Create Product

On this page:

Further information can be found on this page:

Product Maintenance

The form below is used to both add a new product and maintain an existing product(via Navigation). If you are creating a product from either the system product, EDI, or Excel then any details already known will be auto-populated into the form.

Duplicate Product Codes

The same Product Code can exist for multiple Customers in the system but it must be unique for each Customer Code/Site Code combination.

If a Product Code is entered that already exists in the EDI Product Screen with the same Customer Code and Site Code, you will be prompted to confirm you would like to populate the fields for this new Product from the screen

Products Details

All fields in the Product Details section are mandatory except ‘Alt Lang Description’, ‘BOM’ and ‘Archive’.

The Product Details field explanation is given below:

Product Details Fields

Field Name	Notes
Customer Code & Site Code	The customer code field is a selection field where you can press F11/ F12 keys to select the existing customer. Also you can type in the code. The site code is a dropdown field from where you can select a valid site. The product can only be used by this customer and is unique to their stock holding account.
Product Code	An alpha numeric field for product code. We suggest no more than 20 characters but the field can handle more however much of the paperwork and reports are designed for 20 characters - please avoid using spaces and be careful with symbols as these can provide unusual issues.
Product Description	You can add maximum 50 character description for the product. This will be used all around the system.
Alt Lang Description	This field is for Non-English descriptions, it is not normally in use and is only used on report templates where specified by the customer, otherwise this is not used.
Brand Name	This should be the brand name or the producer of the product, we hold these in a brand table so you can use a lookup and if a new entry is made you will be asked if you wish to add it to the table. UK Duty Alcohol Reform 2023 : This field will be used to identify producers who may have small producer allowance / certification allowing a lower duty value to be charged.
Country of Origin (COO)	Country of Origin (COO) is the place of manufacture/production. This is the two-digit country code, you can use the standard search facility to find the code you need. Standard ISO codes are used → https://visionsoftware.atlassian.net/l/cp/wh0zpNfK For a quick glance please see the table given below this table.
Product Type	The product type is a mandatory field and is used to control the type of goods you are storing. It can be used for location put away, picking rules, location restrictions, customer storage authorisations, and it is used to define the type of duty and commodity for the item which allows the duty values to be correctly applied. Product Types are system setup items, that can only be added or changed by Ontech. See the table for reference → 18. Product Type
UOM (Unit of Measure)	Whilst the majority of storage is Pallet/Case/Single, we have customers storing other items which need different units of measure e.g Hectolitres, litres, centilitres for liquids or Outer/Inner/Carton for tobacco products.
Product Group	This is a key field in the product setup as many of the product group attributes will be applied to the product setup allowing you to standardise, and increase efficiency and speed at product setup. More detail on what this field controls can be found in Product Group This field will default from the product group setting.
BOM	BOM - Bill of Materials Click this link for more details.
Year	This is the year (Vintage) of the item, if it does not apply, use “NA” otherwise enter a 4-digit year OR if the item is a wine with no vintage enter “NV”.
Archive Product	This is a Checkbox which allows you to archive a product on the system, it will always remain on the system but will no longer be able to accept new goods arriving.

Product Types

Type Code	Description
B	Beer
W	Wine
S	Spirits
I	Intermediate (Cider / Perry)
T	Tobacco
C	Cigarettes
G	General Goods (only when the customer is not bonded should this be used)
Z	Innocent Goods (only when the customer is bonded and the goods are not subject to excise duties)

General Tab

The majority of the fields on this page either control key functions or are used for specific purposes or options available within the system.

Singles Per Case

Can only be adjusted up to the point there is stock landed on the product, at that point the field is locked and can not be adjusted.

General tab fields

The tables below have been split into the key groups on the tab

The “M” field on the table indicates that the field is mandatory.

Product Dimensions

Vital fields in the setup of the product which defines the aspects of goods in, storage and goods outwards. It is also key for charging goods inwards or storage e.g. If you do not set how many cases are on a pallet then how would the system know what to charge if you had 300 cases? Is this 1 pallet or 10?

Field	M	Notes
Singles Per Case	Y	Needs a value 1 or higher. If a case can not be split then enter 1 this then allow the ordering of a single item or a single case to always select the case.
Cases Per Layer		Number of cases on a layer, this is only required if you set the customer to force picking by layer.
Cases Per Pallet		You should set this if you intend to charge by the pallet. When stock is landed you are able to change the cases per pallet on each rotation.
Height (Metres)		If you intend to use the auto put away functionality or any automated functionality in the warehouse you need to set the height of a pallet of the stock, you will also need to set the cases per layer to allow us to divide a pallet into layers if needed.
Single Size (litres)	Y	If you are not storing a liquid then set this to 1.00
Gross Weight (KGs)	Y	The weight of the case with the packaging. You can default a multiplier in the product group for this field to auto-calculate. e.g. Wine varies between 1.7 and 2.3 times more than the net weight.
Net Weight (KGs)	Y	The weight of the case without the packaging. In the case of liquid 6 bottles of 75cl wine is 4.5litres and also 4.5kg
Cubic Metres		If you intend to charge by cubic metres then this is mandatory and needs to be the cubic metres of a case.
Dimensions (Length, Width and Height (cm))		To capture the dimensions of the product. This field can be left blank however should not be 0.

Option Boxes:

SSCC → Standard Shipping Container Code, this is also known as a Pallet ID. Manufacturers, bottlers, and canning companies all use SSCC when they output a pallet, it allows pallet tracking and each pallet have its own unique SSCC in the world. Many supermarket chains and large distributors deal only with pallet movements and wish to know the pallet ID of any goods they are receiving.

Field	Use
Receipts need SSCC	If you are receipting goods in and wish to handle and track pallet ID then select this option, you should also have the Use Pallet Quantity set to YES to ensure one Pallet ID is provided on rotation. Only select this if you are full pallet warehouse with only racking otherwise please discuss with Ontech beforehand.
Despatches need SSCC	If your customers need to know the SSCC for the delivery point then this is the best option to scan them as you pick them. The items will then be recorded and are sent in the order picking confirmation to the customer.
Use Pallet Quantity [One pallet to rotation]	Each single item received into stock will receive a rotation for the item, whether this is 1 pallet, 1 case or 1 bottle
Serial Number required	This option is no longer in use.
Do not apply transport discount	This is a new field - not yet in use. If you have Distribution then to aid with case calculations for delivery charges we can discount or surcharge a product, this stops the discount or surcharge from being applied to this product.

Other fields:

This covers the general fields found at the bottom of the form.

Picking for best before date stock required

Product group to have “BBD Mandatory”
All stock to have a BBD
Shelf Life to be set to anything other than 0

No fields are mandatory

Field	Notes
Product Life	On receipt of the product this is the product life that the item needs to have in order to be available to pick, if it does not have this amount of life on arrival the product is placed on hold
Shelf Life	This is the number of days of shelf life the product must have available when the item is picked. “30” days means the BBD date must be 30 days or more in the future. You override this setting by specifying the rotation number on the order, if specified we IGNORE the BBD The Product Group BBD Mandatory field should be set to true in order to use this for picking goods.
Transport Adjustment	Used in Vision Distribution to modify the base case calculation for the product. It allows the invoice charge unit quantity (known as ICases) to be increased or decreased according to the size for this product. This is being replaced and the product group will be replacing the discount, along with the Do not apply discount option for the product.

EAN/ UPC Barcode - Explanation

EAN / UPC Barcodes

No fields in this section are mandatory.

ANA codes come from the Article Numbering Association, also known as EAN, a worldwide entity which defines barcodes for all products in the world it is managed by https://www.gs1uk.org/ in the UK.

UPC is the American equivalent of the ANA, and is only used in the United States and some other places in North America and the Caribbean where the predominant supply is from the US you can apply for a UPC prefix and obtain these also through https://www.gs1uk.org/

These fields are only used in single owner warehouses where the owner of the stock is running the warehouse. They are also used for output to major supermarket chains who insist on using the EAN / UPC for their stocks.

Customs Tab

The fields in this tab are used when your warehouse is a tax or customs warehouse or you wish to use those components within the business. If a customer is set to be non-bonded these fields are not required.

On a previous tab you defined the Product Type - this will define which fields are mandatory or required within this tab.

Many fields here use items which are already set up within the system, see the other create menu options for how to add a new item.

Customs tab fields

Key Fields

Field	Notes
Tax Code	Will provide you a list of existing tax codes based on the product type you selected
Additional Tax Code	Only applicable for high strength beers where there are two tax codes
Commodity Code	A 10 digit commodity code for the product type and also filtered for the tax code you entered. We display this as “ 4 4 2 “ for easier reading.
Country Consigned (CWC)	Country Whence Consigned (CWC) is the field which determines which country the goods are coming from , in general the Country of Origin (COO) and this field are the same, however you may be always purchasing French (FR) wine through a German (DE) distributor in which case you can set this to the normal place of purchase. By default it will default to the COO The code required is the ISO country code which you can select from the preloaded country selection
Liquid Litres / Case	This should be calculating based on the single size and the singles per case to provide the number of litres in the case, also is the same as netweight for most liquids.
Strength ABV	This may be mandatory, you can set this to be mandatory on the tax or commodity code and you will be required to set the strength of the product, this can be adjusted upon receipt but you then may find that the commodity code of the stock receipt needs to be adjusted.
Litres Alcohol / Case	Quite simply this is the litres of liquid in a case multiplied by the strength %. It shows how many litres of 100% alcohol are within the product.
Degree Plato	Used in some countries as the measure for duty calculations of beer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_measurement This may be required for export documentation
VAT Rate	This is the standard VAT or Tax rate for this product as if you were to sell it to an end consumer. MOST PRODUCTS HAVE A RATE OTHER THAN 0 Duty / Customs Warehouses You may move the stock without duty payments in which case the sales tax would not apply.

Tax Certificate

This product may have a tax certificate which can be applied against the product, the certificate is usually to reduce the amount of duty which may be applicable to the product.

Tax Certificates need to be set up in advance, and then you can apply an existing certificate to the products.

To apply either enter the number or perform an F11 search, select the correct item and apply it.

Tobacco / Cigarettes

This section is mandatory for any products Type T (Tobacco) or C (Cigarettes)

Field

Notes

Cigarettes / Case

Mandatory for Type C

In order to calculate duty the stick count must be calculated

Cigarettes Selling Price per Case

Mandatory for Type C

In order to calculate duty the selling price must be known, this price has an additional tax added to it, check tax codes for more details. The price is monetary so needs to have decimals

Tobacco KG per Case

Mandatory for Type T

In order to calculate duty the kg must be known for the case

Underbond Cost / Case

We would not suggest you use this field unless you are holding only your own stock in the warehouse and you are maintaining this figure through regular updates.

The figure held here will default into the goods inwards when receiving new stock into the warehouse, it removes the need to check the actual value at the point of receipt and can lead to incorrect values in the warehouse if the user is not careful.

Do not use this field if you are operating a 3PL warehouse. Leave blank and then each receipt will require product value information to be added for the stock.

These fields allow a value to be entered along with the currency code which is a 3 digit ISO code

Invoicing Tab

In this tab, you are selecting the invoice rate to charge for this product.

All products need to have a charge rate applied even if the rate is a nil charge.

The screen shows two category options

Goods In Charge per line
Storage charge

The charges shown if you press the F11 search key are those which are setup on the customer record. Only those set there will be shown and can be applied to the products.

If there is only a single charge setup for the customer it will automatically default to this, you simply have to set this as the DEFAULT charge by selecting the line and clicking the “Set as Default”

There are no fields to set up within this tab, you are only selecting from a list of possible charges.

You should only set one charge for each category (Goods In / Storage) You can use multiple for goods inwards however set one as the default and the other can be changed at the time of receipt. Storage charges for this product however can only ever have a single charge type.

Additional Tab

This tab contains additional information fields which are not used often during product setup or have a specific purpose.

The general fields in this section are explained in the expandable section below:

Additional tab fields

Field	Note
Container Quantity	Used to store information where the stock holding customer is using the VCIS site purchasing module to generate their purchase orders. This is an option for the VCIS site.
Min Stock Level
Min Purchase Order Qty
Purchase Cost / Case
Carriage Price / Case
Substitute Product Code1/2/3	Optional Setup → When configured can be used when entering orders to suggest alternative products in the event the requested product is not available
Alternative Supply Account	Can be used to generate a fulfilment from another stock holding account in the warehouse This feature has to be setup and configured, it is not generally available in the system. It is an additional module.
Alternative Supply Product Code	The alternative suppliers product code, used is we are generating a fulfilment order from another stock holding.

Auto Put Away Locations

As an option at the time of setup or something you later add, the system can be designed to provide you with suggested locations to put the stock away, the listing shows all the location types in the system and you can set location types where this stock should be located.

e.g. Bulk liquid would recommend going into a suitable tank location; Single items may want to be placed into picking locations etc.

Vision Live Service Details

This is a generic place where you can look up product codes from an external source.

We previously covered the master product table in the System Product wiki page, if you have this service running and a customer who is not using it but you wish to obtain a standard product code you can perform this manually within this tab.

This tab is generally used for master system products customers where we are using a standard table and lookup and the Livex LWIN service, as part of the Livex membership you may be able to obtain trading values for the stock you have in the warehouse, we store the values within our database and we can then display them on the screen here.

These values can be displayed to your customer on the VCIS site and also can be used on annual invoices for the customer.

Customer Specific tab

The customer specific tab is used by customers on the VCIS where they are wanting to store information for purchasing and selling and having multiple price lists for the stocks.

This feature was part of VCIS but was removed in 2015 due to lack of use. The fields in this section do not feed anywhere on the system at present.