Author First: This is where you key in the first name of an author. Pertains to books.

• Author Last: This is where you key in the last name of an author. Pertains to books.

Author Code: This is where you key in the author's short name.

• The short name must be unique; that is, you cannot have any duplicate author short names. 

Available Date: This generally only applies if there is a problem receiving a product

• e.g. if it is on back order, and your store has not yet received it.
• an available date can be attached to the product, letting you know when the product will be available again.

Buying Price: This is the price your store pays for a product.

• If you leave this field blank, it will automatically fill in with the retail price.

Copyright This Year: This is where you key in the copyright date for a book.

Cost: This is the total cost value of onhands for a particular product.

• e.g. if you purchased 20 copies of a book from a vendor at $3.00 each, your Cost would be $60.00 

Create Date: This is the date the product was added to your system.

Cust Order Allocate: informational and fills in automatically on the Product Properties screen.

• The amount displayed represents the total number of copies allocated to fill outstanding Customer Orders.

Cust Orders Needed: informational and fills in automatically on the Product Properties screen.

• The amount displayed represents the total number of copies still needed (to be allocated) to fill outstanding Customer Orders. 

Customer Order Summary Box: informational grouping of fields that can be placed on the Product Properties screen. 

Cust Order Total: informational and fills in automatically on the Product Properties screen.

• The amount displayed represents the total number of copies that have been ordered to fill outstanding Customer Orders.

Description: where you key in the description for a product.

• For a book, this would be the title or an abbreviated version of the title.
• There is a control in Tools > Options > Product Tab that causes the system to automatically make the Description and Formal Description fields to be the same.

Discount: provides you with four selections.

• These selections define when a particular product in your store can be discounted for your customers.
• Use the dropdown arrow at the right of the field to display the four selections, then choose the one you want for the product.
• The four selections are: Always, No, Not When on Sale, and Best Savings.
  • Always and No are self explanatory.
  • Not when on Sale = the product can only be discounted if it is not already on sale. If on sale, no further discount will be allowed.
  • Best Savings = POS will evaluate the sale price as well as the discounted price.
    • Whichever of the two prices is lower is the price that will be used.

Display From/To Date: These two fields work together.

• The dates in this range represent a date range where a particular product can be sold
  • e.g. A Weekly Magazine
  • The Magazine can be on the newsstands from 7/10/17 - 7/17/17, at which time it needs to be removed.
  • The Display From Date, in this case, would be 7/10/17; the Display To Date would be 7/17/17.

Edition: This is a user-definable field.

• Key in the edition of the product.
• For a book, 1st edition, 2nd edition, etc.

First Receive Date: The date a particular product was first received into your system. The system generates this date automatically.

First Sale Date: The date your store first sold a particular product via your system. The system generates this date automatically.

Formal Description: Key in the full description or title of a product.

• e.g. if in the Description field, you abbreviated the title of a book, you might want to key in the unabridged title here in the Formal Description field.
• It is optional. If you leave the Formal Description field blank, it will fill in with whatever you keyed in the Description field. 

Industry: Each product must be placed within a specific industry.

• When you add a new product to iMerchant, a New Product message box appears.
• This is where you select the appropriate industry.
  • Click on the down arrow at the right of the field
  • Choose the correct Industry from the list.

Inventory Summary Box: This is an informational grouping of fields that can be placed on the Product Properties screen. 

Last Cost: This is the last unit cost on file for a product that has a zero onhand.

• If a product with an onhand of zero is returned, the system will look at the Last Cost field to determine what the cost of the product should be.
• This field is updated automatically by the system, though you do have the option of telling the system to update it within the onhand changes window in Product Properties.

Last Receive Date: This is the date a particular product was last received into your system. The system generates this date automatically.

Last Sale Date: This is the date your store last sold a particular product via your iMerchant system. The system generates this date automatically.

LCCNx: This is where you key in the Library of Congress Catalog Number.

Life Returns: This is system-generated. It represents the total quantity of lifetime returns for a specific product.

Lifetime Sales: This is system-generated. It represents the total quantity of lifetime sales for a specific product.

List or Net: This is a selection field, where you must choose List or Net.

• List = when you change the retail price in Receiving, the buying price will be updated with the retail price.
• Net = then when you change the retail price in Receiving, the buying price will be updated with the received cost value of the item in question. 
  • Additionally, when an item is first added to a PO, if the item is assigned as Net in Product Properties, then the Cost fields for the item on the PO work screen will default to the Buying price, the PO Retail field will default to the retail price, and the discount will not be applied.
  • This behavior only occurs when an item is first added to a PO.
  • Once it has been added, any of the fields can be altered.

Manf Reorder Code: a free-form field that represents the manufacturer's (often the vendor) code for a product.

Manufacturer: where you list the product's manufacturer (or publisher if a book).

• Click on the icon at the right of the field.
• The Find Vendor screen appears.
• Choose the appropriate manufacturer.

Manufacturer Price: The Manufacturer Price (MSRP) is the manufacturer's suggested retail price for a product but you do not need to abide by it.

On Hand: the quantity of a particular product in your store.

• This is updated automatically by iMerchant as you buy and sell copies of the product.
• You can only manually alter the onhand amount in Product Properties if you have security access to do so.
• Onhands can theoretically be a negative value.
  • If items come in and are not received in the system, and are then subsequently sold, the resulting onhand value can be negative.

Product Number: a unique value that you give every product you add into your system.

• When you scan a product in, the Product Number field will automatically fill in with the barcode value you scanned, you can then change this, if desired.
• If you leave the Product Number field blank, the system will automatically assign a value.
• Each Product Number is unique.
• Under one Product Number, multiple items (with the same Product Number) can exist.
• When a book is scanned or hand-keyed into the system, iMerchant will automatically convert the product number to a 13-digit ISBN.

Publication Date: This is simply the date a book is published. Pertains only to books.

Purchase Order Summary Box: This is an informational grouping of fields that can be placed on the Product Properties screen. 

Regional Info: This is a user-definable field. Fill it in with any pertinent regional information.

Retail Price: The Retail Price is the price your store charges for a product at the POS.

• You can automatically discount the Retail Price for new books imported from Venstock, if you choose.

Shelf Under: list the shelf under which you will place the product.

• e.g. for a gardening book, you might, simply, put Gardening in the Shelf Under field.

SKU: system-generated; you cannot change it.

• This is the number that iMerchant will print on the barcode label for the product in question, when the barcode label is produced.
• Generally, the SKU field is filled in automatically by the system when you scan the product.

Unit Cost: This is the average cost per unit for onhands for a particular product.

• e.g. if you purchased 20 copies of a book from a vendor at $3.00 each, your Unit Cost would be $3.00. 

User Defined Free-form Fields (PD_Fields, Prod_Fields, and PA_Fields): These fields are user-definable; you can name any of them anything you want and use them for anything you want.

• User-definable fields are essentially additional, optional fields you can use to help further classify your inventory.
• They provide you with increased flexibility.
  • The PD_Fields and PA_Fields are at the item level for a product
  • The Prod_Fields are at the product level.
  • If you want to use one of these fields, select it in Screen Designer, rename it, and define it. 

Allocated: Fill in with the number of onhand copies of a product to be set aside, or allocated, to fill a Customer Order.

Charge and Send: checkbox field,

• Unchecked = customer plans on picking up the item.
• Checked = You will ship the item to the customer

Complete: checkbox field,

• A checkmark will automatically be inserted once the product ordered by the customer is picked up or shipped to the customer.
• The Customer Order will be completed at the POS.
• You can check the Complete box manually for a partially filled ordered amount
  • e.g. customer ordered 5 of a product, but purchased only 3, and does not want the remaining 2
• Generally, you will not need to worry about this box.
• When the ordered quantity of the product is sold at the POS, it will fill in automatically.

Customer PO: enter the customer's PO number.

• This will often apply if the customer making the order is a business.
• If the customer has a PO number, they will provide it to you.
• If not, ignore the field.

Date: defaults to the current day's date. This field cannot be changed.

Needed By: key in the date the customer needs the product(s) he or she is ordering. The date defaults to the current date. 

Ordered: automatically fills in with the default quantity, as established in Tools > Options.

• Most likely, the default quantity will be 1.
• Whatever the default quantity is, you can change the quantity as needed.

Order State (informational): can be ignored for all intents and purposes.

• When a Customer Order is completed (picked up or shipped out), this field will automatically fill in with the Complete option.

Promised Price: key in the promised price, if different from the retail price.

• e.g. a business calls and orders 100 copies of a product, you may give them a discount.
• If the retail price for the item is $10.00 per item, maybe you lower it to $8.00 per item.
  • If there is a discount attached to the product, and if you have established a promised price, the discount will be taken off of the promised price, not the retail price.

Sales Person: fills in automatically with the PC User's name (iMerchant assumes this is the person taking the order).

• This field cannot be changed.

Shipped (informational): will fill itself in with the amount of copies of a particular product picked up to complete a Customer Order.

• When the product is sold at the POS, the Shipped field is automatically updated.
• You can change the value in this field if necessary.

Closed: When creating a new customer leave this field blank.

• This is strictly an informational field that holds the date when this customer became inactive.
• If you fill this in for a customer, the customer will still be in your database, just inactive.
• It is just an informational tool that you can use for your benefit.

First Name: key in the customer's first name in the First Name field.

• If the customer is a business, key in the business name in this field.

Last Name: key in the customer's last name in the Last Name field.

Opened: The date in this field defaults automatically to the current date.

• This is the date the customer was created in iMerchant. 

Short Name: If you leave this field blank, iMerchant will fill it in automatically with the next available customer number or default customer short name (first and last name of customer merged together), making it unique to every customer in iMerchant.

• To determine if the system to sets a customer number or a short name, set up the default in Tools > Options. 

User Defined Free-form fields (CA_Fields1-3 and Cust_Fields1-5): The CA_Fields pertain to address fields in the Address section of Customer Maintenance.

• The Cust_Fields can pertain to anything else.
• User-definable fields can be used any way you want, and you can rename the fields in ways that make the most sense to you.
• These fields are designed to provide you with greater flexibility.