
Ignore sales discount	Click the checkbox to exclude this item from sales discounts that may be specified on a company’s partner card. This feature is used so that certain individual items can be excluded from a general discount specified for a customer.

Technical tab #

Designer	The person responsible for design of this product. Informational only.
Unit rounding	Rounding accuracy. Specify as a number how the rounding of items will occur in the system. E.g. 0,1 will round quantities to 0,1 of a unit. For discreet items use 1 here. This number is of particular importance if a shrink % is used in planning.
Exclude from backflush	When backflush is used in manufacturing for a whole product, this will exclude this particular item from the backflush functionality.
ABC	The ABC classification of the item. Can be a value from A to I. Inventory lists can be retrieved by ABC classification
Exclude from planning	Planned orders will not be made for this Item.
Lot tracking	Includes the Item in lot tracking. See lot tracking in the Warehouse section.
Quality control	Flags this Item to be included in quality control reports. Typically these Items would only be used when repairing work in production.
Serial number tracking	Includes the Item in serial number tracking. See the for a description of how serial numbering works.
Serial number record only	Requires serial numbers only when this item is used, not when it is received or created.
Serial number prefix	When serial numbers are created automatically, this field will be used as a prefix for the number.
Minimum free stock level	The smallest quantity that can be unallocated in stock without generating a purchase requirement.
Exclude item from minimum stock check	If negative stock levels are not allowed at a stock location (which is set in the partner card for the stock location address), then this will allow the item to go negative anyway. Useful for consumbables where stock control is not relevant.
Rough cut loading	This should be used for products only and is the value of the company’s rough cut capacity planning unit. For instance if you are producing wooden floors by the package, you may want to use m² for your rough cut capacity planning. This property should contain the number of m² in one package. If you are not using any physical unit, then use standard work hours. This unit is included in the sales order analysis report, and will be included in other features of the system in future releases.
Resource Details (URL)	This field is for recording an Internet address where additional information can be found. The link will be displayed as a clickable link at the top of the item card. For local files it is recommended to use a web server as browser technology normally prevents links to local file locations.
Shelf location	Where the item can be found in stock. The available list options are specified in the ‘Company Properties’. Useful for sorting inventory reports. Note that Manu Online does not support “dynamic” shelving. An item can only be related to one shelf location.
Shrink %	How much of the material is normally lost in operations. The planning system will plan to procure sufficient extra materials to cover for shrinkage.
Weight	The unit weight.
Volume	The packed unit volume.
Custom properties	It is possible to store custom data related to an item. This data is created and edited on the technical tab. Custom properties are fields that contain data related to only one item. Custom data can be of the types Decimal, Text, Date, Currency or Bit (True/False).

Budget tab #

Budgeted costs are used to calculate planned manufacturing costs. An unlimited number of budgets can be created. It is recommended to create at least one cost budget. These may be based on a certain time period such as ‘Year 2016 base budget’, or be for specific purposes such as a quotation e.g. ‘Planned cost of Quote 1234’.

The budgeted costs of an item can be seen when writing purchase orders.

Budget ID’s are created in ‘Company’ information.

Only purchased materials can have values in a cost budget. The cost budget of a manufactured item is calculated and shown when producing one of the cost reports.

Recording an Item’s budgeted cost

Once budget IDs are created (you can do this in the ‘System Settings’ section of your company properties), select the Budget tab on the item summary page. This opens a screen where the following information can be recorded:

Budget Name: select the budget from the ‘Budget Name’ dropdown menu.

Link to currency: to which currency the budgeted cost is linked

Budgeted Exchange Rate: the currency rate that the budgeted cost is based on

Currency range: this indicates how much the currency rate can change without changing the budgeted cost

Proportion of Currency: the proportion of the currency rate change that is moved to the budgeted cost if the rate change exceeds the limits of the change range

Budgeted cost.

Pricing tab #

Price lists are used when writing sales orders: the unit prices will be retrieved from the price list in use. In addition, price lists can be printed out to be sent to a customer.

The list of price lists is created in ‘Company Settings’ screen of the Admin menu. Each partner can have an associated price list which is specified on that company’s partner details. One price list can be specified as the default price list. If a partner does not have an associated price list then the default price list is used when entering a sales order.

When the system is first created a price list called “Default” is created. This can be used or deleted as needed.

An item is added to a price list by adding the price list to the Item information. To do this, select the ‘Pricing’ tab (where a line appears, allowing you to associate a desired price list with this item). Choose the price list from the dropdown menu of the ‘Sales Price List’ field; there is also an empty field for the price. The other fields are:

Price list description (defined when the price list is created)
Price list currency (after the price)
Date when the price has been updated (or added for the first time)
A tick box for removing the price, which means removing the item from the price list.
After entering the price click the green tick to save. A new line then appears, enabling you to associate more price lists with this item if needed

Customer codes tab #

An item can have multiple customer codes, but only one for each specific customer. The customer related data is the customer item id and the customer’s description for the item.

This information will be shown, for example, in sales orders and invoices (together with the items own internal item id and description).

Manufacturer codes tab #

Items can be linked to their manufacturers and manufacturer’s part numbers. This should be done for purchased items only

When manufacturers are linked to suppliers in the Partner card, they and the part numbers can be used in purchasing.

Besides the company name there are fields for

Manufacturer part number
Pieces per package
Unit of measure
Unit scaling (the ratio between the manufacturer’s unit sized and the items stocking unit. For instance if you are converting barrels to litres.
Manufacturer’s comments (may be a link to the manufacturer’s data sheet)
Internal comments (may be a link to your own documents on this item).
There are also fields concerning units of measurement and unit scaling

The status on manufacturer’s line tells whether your company has accepted the item if it is manufactured by this particular manufacturer. The status can be ‘Approved’, ‘Disapproved’, ‘In evaluation’ or ‘Obsolete’.

If there are several manufacturers, mark one as the preferred manufacturer.

Manufacturing tab #

The manufacturing tab is only available if the item is “Plan for manufacturing” as shown in the top section of the item card.

If you wish to have an item that has a product structure, but nevertheless is planned for purchasing, it is possible to create the manufacturing template for the item but not use it for planning.

To set up a manufactured item in the system, the following information is needed:

A Cell – ensure that at least one work cell exists in the system. By default there will be one cell with the same name as the company. If routing is not used or licenced, use just this single cell throughout.
A Route – ensure that at least one route exists in the system. By default there will be one route with the same name as the company, and this will consist of one step as mentioned above. If routing is not used or licenced, use just this single route throughout.
Items used by the manufactured item – ensure that the required items that are used in the manufacturing have been created. Typically create all purchased material items and any required work or machi

Getting Started

Logging in and basic use

Partners and items

Purchase

Sales

Warehouse

Invoicing

Production

Admin

Integrations

Multi Company

How to... Articles

Troubleshooting