5.1. Define Products

The Product window, located in the Product Setup menu, is used to manage all the products used in an organization. Products can be used for sale, to produce other products or can be acquired. To correctly use a product, it is mandatory to complete the following fields at its definition:

• Product Category - primary classification level, contains accounting information which will be inherited by the product;

  • Tax Category - determines the tax rate (VAT) which will automatically appear on the operational documents;

  • UOM - represents the unit of measure with which this product will be recorded;

  • Product Type - can be one of the following: Expense Type, Item, Resource, Service;

• Price List - a price list must be selected for a product in the Price tab.

In the Product window, the following fields are available:

• Organization - the organization owning the product. Can be selected when defining a product, depending on the role used.

  • The Organization can be changed later by using the Product Organization process from the Product menu. The process allows you to change the organization ownership of products or product categories and their dependent entities (BOM, Substitute, Replenish, Purchasing, Business Partner Info, and Costing). Can be run for either a product or a product category, never both;

• Search Key (char) - if not filled in / if no internal codification exists the system will automatically attribute a numeric code;

• Version No - optional/descriptive - mainly used in the IT business, editorial production;

• Name - the name of the product;

• Description / Comment / Document Note - supplementary notes/descriptions;

• UPC/EAN - bar code. This is necessary to process HandHeld appliances data;

• Generate Barcode button (v16.09) - allows you to generate a unique barcode which will be stored UPC/EAN field;

  • the button will be read only if a value already exists in the UPC/EAN field;

  • in order to generate a unique value, the process will take into account the existing products' barcodes;

• SKU - Stock Keeping Unit, the unit of measure in which the stock is kept;

• Make, Model - Producer/Model type;

• Permit Required checkbox - the product can be used for automatic requisition;

• Active checkbox - when checked, it means the product is in production. A product can only be deactivated when the sum value of stocks and orders is equal to "0". From the moment you deactivate it, a product can no longer be chosen on documents. The transactions history will remain unchanged. When deactivating a product it can no longer be used for search filters or added to documents;

• Summary level - this product is a summary entity. Represents a branch in a product tree rather than an end-node. Summary entities are used for reporting;

• Product Category - this is the first level of classification. contains accounting information which will be inherited by the product;

• Product Subcategory - level subordinate to the category (subcategories and their respective links need to be defined in the Product Subcategories window);

• Capex-Opex Category and Subcategory - classification level used for Capex-Opex reporting. Details in Open Items;

• Family Type - classification level for products in SocrateCloud;

• Product Family - level subordinate to he family type (product families and links to the family type can be defined in the Product Family window);

• Classification - one character used for this type of classification (e.g. A, B or C);

• NC Code - used for tax operations with cereals and technical crops;

• Discount Level - supplier discount level. Only available if the SRPD (rapid delivery) component is activated;

• Offer UOM, Offer UOM Coef - secondary unit of measure and it's coefficient used on orders;

• Tax Category - the tax rate (VAT) which will automatically appear on the operational documents;

• UOM - represents the base unit of measure with which this product will be recorded;

  • starting with v16.06 you can no longer edit the base unit of measure for products that have stock, product-locator allocations, replenishment rules, purchasing rules, alternative units of measure or prices. Although you were able to edit the base unit of measure at all times in previous versions, it was not supported by SocrateCloud and may have resulted in unexpected issues;

• Eco Tax - select from the list the appropriate eco tax. Details in Eco Tax;

• Representative - select a product manager who manages the product information. The representative can be updated for multiple products using the Update Product Representative process. The process can be run for a product category and/or for specific attributes.

Product Type - can be one of the following: Expense Type, Item, Resource, Service. Depending on the selection, the Product window will suffer mild changes. If

• "Item" - if selected the following fields will appear:

• • Weight , Net weight, Volume - physical characteristics;

  • Freight Category - here you can select a freight category (e.g. courier, post). These can be defined in the Freight Category window;

  • Stocked - the organization stocks the item;

  • Drop Shipment checkbox - the items are sent from the Vendor directly to the Customer (drop shipments do not cause any Inventory reservations or movements)

  • Shelf Height, Shelf Width, Shelf Depth, Support Units, Units per Pallet - physical characteristics of the storage space;

  • Locator - you can link a product to a locator using this field. As a consequence, when manually introducing a Reception for the product the Locator field is completed automatically with the respective value.

  • Is Wrapper - the product is a wrapper. Details in Wrappers;

• Use on HH - Hand Held devices are used for processing data related to this product;

• Bill of Materials - indicates the fact that the product is a structure/recipe/pack. The Verify BOM button and the Verified read only checkbox will appear;

• Discontinued - indicates a product that has been discontinued;

• Purchased and Sold - If the product is not for sale, it will only be used in production activities, check only the Purchased checkbox, so that the product won't be available/accessible on sale documents;

• Support Units - used to determine the quantity on a customer asset, depending on the Product per UOM option in the Asset Group.

• Exclude Auto Delivery - if selected, you can only create shipments manually for this product.

• License Info - can be used for customer asset management to differentiate different licensable attributes

• Trial Phase Days - is used to calculate the guarantee (Good until) Date. If the value is not zero, a Trial Asset is created and the guarantee date is calculated based on the value entered here. If the value is 0, an asset must exist;

• Start Date, End Date - used to determine the product validity period. The process Check Product Validity checks active products and if the current system date is not in the range 'start date' - 'stop date' then the Discontinued checkbox will be checked. Products must have at least one of the two dates set to be updated.

• Shelf Life - number of days after which the product will expire. If the value is 0, there is no limit to the availability;

• Min Shelf Life - when selecting batch/products with an expiration date, only batches with a minimum left shelf life will be selected for automatic picking;

• Subscription Type - this is used to obtain the amount and guarantee date of a customer asset generated automatically from a shipment. Details in Customer Assets;

• Source - source for the lead or request - if selected, when finalizing an invoice containing the product, a lead, request or both will be generated, depending on the field Create Type form the source definition window;

• Image Url - link to the image of the product, on a web server;

• Description Url - link to the description of the product, on a web site;

• Attribute Set - select a product attribute set to add additional attributes and values to the product. You need to define an Attribute Set if you want to enable Serial and Lot Number tracking;

• Attribute Set Instance - select the values of the product attributes;

• Featured in Web Store - the product is displayed in the initial view or if no search criteria is entered. To be displayed, the product must be in the price list used for the Web Store;

• Self Service - the product can be accessed through the Web Store;

• Has Locator - checked if product-locator allocations were defined. Details in Shelf Warehouse Implementation;

• Has Price - checked if prices were defined for the product (Price tab);

• Has Purchase - checked if purchasing rules were defined for the product (Purchasing tab);

• Has Replenish - checked if replenishment rules were defined for the product (Replenish tab);

• Has Stock - checked if the product was used on material transactions;

• Has UOM Conversion - checked if the product uses alternative units of measure (Conversions tab);

• Has Price Ext - checked if extended prices were defined for the product (Price Ext tab);

The Price Simulator section contains parameters used for the functionality with the same name. Details in Price Simulator.

Secondary windows:

• BOM tab - here you can view BOM components for the product. Details in Structures;

• Substitute tab - you can select another product to replace the current one in situations such as Out-of-Stock. The system will not automatically replace a product if it has 0 stock;

• Related tab - depending on a certain criterion you may link both the current product and other products, regardless of the category/warehouse. Has an informative value;

• Purchasing tab - is used to enter information regarding suppliers.Product supplier information, grouped by vendor, can also be viewed in the Vendor Details window located in the Product Setup menu. Details in Purchasing.

• Locator tab - the possibility to indicate, for informative purposes, a locator from a warehouse for the respective product;

• Price tab, Price Ext tab - here you can manage product prices. Details in Price Categories;

• Accounting tab - this is where the accounting behaviour of the product is established (stock account, income account, expenditure). These definitions are inherited from the product group, however, you may also intervene and change the behaviour of one item only - the case of not - homogeneous, or expenditure products (each will have their own account in class 6);

• Transactions tab - all the material (stock related) operations (transactions) are listed here;

• UOM Conversion tab - here you can define the units of measure derived form the basic UOM. Example: Basic UOM: parcel, Derived UOM: piece. Multiplication rate: 1 parcel= 10 pieces (the UOM needs to be defined beforehand). Details in Units of Measure;

• Business Partner tab - contains customer specific information and allows you to define restrictions for the quantities and products entered on sales order lines. Details in Product Sales.