Variations

On Qblue Inventory, this is how we identify a product and a variation.

• List (or parent) product: a product can have multiple or different variations. It is the product that you see on most the product listing pages on e-commerce websites. So sometimes it's called a list product or parent product.
  
  A classic example for a product is one pair of shoes. It comes with different sizes (e.g. US 5, US 8 or US 12) i.e. each size is a variation to this pair of shoes. All variations of this product share common attributes including description, website Html body, photos and categories.
  
  Product attributes such as Product Type, Categories and Tags are set against the list product.
   
• Sku variation: this is the actual product item that gets sold or purchased. It holds inventory on hand, unit costs as well as inventory movement transactions. One variation can only belong to one list product.

The Sku variations page lists all products for sale or purchase with their different attributes.

These include

• Image: by default, the image for a variation comes from its list product. A different image can t set for a variation by editing it.
• Description: this is the default of the product plus any variation options.
  
  For example, an phone's description is "Brand New iPhone", and its size title is "128GB", it looks like this:
  
• Sku
• Sell price
• Free inventory: this is inventory available after catering for any quantities that have been reserved for confirmed sales orders
  Free inventory = inventory on hand - reserved quantity
• Current inventory: this is the actual inventory on hand recorded on the computer
• Unit
• Type
• Status

Creating a new variation

A variation requires the following attributes before it can be saved:

• Sku
• Selling price
• Unit cost price
• Unit: it's defaulted to Each

Other attributes that are not mandatory are:

• Tax type: there are two options for this:
  • Tax exempt
  • Zero-rated
    When creating a new sales invoice or purchase order bill, this setting override the order tax type. Qblue Inventory calculates total tax for an order based on the product line level. This allows a product to have a tax exempt code instead of the order's own tax code which can be tax exclusive or inclusive.
• Barcodes: in order for the barcode scanning functions to work e.g. on POS, scan or type the products barcode into this field
• Unit weight: in Kgs
• Unit volume: in meters cube
• Optimal order quantity: this is used for the replenishment function. This value should be obtained from the suppliers. For example, a box of chocolate comes with 10 units of resellable bars. So when the replenishment function recommends what to re-fill, it rounds up the number to the multipls of 10.
• Non-diminishing: this is for items like shipping, notes, packaging materials and so on. The items don't keep count of.
• Continue selling when sold out: when this is ticked, the variation product can be sold over and over again even though the inventory figure is negative in the system.

Costing base

The primary product costing method is first-in-first-out (FIFO). If you wish to change this to another method such as average cost, please send us a help desk ticket.

Product attributes

When clicking into the "Edit variant" page, the product item can be setup with different attributes:

• Unit
• Unit weight in KGs
• Unit volume in m³
• Optimal order quantity: if the product is purchased or reordreed in a pack/box/pallet of 10 or n number, enter it here
• Bin location: the bin location can be shown on the packing list, to enable this setting, go to the Sales settings page
• Non-diminishing: similar to non-stock, for example: labour, shipping and service
• Continue selling when sold out
• Has serial numbers: if required, on the Sales settings page, turn on the setting for "When shipping orders, capture serial numbers"
• Has batch tracking: if it's enabled, the system asks the user to enter the batch numbers when receiving or dispatching stock