Author: Kiu Global

Product variants are used to manage products having different variations, like size, color, etc. It allows managing the product at the template level (for all variations) and at the variant level (specific attributes).

As an example, a company selling T-Shirts may have the following product:

• KIU T-Shirt: 

• Size: S, M, L, XL
• Color: Black, Red, White

In this example, KIU T-Shirt is called the product template and KIU T-Shirt, S, Red is a variant. Sizes and color are attributes.

The above example has a total of 12 different products (4 sizes x 3 colors). Each one of these products has its own inventory, sales, etc.

→ Impact of variants

• Barcode: the code and barcode is associated to a variant, not the template. Every variant may have its own barcode.
• Price: every product variant has its own public price that is computed based on the template price (VND 100,000) with an optional extra for every variant (+VND 20,000 for color red). However, you can define pricelist rules that apply on the template or the variant.
• Inventory: the inventory is managed by product variant. You don’t own t-shirts, you only own “T-shirts, S, Red”, or “T-Shirts, M, Black”. On the product template form, you get the inventory that is the sum of every variant.
• Picture: the picture is related to the variant, every variation of a product may have its own primary picture.
• Other fields: most of the other fields belong to the product template. If you update them, it updates automatically all the variants. (example: Income Account, Taxes)

→ When should you use variants?

Using variants has the following impacts:

• eCommerce: in your online shop, the customer will only see product templates in the catalog page. Once the visitor click on such a product, he will have options to choose amongst the variants (colors, sizes, …)
• Manufacturing: Using variants allows to define only one bill of material for a product template and slight variations for some of the variants. Example: instead of creating a Bill of Material for “T-shirt, Red, S”, you create a bill of material for “T-shirt” and add some lines that are specific to the dimension S, and other lines specific to the color Red.
• Pricing: The default price of a product is computed using the price of the product template and add the optional extra price on each dimension of the variant. This way, variant prices are easier to maintain since you don’t have to set the price for every variant. However, it’s possible to create pricelist rules to fix price per variants too.

→  When should you avoid using variants?

Using variants may add a level of complexity on the way you use Kiu BMP . You should consider using variants only if you need it to reduce the complexity of managing lots of products that are similar.

As an example, importing your initial product catalog is more complex if you use variants. You can’t just import a list of products, you must import product templates and all their related variations.

In addition to that, you should also carefully select the dimensions that you manage as separate product templates and those as variants. As an example, a company having these products:

• Quality: T-Shirts, Polos, Shirts
• Color: Red, Black, White
• Size: S, M, L, XL

In such a use case, you could create 1 template with three dimensions of variants ( T-Shirts, Polos, Shirts). But, it’s recommended to create two different product templates as T-shirts may highly differ from polos or shirts and customer expects to see these as two different products in the e-Commerce:

• Product Template: T-shirt
  • Color: Red, Black, White
  • Size: S, M, L, XL
• Product Template: Polos
  • Color: Red, Black, White
  • Size: S, M, L, XL

→ Configuration: 

• Activate the variant feature: Before you can use product variants, you must first activate the product variants in the settings. To do so, you must go to the Sales app. In the menu Configuration ‣ Settings, locate the Products Variants line, and tick the option “Products can have several attributes, defining variants (Example: size, color, …”, then click on Apply

• Create product with variant: Once you have activated the variant option, you can add variants to your products. To do so, go to the Sales module, Sales ‣ Products. It is also accessible from the Purchase and inventory modules.

Now, click on the product you wish to add variants to.

• In the product page, a new tab called Variants has appeared. The number written on top is the number of variants this product currently has. To add new variants, click on the tile. In the new window, click on Create.
• In Attributes, click on the roll down menu and select the type of variance you wish to add. If the variant does not yet exist, you can create it on the fly by clicking on Create and edit…

In the Attributes window, the Value field is the description of the attribute such as Black, White or Red . The Attribute field is the type of variant such as Color.

• You can add a cost for the variant on the fly by adding it in the Attribute Price Extra field, or choose to modify it later. Click on Save.

You can also add a different barcode and internal reference to the variant.

When you have entered all the specifications of the variant, click on Save.

→ Managing product variants: 

• Managing combination possibilities: By default, with the above product (KIU T-shirt) template, you get 12 different products (3 colors, 4 sizes). If the XL size only exists for red and black t-shirts, you can deactivate the white product variant.

To do this, click on the Variants button, select XL, White T-shirt. From the product form, uncheck the Activebox of the T-shirt White, XL

• Setting a price per variant: You can add a cost over the main price for some of the variants of a product. Once you have activated the variant option, you can add variants to your products. To do so, go to the Sales module, open Sales ‣ Products and click on the product you want to modify. Click on the Variant Prices button to access the list of variant values.

• Click on the variant name you wish to add a value to, to make the 3 fields editable. In the Attribute Price Extra field, add the cost of the variant that will be added to the original price.
• When you have entered all the extra values, click on Save.

In some cases, handling products in different unit of measures (UoM) is necessary. For example, if you buy products in a country where the metric system is of module and sell the product in a country where the imperial system is used, you will need to convert the units.

You can set up KIU BMP to work with different units of measure for one product.

Note: For each product, you only can set multi-UoM which belong to one UoM category, you can’t set different UoM of different UoM categories.

• Configuration: In the Inventory Module, go to Configuration ‣ Settings. In the Products section, select “Some products may be sold/purchased in different units of measure (advanced)”, then click on Apply

• Set up units on your product: In Inventory Control ‣ Products, open the product which you would like to change the purchase/sale unit of measure, and click on Edit.

• In the Unit of Measure section, select the unit in which the product will be sold and in which internal transfers will be done.
• In the Purchase Unit of Measure section, select the unit in which you purchase the product. When you’re done, click on Save.

• Transfer from one unit to another: When doing inter-unit transfers, the rounding is automatically done by KIU BMP. The unit of measure can be changed throughout the whole process. The only condition is that the unit of measure is part of the same category.

In this example, we are in the beverage merchandise business (Please see image attached above)

Purchase: When doing your purchase order, you can still change the unit of measure

Receiving: The quantity control is managed by “Unit” . Therefore, the quantity check is done by unit

Sales: The liquor are sold by pack of 4 bottles as per customer’s requirement. You can choose the unit of measure on the sales order document. When doing it, the price is automatically computed from the unit to pack

In the delivery order, the initial demand is done in the unit of measure of sales order :

But the transfer is done in the product unit of measure. Everything is converted automatically:

 

 

In this document, the flows that are explained are the most simple ones. Kiu BMP also suits for companies having advanced warehouse management.

• By default, only receipts and deliveries are configured but you can activate the use of multi-locations and multi-warehouses to do internal transfers.
• Routes: you can automate flows with push and pull rules
• Multi-step receipts and deliveries can be easily configured for each warehouse
• Much more: Barcode scanning, serial numbers, lots, cross-docking, dropshipping, integration with a third-party shipper, putaway and removal strategies…. All of it is possible with Kiu BMP.

Same as receipt process above, you can retrieve the delivery order in 2 ways:

→ From the sale order:

On the top right of your sale order, you will see a button with the related Delivery:

 

 

Click on it to see the Transfer order.

→ From the Inventory Dashboard:

When opening the Inventory Module, click on # to do to see the list of your receipts to process.

Note: If the product is not in stock, the sales order will be listed as Waiting on your dashboard.

To process the stock transfer. Simply click on Validate to complete the transfer. A message will appear asking if you want to process the whole order, accept it by clicking on

Note: E-Commerce orders are processed the same way.

You can easily integrate your delivery orders with different delivery methods. Please read the document How to set up a delivery method?

You can retrieve the receipt order in 2 ways:

→ From the purchase order

On the top right of your confirmed purchase order, you will see a button with the related Receipt:

 

 

Click on it to see the Transfer order.

→ From the Inventory Dashboard

When opening the Inventory module, click on # to receive to see the list of your deliveries to process.

In the list, click on the one related to the purchase order:

To process the stock transfer. Simply click on Validate to complete the transfer. A message will appear asking if you want to process the whole order, accept it by clicking on Apply.

In case you receive a part of your PO, just click Edit or