Using Product Setup and Maintenance

Aptify Product Setup and Maintenance application is designed to create and manage products and applies to all products in Aptify. It also contains sub-topics that provide reference information for this application and its related services.

This topic contains the following information:

• Managing the Product Categories Service
• Creating New Product Types
• Managing Basic Products
• Managing Publication Products
• Managing Product Inventory
• Understanding Product Setup and Maintenance

The Aptify Products service centralizes all setup and configuration of goods and services sold by an organization. The purpose of centralizing this functionality into a single service is to allow for ease of use and flexibility in setting up each organization’s product and service mix.

All products have certain common attributes such as pricing information, general ledger (GL) account integration, and other detailed information. However, certain types of products have additional attributes that are specific to their product type. For example, a meeting planner may want to specify the date and location of a meeting, while a book publisher may want to specify information about the author and editor of a particular volume. To accommodate these varying product attributes, Aptify has a core Products form that automatically extends itself based on the category of the product.

In addition to setting up goods and services for sale, the Products service also controls items that are inventoried but not sold. Examples include brochures, flyers, and other materials that gain benefit from being inventoried, but do not directly generate revenue.

Outlined below are some of the general features and functionality of the core Products service:

• The Products service tracks product inventory. Product inventory records track inventory purchases, inventory adjustments, inventory orders and reorders, and inventory levels. When a product requiring inventory is purchased through the Aptify Order Entry system, inventory levels are automatically adjusted. Products requiring inventory are housed in warehouses, which may or may not be physical storage areas. These warehouses can be arranged in a hierarchical fashion. For example, a main warehouse may contain several individual bins and these bins then become the warehouses from which inventory may be removed.
  
  
• Pricing matrices store details about the product’s pricing scheme, such as duration of the price, discounts for customer types, and establishing quantity controls. Additional pricing rules can be configured for each individual product in Aptify.
  
  
• For convenience, General Ledger (GL) accounts for products are inherited automatically from the product category level, yet they can be modified at either the product or product category level.
  
  
• A product may have subcomponents, which, when combined, make up the named product (typically, this is a kit product). The Assembly tab tracks information about these components. Conversely, the product may itself be a component of a larger product unit. The product may also have some optional related products that are available for sale. These are recorded and displayed under the Related Products tab.
  
  
• If the Aptify e-Business Suite module is installed, products can collect and store certain information to display on the web. An option on the Web tab of each Products record controls determines if that product information appears on the e-Business website.

Related Topics 

• Managing Expos
• Using Housing Management
• Managing Meeting Products
• Managing Tasks
• Managing Subscriptions
• Managing Membership Dues