# Introduction - Items

An item is a record of one thing you sell or buy, and it fills in the lines on every document that touches it.

**Video coming soon:** A tour of the Items module: records, variants and where their defaults reach.

An item is a record of one thing your business sells or buys: a physical product, a service, or a single variation of either. Every quote, invoice, purchase order, bill and stock movement points at an item rather than at loose text, which is what lets a price change in one place reach every document raised afterwards.

Choosing an item on a document fills in its description, its rate, the account it posts to and its tax treatment. You can override any of those on the document in front of you without touching the record.

## A variant is itself an item

This is the idea the rest of the module rests on, and the one most worth reading twice. In SorviAI Finance a variant is not a property of a product and not a row hanging off it. It is a complete item record with its own identifier, SKU, selling and cost prices, stock, status, images and timestamps. The only thing joining it to the product above is a parent reference.

The working consequence: when you find yourself asking whether some column, screen or action applies to a variant, it does, unless the field is one the parent specifically owns. Variants are invoiced, counted, filtered and reported on in their own right.

> **Note:**
>
> **A parent is a label, not something you transact**
>
> In the items list a variant parent shows its name, a chevron and a count of what is under it. Every other column on that row is empty, because the data belongs to the variants. Parents cannot be selected or bulk-edited; the variants beneath them can.

1. **Work Boot**: Parent, a grouping label
2. **Work Boot / 8 / Tan**: An item, own SKU and stock
3. **Work Boot / 9 / Tan**: An item, own SKU and stock

## Goods and services

Product type is decided per item, which means per variant. Goods may be counted; services never can, because there is nothing to hold. Nothing requires a product to be all of one kind.

| Product type | Stock tracking | Where it fits |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Goods | Optional | Anything physical you keep on a shelf |
| Goods, not tracked | Unavailable | Physical things you order in per job |
| Service | Unavailable | Labour, licences, recurring subscriptions |
| Mixed product | Decided per variant | A machine sold alongside its fitting service |

## What an item fills in

- **Sales documents** take the selling price, the income account and the sales tax rate.
- **Purchase documents** take the cost price, the expense or stock account and the purchase tax rate.
- **Inventory documents** move quantities, and only for goods that are tracked.
- **Rate lists** replace the selling price for a chosen customer or a single document.

> **Tip:**
>
> **Search reaches variants directly**
>
> The items list shows products and standalone items; search goes further and returns variants themselves. You can put one size on an invoice without opening its parent first.

## Fields a variant borrows from its parent

Some fields are answered once on the product and left blank on the variants beneath it. A blank one reads through to the parent at the moment it is used, so correcting the parent corrects every variant that never set its own.

| Field | Set where | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Descriptions | Parent, unless overridden | A variant with its own description keeps it |
| Item group, brand, manufacturer | Parent, unless overridden | Used for filtering and reporting |
| Income and expense accounts | Parent, unless overridden | Where the lines post |
| Tax rate, vendor, unit | Parent, unless overridden | Applied when the item reaches a document |
| HS code, country of origin | Parent, unless overridden | Carried onto customs paperwork |
| Stock tracking, valuation method | Each variant | Cannot be inherited; see Stock and Valuation |
| Returnable, product type | Each variant | This is what allows a mixed product |