Summary of the Rules for Item Numbers

Item numbers in Inventory Control can be up to 24 characters long.

Item numbers are made up of one or more item number sections, called "segments." You can have item numbers with up to 10 segments. (Note, however, that Sage ERP Accpac 100 lets you define a maximum of 4 item number segments only.)

• A single segment can be up to 24 characters long, including the optional separator character.

If some of your item numbers have 2 segments,and some have 3 segments, your I/C system has two different item number "structures."

• An item structure can be up to 24 characters long (including all segments, separator characters, and a prefix character), so you could have no more than one 24-character segment in an item structure.

• Item structures can have from one to ten segments. For example, you can use a segment to indicate color, model number, or size.

An optional separator character can follow each segment in the item structure so segments can be distinguished from each other, and an optional prefix character can be specified to appear at the front of the item structure.

The following table shows the separator and prefix characters you can use. (If you do not want a separator or prefix character, select "None" for the Prefix option and the Segment Separator field for each segment in the Item Structures form.)

Character Description

 None

 – Hyphen

 / Slash

 \ Backslash

 * Asterisk

 . Period

 ( Left parenthesis

 ) Right parenthesis

 # Number sign

• Inventory Control ignores separator and prefix characters when sorting item numbers.

• Inventory Control does not use separator and prefix characters to distinguish item numbers. For example, the program considers the item numbers #5200-010 and 5200/010 to be identical since the only difference is the prefix and separator characters, even though the numbers were formatted using different item structures.

The program does not allow you to enter duplicate item numbers.