What items are

The parts you fit and the services you charge for, the difference between them, and how a variant behaves.

An item is anything that can go on a ticket line: a service your technicians perform, or a part they fit. Both are the same kind of record, and what separates them is whether anybody counts it. A rewind is done and gone; a bearing came off a shelf and left a gap.

Parts, services and variants, and how each behaves on a repair

Highlights

Parts and services share one catalogue, and one list.
Usage is the column that tells them apart, not the name.
This list is not filtered to repairs. Everything the business stocks is here.
A variant is a full item with its own code, its own price and its own stock.
A variant parent is only a label, and its row is deliberately empty.

The list

The Items list under a tab reading Items, headed Items with the subtitle Manage your inventory items, goods, and services. Columns read Item Name, Structure, Usage, Selling Price, Cost Price, Stock on Hand, Status and Created At. The first row, Hydraulic Hose Assembly R2AT, carries a disclosure chevron and a badge reading 6 variants, and every other column on that row is blank. Below it, rows badged Single item include Emergency Callout - Out of Hours, LOLER Harness Inspection, Motor Rewind and Balancing and On-Site Vibration Survey, all with a Usage of Sales and Purchase and a stock on hand of 0 pcs beside a red warning triangle. Further rows including Industrial Degreaser Concentrate, Hydraulic Oil ISO VG46 and Brass Compression Coupling have a Usage of Inventory with stock of 90, 56 and 134. The foot reads showing 1 to 25 of 44 results. — One catalogue holding both. Usage says whether a thing is counted; the top row is a variant parent, and its columns are empty on purpose.

Usage: Inventory: A part. Quantities are counted, stock moves when it is bought and fitted, and the stock on hand column means something.
Usage: Sales and Purchase: A service. It is sold and charged for but never counted, which is why the stock column reads zero on every one of them.
Structure: Single item: An item in its own right, with one code and one price.
Structure: N variants: A grouping row. The badge counts the real items hiding underneath it.

What an item record holds

The item record for Hydraulic Oil ISO VG46, badged Single item and Returnable Item, with an Adjust Stock button and five tabs reading Summary, Inventory, Statistics, Warehouses and Transactions. The Summary tab shows Basic Information giving a Type of Goods, a Status of Active and a Usage of Inventory; a Tax panel reading Standard Rate 20 per cent; Sales Information with a selling price of 76.50 pounds against a Sales account; Purchase Information with a cost price of 39.20 pounds against Cost of Goods Sold; and an Item Details panel listing SKU IRN-LUB-HYD46, a unit of pcs, a category of Lubricants and Workshop Chemicals, a manufacturer of Stanwick Alloys and Metals Ltd, a condition of New, and a returnable flag reading Yes. — A stocked part. Type, status and usage sit at the top left, and the three money panels sit beneath them.

Basic information: Whether it is goods or a service, whether it is still active, and whether the product counts it.
Sales information: What you charge and which account the revenue lands in.
Purchase information: What it costs you, which account that lands in, and the supplier you usually buy it from.
Item details: The SKU, unit, category, manufacturer and condition. This is what makes a part findable and identifiable.
The tabs: Inventory for the count, Warehouses for where it is, Transactions for what it has been on, Statistics for how it has moved.

Variants, and why the parent row is blank

An item that comes in sizes is stored as a group. The group itself is a label; the sizes are the real items.

The item list expanded on Hydraulic Hose Assembly R2AT, showing six indented variant rows reading 1/4 in / 1 m, 1/4 in / 2 m, 3/8 in / 1 m, 3/8 in / 2 m, 1/2 in / 1 m and 1/2 in / 2 m, each labelled Bore / Length and badged Active. The detail pane on the right shows one of those variants open as a full item, headed Hydraulic Hose Assembly R2AT with a chip reading Bore 1/4 in, Length 1 m, and carrying its own Type of Goods, its own Variant line, its own SKU IRN-HYD-R2AT-0410, its own selling price of 38.50 pounds, its own cost price of 20.10 pounds, a Category of Hydraulics and Pneumatics and a Manufacturer of Brackley Hydraulics Ltd. — Six hose sizes under one name. Open one and it is a complete item, with a code and a price of its own.