XpertMart User's Guide: Items Catalog

Items Catalog

The Items Catalog gives you a greater level of detail than the Styles Catalog. The Items Catalog contains an entry for every size/color (and in some cases size/color/second size) combination belonging to a style. Therefore, if a given style is available in 3 colors and eight sizes, there will be 24 entries in the Items Catalog for that one style.

Items are the essence of inventory control. It is not enough to monitor the sales and stock levels of styles. To be successful, you have to know what your sales are like for every size/color combination and stock accordingly. Styles can give you a general idea of trends in customer demand but Items is where you either make money or lose money.

Because there is no limit to the number of items that can be entered into the Items Catalog, it is strongly recommended that you never erase an item from the catalog. If you do delete an item, you run the risk of scanning in merchandise that no longer exists or running reports that may not make sense.

This chapter will explain every field in the Items Catalog. Before you begin, make sure you have read the Catalogs topic for an explanation on how catalogs work.

Style: The Style subform displays the Name of the style the item belongs to, the Photo of the style, the Brand and Purchase Description. The only active field in the subform is the Name field. When adding a new item, you need to pick a Style from the drop-down menu. As you scroll through the different Styles in the Name field, you will notice that the Photo, Purchase Description and Brand change accordingly.

Note that the subform is only displaying these four pieces of information from the Styles Catalog, the item is in fact related to the Style and other atributes such as the Vendor, Material, Collection or any other field in the Styles Catalog are also associated with the item. To learn more, read the Relational Nature of the Data topic.

Color: Use this subform to select the color of the item. When you create items autmatically using the XpertMatrixAdd™ tool, the color will already be chosen. If after you've built the XpertMatrix™ for a style you change the color or create a new item with a different color, you are in fact adding a new color to the matrix.

Size: Use this subform to select the size of the item. When you create items autmatically using the XpertMatrixAdd™ tool, the size will already be chosen. If after you've built the XpertMatrix™ for a style you change the color or create a new item with a different color, you are in fact adding a new color to the matrix.

Second Size: Use this subform to select the second size of the item. When you create items autmatically using the XpertMatrixAdd™ tool, the second size will already be chosen. If after you've built the XpertMatrix™ for a style you change the color or create a new item with a different second size, you are in fact adding a new second size to the matrix.

Item Number: The Item Number is a sequential number automatically assigned to an item by XpertMart™. You can use this number throughout the system to look up the specific item. When you use XpertMart™ to print out bar code labels it is this number that gets printed. This is a read-only field. This field is particularly useful when you do a query and the records in the Item Catalog are not in their normal order.

Code: The Code field is entirely optional and exists for users that wish to associate a code with every item. The code is usually a hold-over from a legacy system and allows users to reference historic item data that relied on this code before they began using XpertMart™.

EAN/UPC: If the item alread comes from the vendor with a bar code, scan the bar code into this field. When you save your changes, the bar code will be assigned to the particular item. To learn more, refer to the Bar Codes topic.

Price/Cost from Style: This checkbox indicates if you want to use the same List Price and Order Cost for the item as you did for the Style. If you selected this checkbox in the Styles Catalog, a checkmark will automatically appear in this checkbox and the List Price and Order Costs fields will automatically be filled in with data from the Styles Catalog. If you change your mind and need to modify the price or cost, you need to go to the Styles Catalog and de-select the checkbox there.

If the checkbox in the Styles Catalog was never selected, you can always check the checkbox in the Items Catalog and the system will fill in the List Price and Order Cost fields with data from the Styles Catalog.

Non Inventory: Select this checkbox if they style is not an inventory or physical item. Use this checkbox for such services as repairs and cleanings that have no impact on the inventory when you sell them. If the Non Inventory checkbox was selected in the Styles Catalog, a checkmark will automatically appear in this checkbox.

Date Received: The system automatically fills in the most recent date a Receipt was made for this item in one of the stores or warehouses. (If the item is yet to be received anywhere, the date that appears is the date the item was created in the Items Catalog). This is a read-only field.

This field is meant to "push" information that might be useful out to the user, even when the user has not asked for it. You may, for example, discover that a popular item has not been received in a long time and begin to inquire why with the vendor and realize that an order that was supposed to be placed was never placed.

Date Sold: The system automatically fills in the most recent date that the item was sold in any one of your stores. (If the item is yet to be received anywhere, the date that appears is the date the item was created in the Items Catalog). This is a read-only field.

This field is meant to "push" information that might be useful out to the user, even when the user has not asked for it. You may, for example, discover that a long time has passed since the item was sold and decide to mark it down to increase its turn.

List Price: If you have selected the Price/Cost from Style checkbox, the List Price for the Style will automatically appear in this field. Otherwise, enter the List Price you want for this particular item into this field. The List Price is not necessarily the final price of the item. The final price appearing at the point of sale may change depending on the price list you are using, and whether you are using quantity prices or dated prices. Think of the List Price as the starting point from which you can derive other price variations. To learn more, refer to the Prices topic.

Order Cost: If you have selected the Price/Cost from Style checkbox, the Order Cost for the Style will automatically appear in this field. Otherwise, enter the Order Cost you want for this particular item into this field. Since the Order Cost is the cost you expect to pay when you order this item it is the cost that automatically appears on Receipts and Purchase Orders.

However, the cost of an item is always subject to variation (last minute price increases from the vendor, special taxes or tarriffs, expedited shipping charges, etc.). Every time you receive an item, XpertMart™ averages the cost with prior shipments that were received. (You can see how this moving average is calculated by running the Cost Audit Log report for an item). This average cost is refered to as the Inventory Cost and is not necessarily the same as the Order Cost. In fact, it is usually different.

XpertMart™ uses the Inventory Cost whenever it calculates margin and other sales and profitability indicators.

Inventory Cost: This field displays the Inventory Cost of the item (see above for the difference between Order Cost and Item Cost) and is updated automatically every time a new Receipt containing the item is made.

Margin: XpertMart™ automatically calculates the Margin (by subtracting the Order Cost from the List Price) and displays it in this field. The Margin is based on the Order Cost and not the Inventory Cost because you want to plan your margins based on the costs you can expect to continue to order at.

This is a read-only field and is meant only as a reference. The true margin of an item depends on the final price and inventory cost when the item is sold.

% Margin: Another read-only field which displays the margin as a percent of the List Price. If you have a particular traget margin in mind, such as 55%, it can be useful to enter different values in the Order Cost and List Price fields and watch the Percent Margin field change with every entry until you've calibrated the cost and price to fit your target margin.

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