About Item Types

In the Type field on the Item Card page, you can select what the item is used for in your business and therefore how it is managed in the system. Three options exist:

Option	Typical Purpose
Inventory	A physical unit, such as a bicycle, for full business support.
Non-Inventory	A physical unit, such as a bolt, for limited business support, for example, because the item is only used internally and has a low cost.
Service	A labor time unit, such as a consultancy hour, for limited business support.

The Inventory type involves full tracking of inventory quantity and value. Therefore, all item transaction types are supported, and items of type Inventory can be used with all item-handling features.

The Service and Non-Inventory types do not involve tracking of inventory quantity and value. Therefore, only selected item transaction types and features are supported.

The three item types support the following features respectively.

Item Type	Sales	Purchasing	Job Consumption	Service Consumption	Assembly Consumption	Production Consumption	Assembly Output	Production Output	Location Transfer	Physical Counting	Inventory Revaluation	Inventory Costing	Item Tracking	Reservation	Warehousing	Planning
Inventory	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Non-Inventory	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Service	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Costing Methods for Types of Items

When you post inventory transactions, the quantity and value changes to the inventory are recorded in the item ledger entries and the value entries, respectively.

For inventory items, the cost is recorded in the Cost Amount (Actual) field on the Value Entries page, and when it is reconciled to the general ledger the cost will be shown in the Cost Posted to G/L field. For more information, see Design Details: Inventory Costing.

For non-inventory and service items the cost is recorded in the Cost Amount (Non-Invtbl.) field on the Value Entries page. For non-inventory and service items the cost is specified on the sales, assembly, and production documents and journals. The default cost can be specified in the Unit Cost field on the Item Card and Stockkeeping Unit pages. Costs for these types of items are not reconciled to the general ledger.

Catalog and Service Items

Items that you offer to your customers but you do not want manage in your system until you start selling them can be set up as catalog items. Catalog items are not to be mistaken with regular items of type Non-Inventory. For more information, see Work with Catalog Items.

Customers' items that you perform service on, such as a printer, are called service items. Service items have nothing to do with regular or catalog items. However, service components can be regular items. For more information, see Set Up Service Items and Service Item Components.

See Also

Register New Items
Setting Up Inventory
Managing Inventory Costs
Inventory
Working with Business Central