March 6, 2005

Catalog Inventory

 It seems like change has been constant this year. One of the better ideas incorporated into ActiveAccounting Release 8 is the ability to create groups of items that can be used like inventory for creating orders or invoices. This we call Catalog Inventory. 

Catalog Inventory is different from standard inventory in several ways. First it is not an inventory counting feature. It is an item separation feature. Unlike regular inventory multiple records for the same item can exist on different lists. This lets you to keep separate lists of items to be used for different purposes. You could have a Retail availability and a Wholesale availability catalog and a fall wholesale catalog and spring retail catalog and so on. 

The catalog inventory has a field called available quantity. This lets you set quantities that are available but it does not use this quantity during the order/invoice process. The available quantity is not reduced as the item is sold. This means the person responsible for catalog inventory availability is responsible for maintaining this number. Either frequent updates are necessary to the catalog inventory or it cannot be used as an approximate availability. Even if frequent updates are made to this table it will be out of date as soon as anything is sold from the real inventory.  

This feature adds flexibility not accountability. If an item’s catalog availability is defined in the catalog inventory table it is your responsibility to make sure the item is available when ordering through regular inventory methods. The item could be available through regular inventory, on a purchase order or through production planning but it must be available during the order entry process in order to confirm the quantity ordered.  See this web page for an explanation of the Inventory Methods available to your company http://www.udsgis.com/inventory_methods.htm. 

The price of an item can be placed in the Catalog Inventory but the system will use standard pricing methods to determine an items price. If a “Clearance” catalog is created the price must be in inventory or the system will determine the regular price.  

We see this feature being a good benefit in many business processes. If you fax weekly availability to your customers this could be used as the source information. If you have clearance items this could be your information source. 

If you want to maintain several supplier catalogs this could be your source. The item will have to be created before it can be used in ActiveApplications but that process is simplified because a Catalog Item can be dropped on a new item when creating the item record. When you are finished with a catalog it is easy to erase from the computer, too. 

Plan now to take advantage of the added flexibility. Think through your business processes to see where it might have an affect. If you need to discuss it further consult UDS Support Services.