Product: Transaction Manager
Article Link: http://help.truecommerce.com/en/articles/2109046-transaction-manager-understanding-the-item-catalog
This article is designed to help provide a basic understanding of how the Item Catalog works in Transaction Manager.
What is the Item Catalog?
The Item Catalog serves as a list, or table, of your item information. The main function of this tool is to help translate items as they are received on your purchase orders versus how they are entered in your internal business system.
As you receive purchase orders from your trading partners, the item values will fill into the Item Catalog automatically. Note that this setting can be turned off if necessary.
Where is the Item Catalog?
Each trading partner record contains its own Item Catalog. To access the Item Catalog in Transaction Manager, select the trading partner from the Trading Partners workspace and then select Transactions > Item Catalog via the action bar.
Setting Up the Item Catalog
There are a couple pieces of information that are needed in order for the item values to translate between Transaction Manager and your accounting system.
The Primary Item column is the second column in the Item Catalog, and it contains the value being sent by your trading partner. In the example outlined under How Does it Work During Export? this would be 'FRZ123'. The default setting in Transaction Manager is UPC. If your trading partner is sending a different value, this will need to be changed.
The Item Translation column is the first column in the Item Catalog, and it is needed if you're integrated with an accounting system. This column would contain the corresponding value from your accounting system. In the example outlined under How Does it Work During Export? this would be 'ElsaHat1'.
You’ll want to make sure the item tables within your accounting system are filled in and up to date!
Adding Items to your Item Catalog
As you receive purchase orders from your trading partners, the item values will fill into the Item Catalog automatically. However, you can add new items prior to this happening.
Make sure the value you are entering matches what the trading partner will send on the PO.
Integrated? Be sure to fill out the corresponding value in the Item Translation column as well!
To manually add a new item in your Item Catalog:
Click + Add New Item on the action bar.
Fill out each corresponding column for that item. Click in the space below each column to fill it in or use the Tab key to advance to the next field.
Click Save to save your changes.
Have a lot of items to add to your Item Catalog? Check out this article for steps on how to import items into your Item Catalog using a .csv file. See also Deleting Items from the Item Catalog.
How Does it Work During Export?
Imagine you own a business that sells party hats. Your most popular hat, the cone shaped hat with Frozen characters on it, is in your accounting system under the SKU of ElsaHat1.
However, when you receive a purchase order from Parker’s Party Supplies, this item is listed with a SKU of FRZ123. Using the Item Catalog, you can maintain the unique item identifier used by the buyer, as well as the item identifier you use internally, allowing the item to translate from Transaction Manager to your ERP system during the export process.
If you have multiple buyers excited to purchase your party hats, it can become confusing to maintain which items each buyer is requesting, as the item identification used will most likely vary per buyer.
This is where the Item Catalog comes in! Let's provide a visual on this! Using the diagram below as an example, there could be three different buyers asking to purchase the same item, but each using a different unique identifier. Let’s stick with item ElsaHat1, which is the value you have in your system.
As these orders come in, the Item Catalog identifies how each buyer references the product and translates it to what your records expect in order to process within your business system.
The same logic applies on any imports (coming from your business system to Transaction Manager). The Item Catalog can help translate your item back to what your buyer is expecting on returning documents, such as invoices. See also How to Export and How to Import.
Other Item Catalog Features
The Item Catalog can also be used to store variables for each item. For example, you may not wish to have the Buyers Item Number, the Description, the SKU, and the UPC all stored within your accounting system. When importing a document into Transaction Manager, the Item Catalog can be referenced to populate those values based on their relation to the item.
Creating a transaction by Turnaround? The Item Catalog can be used to pull values onto a transaction you're creating.
What if my buyer uses the same item identifier as me? See Transaction Manager User Guide > Overriding Item Translation.
Related Topics
To see a demonstration, check out the Item Catalog lesson in the Integration Basics section of TrueCommerce University
For step-by-step guidance in Transaction Manager, select Guided Tutorials from the Foundry ? (Help) menu and then launch tutorials 'Item Catalog Overview', 'Add or Edit Items in Item Catalog' and 'How to Change the Primary Item Field'.
rev: 12/05/23