Establish Inventory Categories

From the menu bar, click Admin > Establish Inventory Categories or press Alt A S on the keyboard.

"Establish Inventory Categories" should be used to designate your inventory categories and sub categories.  Inventory categories are used to classify the various types of inventory you stock.  You have the ability to load one of four sets of default categories which are 1) Music Store, 2) Bike/Fitness, 3) Sewing/Vacuum and 4) Golf.  You may then make any needed changes to the defaults.  The ledger accounts associated with each category will automatically be added to the chart of accounts once the Save button is clicked.  The three ledger accounts that will be added for each category include: cost of inventory, sales of inventory and cost of goods sold.

Loading Sample Defaults

To load a sample set of categories designed for the Music retailer, click the Music Store button.  To load a sample set of categories designed for the Bicycle or Fitness Equipment retailer, click the Bike/Fitness button.  To load a sample set of categories designed for the Sewing and/or Vacuum retailer, click the Sewing/Vacuum button.  To load a sample set of categories designed for the Golf retailer, click the Golf button.  If your retail store does not fit one of these categories, you may still choose to load a set of defaults and modify the descriptions.  Once a button has been clicked, the categories will appear on the screen.  Any changes should be made to the categories as you deem necessary prior to clicking the Save button. 

Changing a Category

To change information pertaining to a category, click in the box that needs to be changed and make the necessary change.  You should be certain to make any needed changes to the sub category at all.  To view or change sub categories assigned to a category, first click in the box containing the category on the Categories tab and click the Sub Categories tab.  Once all changes have been made, click the Save button.  Refer to ‘Adding a Category’ below for information on each of the columns in the ‘Establish Inventory Categories’ table.   

Adding a Category

To add a category, click in the Description box next to the category number you wish to add and type the description of the category.

If the category pertains to inventory in the Titles file, click in the Type box and select Titles from the drop down list.  If the category pertains to inventory in the Serialized and Accessory file, click in the Type box and select SA Inventory from the drop down list. 

If you wish to assign the inventory category to a department, click in the Department box and select the applicable department from the drop down list.  The department will not actually be assigned to the category, rather it will be assigned to the ‘inventory sales’ and ‘cost of goods sold’ ledger numbers associated with the category. 

Example:  Ledger number 411-1 represents sales of inventory with category 1 and 412-1 represents cost of sales of inventory with category 1.  If category 1 is assigned to a department, that department will be automatically assigned to 411-1 and 412-1. 

The department table is established in ‘Departments’ on the Ledger Maintenance menu.  Refer to ‘Departments’ and ‘Chart of Accounts’ in the Ledger Maintenance portion of the Maintenance chapter or AIMsi Help for more information.

Deleting a Category

To delete a category, click in the Description box of the category you wish to delete and blank out the description of the category.  Any category without a description will not be saved when the Save button is clicked.

Viewing/Modifying Sub Categories

Sub Categories are used to further define your inventory for displaying and reporting purposes.  Each inventory category must have at least one sub category and may have up to 99.  To view or to make changes to the sub categories associated with a category, first click the category on the Categories tab and then click the Sub Categories tab.  If you added a new category, the sub category listing will be blank.

To change the description of a sub category, click in the row containing the sub category and make the necessary change.

To add a new sub category, click the   button.  A new row will open on the sub category table where you should type the sub category number in the first column and sub category description in the second column.

To delete a sub category, click the   button.  Confirm the deletion in the ‘Please Confirm’ dialog box.

Saving the Categories and Sub Categories

To save the categories and the sub categories you have established, click the Save button.  At this time the categories will be saved to the categories table and the applicable ledger numbers will be added to the chart of accounts.

Note: Modifications to the categories should be made in ‘Maintain Inventory Categories’ on the Inventory Maintenance menu.  Modifications to the sub categories should be made in ‘Maintain Sub Categories’ on the Inventory Maintenance menu.  Modifications to the chart of accounts should be made in ‘Chart of Accounts’ on the Ledger Maintenance menu.  Modifications to the categories cannot be made in ‘Establish Inventory Categories’ once inventory has been added to AIMsi.