Manage Items

Manage Items is the central merchandise master in IMS. It connects each Item Code to its Style/Article, Color, Size, barcode, descriptions, merchandise hierarchy, supplier and brand, demographic classifications, origin, pricing, online information and product image. These fields are reused across Sales, Inventory, Purchasing, Sell Through and Main Sales reporting.

Items Data screen

Find an item or a complete style

Item identity and variant fields

Main item details

Merchandise hierarchy

The item master stores the classifications that later become criteria and Group By dimensions in IMS reports.

Several classifications are hierarchical. Changing the main Category resets the Sub Category, changing Product Group resets Sub Group, and changing Supplier resets Brand so the dependent field remains consistent with its parent master.

Receipt and cost information

The lower-right receipt/cost fields provide a quick reference to the item's latest purchasing and average-cost information.

Retail pricing

When pricing is edited, IMS keeps the item's selling state aligned with the current versus original price and updates the relevant item pricing records.

Create a new item

1. Click New.
2. Enter the required Item Code, Style and Barcode.
3. Enter Color, Size and descriptions.
4. Set Type, State and the required merchandise classifications.
5. Assign Supplier, Brand, Age Range, Gender, Origin and Unit as applicable.
6. Enter Original Price and Current Price.
7. Enter Product URL when the Style/Color has an online product link.
8. Click Save.

Before saving, IMS checks that the Item Code is unique, that the barcode is not already assigned as either a primary or secondary barcode, and that the Style/Color/Size combination is not already assigned to another Item Code.

Edit an item

1. Find the Item Code or Style.
2. Select the required Item Code in the Style grid.
3. Click Edit.
4. Change the permitted item information.
5. Click Save, or click Cancel to restore the existing data.

The Item Code itself remains fixed when editing an existing record.

Apply changes to the entire Style

During Edit mode, Apply to Style lets a maintenance user apply appropriate changes to all Item Codes belonging to the selected Style rather than changing only one Color/Size variant.

When Apply to Style is selected, Color Name, Color Code, Barcode and Size remain variant-specific and are not edited through the style-wide operation.

Primary and additional barcodes

Every item has a primary Barcode / EAN. IMS can also maintain additional barcodes in the secondary-barcode list. Barcode validation checks both places so the same barcode is not assigned to different Item Codes.

Item images

IMS stores product images by Image SKU = Style_ColorCode. This means all Size variants of the same Style and Color share the same image.

Change or add an image

1. Find the item.
2. Click Change Image.
3. Select a JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP or WebP file.
4. Review the image preview.
5. Click Save Image.

IMS automatically converts the image to JPEG, auto-orients it, removes unnecessary metadata, resizes it to fit the IMS image dimensions and compresses it to the supported storage size. A 62 × 62 thumbnail is also created for reports and other thumbnail views.

Delete an image

Click Delete Image and confirm. Deleting the image removes the Style/Color image record without deleting the item itself.

Online Details and Product URL

Online Details >> opens the selected item's online-information screen. The button is shown in green when the item is currently marked Online and red when it is not.

The Online Details window keeps the e-commerce-specific values that can differ from the normal IMS retail item information.

Edit online details

1. Find the required Item Code and click Online Details >>.
2. Click Edit.
3. Update Available Online, Color, Original Price, Current Price, Handle or Reduce Qty. by as required.
4. Click Save.
5. IMS asks whether the change should be applied to the entire Style.

After saving, IMS records the affected Item Code or Style for the online-update workflow so the change can be processed by the integration service.

The Product URL on the main Items screen is stored at the Style/Color SKU level, matching the same Style_ColorCode structure used by item images.

Delete an item

IMS protects transaction history. An item can be deleted only when it has not already been used in relevant stock, purchasing, sales, depreciation, adjustment or transfer transactions.

1. Find the Item Code.
2. Click Delete.
3. Review the confirmation message.
4. Choose Yes to delete the unused item.

If IMS finds previous transaction history, the item is retained and the user is informed that it cannot be deleted.

Bulk Import

The Import menu provides administrative bulk-maintenance tools. IMS validates the selected file before committing changes and writes a validation log when the source contains invalid data.

Import Items validation

The item-data import validates field lengths and data types, duplicate Item Codes, duplicate barcodes and duplicate Style/Color/Size combinations before saving. If invalid rows are found, IMS creates a -ValidationLog.txt file beside the import source.

When the import encounters Item Codes that already exist, IMS asks whether those existing records should be updated. Identity fields such as Item Code, Style, Color and Size remain unchanged during that update.

Import Images file

The image importer expects at least two tab-separated columns:

IMS validates duplicate SKUs, confirms that the SKU exists in the item master, compresses the image and creates both the main image and thumbnail. Failed or skipped rows are written to an import error log.

Permissions

Item maintenance and the Item toolbar follow the logged-in user's manage item data permission. Users without that maintenance permission can still use the screen as allowed by their IMS access policy, but protected New/Edit/Delete/Import and image-maintenance actions are disabled.

How Item master data affects reporting

Common tasks

Related documentation