The Master Inventory Items screen allows you to define all of the items that can be inventoried by any of your entities. Creating a central list enables all of the restaurants in your organization to utilize a uniform list of inventoried items. This allows company-wide consistency of GL accounts and recipes. There is additional information about each inventory item that can be unique to each restaurant, such as the inventory unit, the storage location, par values, vendor information and the like— these are defined using Restaurant Inventory Items.
If using Compeat for a single restaurant, this screen is simply the list of all inventory items used by the restaurant. You must still define additional information for each item using the Restaurant Inventory Items feature, however.
Note: If theoretical reporting is important to your Compeat
implementation, you should not setup duplicate items in your Master Inventory
Item list. A common mistake made (by those who want accurate theoretical
depletion) is setting up duplicate items in the Master Inventory list
so that they can receive items by different pack sizes or purchase units.
The problem occurs when these duplicate items are used interchangeably
in the same recipes. The duplicate items are received onto the theoretical
shelf as separate items (via AP), but only one of the items can be used
in the recipes. Accurate theoretical depletion of duplicated items will
not be possible because one of the items does not get depleted and is
always left sitting on the theoretical shelf.
Visit the Compeat
Support Website for additional information on this topic and more.
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Description of fields:
Item #
You can assign an item number to the inventory item (between 1 and
999,999,999). Because you might already have a numbering system in
place, Compeat will not automatically assign a sequential number.
However, if you want Compeat to assign the next sequential number
available to the item, leave this field blank when you save the item.
If you enter an item number that is already in use, you will receive
a warning message and you must select a new item number. Once an item
number has been assigned, it cannot be changed.
Note: The Prep Items and the master inventory items share the same item numbering; they cannot be duplicates. For example, if you have designated that Egg has the item number 100, you cannot assign item number 100 to the prep item House Dressing; that item number is already in use.
Because various reports allow
selection of inventory items by item number, we recommend you use a logical
grouping system of selecting each item number (for example, you might
number all meat items in the 500’s, number all liquor items in the 1500’s).
Some reports can be ordered by item number.
Description Enter text up to 30 characters in length describing the inventory item. This field is required.
Description #2 Use this field if additional space is required for your description. This field is optional.
Item Class/Base Unit Select the measurement
class for the item, either Count,
Volume, or Weight.
It is important to carefully consider how the item will be used before
selecting an Item Class. The Item Class you select will determine
the units available to you in the Inventory Unit field of Restaurant
Inventory Items, the Recipe Units field of Prep Items, and the Recipe
Units field of the Menu Items (if using raw ingredients). You can
define one Conversion Class (below) which will make another set of
units available as well.
Whichever class you select, the associated base unit fills in automatically— Each,
Vol oz, or Weight
oz, respectively.
For more information on Item Classes,
see Item Units in the reference section of
the Compeat Support website.
UPC Optionally enter the universal product code (if any) of the master inventory item. This UPC will propagate down to all entities that use the item. Enter a UPC here only for items that will have the same code for all entities. For items that use different barcodes in different restaurants, leave this blank and instead enter UPCs in Restaurant Inventory Items.
Portioned Shelf Life Use this field to enter a shelf-life for portioned items.
Available Specify whether this inventory item should be available to restaurants. If this box is not checked, no restaurants can use this item on invoices, orders, or manual checks. If an item is not available, it cannot be active in any restaurant. When you create a new master inventory item, this is selected by default.
Catch Weight Check this box if the item is a catch weight item. Catch weight items solve the problem of bulk pieces having weight variations within a product order. When you set up a catch weight item on the Restaurant Inventory Items screen, you need to describe two purchase units there— one for the ordered bulk piece, and another for the received item having a one-to-one correspondence to its inventory unit, that is, its weight. Catch weight items will be treated differently on the AP Invoice and Manual Check screens— they cannot be back ordered, and they will be received in the inventory unit (the one-to-one purchase unit description), or else prompt you to create it, so that you can enter the actual weight of the received item. When counted, the bulk piece purchase unit is suppressed.
Limit counts to inventory units (catch weight items only) This box is disabled unless the Catch Weight box is checked. Check this box to prevent a catch weight's bulk weight purchase unit from appearing on inventory counts sheets and screens, forcing counts to be performed by weight.
Conversion
Class (optional) Optionally enter a conversion class that is different
from the item class, and then define a cross-class equivalency. For
example, flour may have an item class of Volume but a conversion class
of Weight. In this case, you would want to define a relationship that,
say, 4.4 of Conversion Units Weight
oz (from the Weight class) equals 1 Item Units of cup
(from the Volume class). An extensive list of conversions is available
at the FareShare.net site.
For more information on Conversion Classes,
see Item Units in the reference section of
the Compeat Support site.
Defining a cross-class conversion factor here enables you to choose
from a list of all units
of measure in each class
when:
Defining recipe units that use this master inventory item on the Menu Items screen and Prep Items screen.
Defining inventory units that use this master inventory item on the Restaurant Inventory Items screen.
Note: If you have security access to the Standard Unit of Measure screen, you can click on the Conversion Units or Items Units buttons to define new units.
Inventory
Level Select one or more inventory item levels from each drop-down
list. A Level 1 category is required, but Level 2 and 3 assignments
are optional. The inventory item levels can be used to group inventory
items when their valuation is calculated after performing
a physical count.
If you have appropriate security access,
you can click on the Level
buttons to go directly to the Inventory
Level screen.
In addition to the inventoried items that you sell to customers, you might want to define items that are not counted, so they are available as line items when entering vouchers. For example, you may choose not to count cleaning products, but if you want to enter voucher detail for cleaning products, you should enter them here as master inventory items. Because these items are entered only so they can be used in line item detail on a voucher, you do not need to subsequently use the Restaurant Inventory Items screen to enter additional inventory and purchase information for them, with one exception: if you will be ordering these non-inventoried items (such as soap) using Compeat’s ordering capabilities, you will need to enter a vendor item code, which is stored on the Restaurant Inventory Items screen. When you are on that screen, make sure the "Inventoried" checkbox of uncounted items is not checked.
Note: If your business portions inventory— for example, buys whole beef tenderloins and portions them into filets in-house— there are a couple of special considerations when defining items that will be portioned. For information, see the topic Portion Types.
Optionally enter any notes you wish to associate with the item.
