Inventory Control

Set up Products to Transfer

Content of this Post

Step 1 - Product Transfer

Purpose

This procedure is used to create a list of products to transfer/delete “en masse” from one or more product/size/colour combination(s) to another product/size/colour combination. In this function you can build up the list of ‘From’ and ‘To’ product codes over time if required until you are ready to transfer.

The actual transfer of product codes does not take place until it is scheduled to run during End of Day (EOD) Processing or is run manually via the Process Scheduler. However it is NOT advised that the transfer be run during the day when other people are using the system and performing transactions. The actual work required to find, analyse and change every database entry in the system for a given product transfer is quite significant. If a large number of product transfers is required then the process can take several hours to complete. This is another reason why running the actual transfer out-of-hours is a better option.

An alternative to manually entering the list of product codes to transfer using this routine, is to use the Product Transfer Upload tool if you have many products/sizes/colours to set up and you would prefer to build the list using a spread sheet.

In Online, Products can’t be just deleted from the system as this would leave a “hole” in the database for many of the historical reports in the Inventory and Sales Analysis systems. Many of these reports would not be able to allocate a “deleted” product to a Product Category, Division, Group etc. if the product has been removed. This is one of the main reason we provide a “transfer” function. How you use it is entirely up to you to determine. Some users transfer everything to one “deleted” product code so that code becomes a summary of all the product transactions and sales information of unwanted products. Other users have a separate “deleted” product per Product Category or Product Group to maintain the historical accuracy of Sales Analysis in each of these sections.

The other major use of the Product Transfer function relates to companies that have the Size and/or Colours function active. This tool allows them to consolidate sizes or colours as required, and to even turn an non-sized/coloured item into an item for those details by transferring existing inventory records and sales history to a nominated size and/or colour.

Data Input

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Step 1 – Product Transfer

The products to be transferred are entered as a list. If there are already products waiting to be transferred, the existing list is shown.

Click Add to add new product details to be transferred to the list.

Click the delete icon in the grid to delete Product details from the list. Note: The Delete option at the top will delete the whole list, not one product from the list.

Click on an existing item to view/edit details.

Product

From Product

Enter an existing product that you wish to transfer from. This must be a valid Product code on the system currently.
You cannot enter the same combination of product/size/colour more than once. You cannot enter:

  • a jobbing product – until the job details are deleted
  • a product with other products attached (a Model)
  • a product that is already on the ‘To’ list
To Product

Enter the product code that you wish to transfer to. This does NOT have to be a valid Product code on the system currently. In other words the system will create a new Product from the details of the old “From” Product as required.

Products to be transferred/deleted on the ‘From’ list will be transferred to this product/size/colour. You can enter the same combination more than once. When transferring from one product to another existing product, both products must be the same “classification” type and be using the same tracking code i.e. Serial, Batch, Dual Tracking.

You can transfer a product to any existing product or to a new item. All the transactions and history move with the transfer, so (when deleting products) using a product that you already transact with is NOT usually a good choice for the ‘To’ product. Best practice is to have a “delete to” product set up for every Product Group that you use, or at least one Product Category. This way, old Sales and Stock Usage figures will still add to the same total. However, it is not uncommon for people to have one “delete to” code that everything is transferred to. Either way will work, just gives a different result in historical reporting.

Transfer Only if Stock, On Order and Commitments are Zero

Choose this option if you want a transfer to take place ONLY when the product/size/colour has NO inventory details. If this option is selected, the products’ stock on-hand, on order and commitment quantities must total to zero or the product will not transfer.

Delete or Merge option

Merge – if you have 2 products in your database e.g. GLOVEGREY and GLOVEGRAY choose the merge options to keep barcodes, notes and web index structure.

Delete – if you have a product that you do not want the details of anymore, choose this ‘Delete’ option to drop any barcodes, notes and catalogue index details. That information is then not carried over to the ‘to’ product which helps reduce the amount of data recorded and will maintain product better search performance.

Size Code

When entering details of the Sizes transfer remember to click the Add button in order to build the details. If the “Add” button is not used this function will not be aware of the details you have specified.

From Size

The sizes currently recorded against the ‘from’ product are available for selection. You can choose a size from the list, or you can select the ‘All’ option to transfer all sizes, or the ‘None’ option for no sizes. The ‘None’ option is for situations where a product may have been initially set up with no sizes, and had transactions made, and then sizes added – in this case you would want to transfer the transaction made against ‘no size’ to a size.

To Size

All sizes set up in the system are available for selection. You can choose a size from the list, or you can select the ‘All’ option for all sizes, or the ‘None’ option for no sizes.

Colour Codes

When entering details of the Colours transfer remember to click the Add button in order to build the details. If the “Add” button is not used this function will not be aware of the details you have specified.

From Colour

The colours currently recorded against the ‘From’ product are available for selection. You can choose a colour from the list, or you can select the ‘All’ option to transfer all colours, or the ‘None’ option for no colours. The ‘None’ option is for situations where a product may have been initially set up with no colours, and had transactions made, and then colours added – in this case you would want to transfer the transaction made against ‘no colour’ to a colour.

To Colour

All colours set up in the system are available for selection. You can choose a colour from the list, or you can select the ‘All’ option for all colours, or the ‘None’ option for no colours.

Size and Colour Codes

With this option, you can enter a combination of product size and colour that you wish to transfer “From” and “To”. This allows you to do transfers or consolidations of specific combinations of individual inventory items into a new or existing inventory item as required. You can build a list of these specific Size/Colour transfers as needed using the Add button.
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