Item Styles: Overview
| Add a New Style | Style Grid BasicsPro
Note: The availability of the style feature can be controlled by your Features to Use preference settings.
Many retailers sell merchandise that is grouped into styles. A style is a means of grouping inventory items that share the same basic item information but differ in one or two item traits, such as size, color, and pattern.
Example: A line of T-shirts might be carried in three sizes (Small, Medium, Large) and two colors (Black, White). This line of T-shirts, with six distinct items, constitutes a style.
When viewing your inventory or planning a vendor purchase, it can be very helpful to view and work with all the members of a style on a single screen. Point of Sale makes this easy with the use of the Style window and the style grid. To view and work on the Style window, click the Style button from the item form.
Our T-shirt style, as viewed in a style grid, looks like this:
A style grid allows you to see the on-hand quantities for each item in the style (each cell represents a size/color combination), as well as the total quantities for each color and size. You can quickly spot items that need to be re-ordered or are out of stock and slow moving items. Accessed while making a purchase order or other document, the grid can be used to enter the quantity to order or process on the document.
From a data standpoint, every item belongs to a style, though that item may be the only member of the style. Style items are defined by a common combination of its Department and Item Name (Description 1) values.
Style Templates
Imagine that you carry 20 different shoe lines, all of which have the same or similar size and color combinations. Having to re-enter the same sizes and colors for every shoe you carry would quickly become tedious.
Enter the style template. A style template is a user-defined array of item attributes: sizes, colors, patterns, material, etc., that can be used repeatedly to quickly add a style to inventory. Each template can be used for an unlimited number of styles.
Define and save a style template with the repeated sizes or other attributes along the x and/or y axes of the style grid. When you add a new line of shoes, select the style template to quickly set up the grid. You can edit an individual grid, as necessary, for variations from the template.
The use of style templates is particularly well suited to lines of merchandise that vary only in size, color, pattern, or some other item trait. Typical examples include
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Apparel |
Housewares |
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Footwear |
Linens |
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Luggage |
Furniture |