Documentation/ Checking the line items/ Assigning the ERP item
Assigning the ERP item to a line
The supplier calls a product one thing and your management system calls it another. Assigning sets the equivalence: which ERP item this line is. Without it, plenty of destinations refuse the send.
Document › Items tab › the item's line › ERP data block
On this page
What it is for
A document goes to your management system line by line. For the destination to accept a line, it has to know which of its own items this is: the supplier's description is no use to it.
The assignment supplies that. It is what turns a line you can read into a line that can be integrated.
Finding the item
The ERP item field works by search. The screen says so: you have to type at least three characters before the list of ERP items appears. Pick one and its reference code is shown.
If nothing appears as you type, check first that you have typed three characters. It is the commonest reason the list looks empty.
The search runs on the ERP's item catalogue as it stands synchronised in your account: an item that is new in the ERP and has not been synchronised yet will not appear.
The fields in the block
| Field | What is in it |
|---|---|
| ERP item | The item's name in your management system. |
| ERP reference code | Filled in when you pick the item. |
| EAN | The barcode, where there is one. |
| ERP purchase VAT | The tax rate the ERP should record the line at. Typed as a number: 21; 7.5. |
| Account | The line's nominal account in the destination. |
| Family and raw material | How the item is classified in your own master. |
Fields that have not been filled in show as not configured rather than blank, so you can tell what is missing from what is deliberately empty.
From the catalogue only
On accounts integrated with SAP, the item has to be picked from the list: the field does not take free text. Typing a name that does not exist in the catalogue creates nothing and makes the send fail.
The reason is that the destination only accepts references that exist in its own master. If the item is not there, you add it in the ERP and synchronise; you do not invent it here.
The line's account
Alongside the item you can give the nominal account the line should be recorded under in the destination.
The application tells you what it does by default: leave it empty and the receiving system works the account out from the item or from its default account. You do not always have to fill it in; you do when that particular line has to go somewhere other than the usual account.
What each document type requires
Line requirements are not the same for every type. On integrations such as SAP:
| Document type | What each line needs |
|---|---|
| Purchase invoice | Item, account and, where it applies, batch. |
| Transport invoice | Item and account. |
| Expense invoice | Account only: no item needed. |
Which is why an expense invoice can be sent with no items assigned and a purchase invoice cannot. The detail per integration is in the integrations section.
It is remembered
The match between the supplier's description and the ERP item is recorded in the product master. On later documents, that same item from that same supplier is assigned for you.
It is why a supplier's first invoice needs a lot of lines assigning and the ones after it need hardly any.