Currently we have two behaviors that can be a problem in the management of the name of a product. This problem is strongly present when we have to list Purchase / Sale / Invoice lines, it becomes difficult to identify the different lines.
- Purchase / Sale / Invoicing with a generic product code.
- Purchase / Sale / Invoicing without product code - completely manual.
For the first case, we create a generic code that will be used during a PURCHASE / SALE / INVOICE. We will then use the description field to describe the product. But when we take the PURCHASE / SALE / INVOICE line list view we can no longer identify the difference between the product lines if we use the generic product several times on the same document.
Example:
We encode a generic product code.
Name: Miscellaneous Fees
Code: “FEES”
We have to order a product with associated costs, such as: production start-up costs, development costs, quality control costs. We have not coded 3 different products. We are therefore going to make 3 purchase lines with the product code “FEES” but with 3 different descriptions for the lines.
When we take the list view, it is no longer possible to identify the 3 lines. When creating the supplier invoice, we have the same concerns to identify the lines. We are therefore obliged to open each line to identify the description.
For the second case, we have no information at the row level in list view because there is no product code.
One idea would be to repeat the description in the different views but as it is a multi-line field it becomes difficult to list the lines correctly, especially in the description becomes large. In addition, for single codified articles, it is not necessary to repeat the description.
Another idea is to limit it to the first line of text of the description but if the user does not put the most important information on the first line we are in the same case as before with the inability to distinguish the lines .
It would be interesting in the case of a generic article (perhaps via a flag at the level of the article file) and in the case of a line without an article code, to have a NAME field which becomes accessible which would allow to put a name to the article which makes it possible to identify the article while keeping the description which well planned to give a more important detail on the article.
This would require having a NAME column in the list views of the PURCHASE / SALE / INVOICE lines which would allow the name of the card to be used in the case of a standard product and to take the NAME specified on the line in the case of 'a generic article or a line without an article.
I’m not sure if it would be possible to change the mechanics of rec_name to do this without adding this column.
If you have any other idea or method of working for generic articles … thanks