Planning Your Item Numbers

Before you begin to set up your item numbering system, you need to design formats that will meet your needs for identifying items as well as for sorting and grouping items for inventory reports and lists. Once you decide on the types of item numbers you need, you create one or more item structures in Inventory Control to use for formatting item numbers.

For example, you may want all your item numbers to have the pattern #XX-XXXX. A sample item number using this pattern is #01-2C45.

To plan item numbers and item number formats, you need to be familiar with the following terms:

Item numberAn alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies an item in your inventory. For example, #6094-734-8-W might identify a particular kind of size 8 women’s shoes.

Item numbers can contain uppercase letters and numbers, and can be up to 24 characters long, including all segments, separator characters, and a prefix character.  

Item number segmentAn inventory item number can consist of up to ten parts called segments.

Different items can use different sets of segments. For example, some of your items could have numbers with two segments and some could have numbers with three segments (you might use a segment to represent color only in the numbers of items where color is important).

You use the segments to organize items by common attributes such as style, color, or size, and you can specify the segment of an item number by which you want reports to be sorted.

All item numbers must contain at least one segment. Each item number contains from one to ten segments. For example, item number #6094-734-8-W contains four segments.  

Separator and prefix charactersItem numbers can contain a separator character between consecutive segments and a prefix character in front of the first segment. For example, item number #6094-734-8-W contains the prefix character # and three separator characters (-).

Item number structureAn item number structure describes the number of item segments in an item number, the order in which the segments appear, and the position and type of separator and prefix characters.

Inventory Control allows you to define more than one item number structure, so your item numbers can have more than one format. For example, you could define one item number structure having three segments and another having four segments.

If you already use a standardized item number system, the following sections will help you determine whether or not you can easily use your existing system in Inventory Control.
Keep in mind that it is easier to design your item formats carefully before entering them into the system than to change them afterward.

Keep in mind also that Inventory Control lets you use more than one item number structure, so you may be able to accommodate a mix of existing item numbers.

Follow these steps when planning your item number formats

1. List all your items.

2. Design an item numbering scheme that suits your inventory reporting needs.

Tips for item number formats

See also

Defining item number formats

Setting up inventory item records

Steps for setting up Inventory Control