What is the difference between Product-Based and Item-Based Categories?
This article summarizes the differences between Product - Based and Item - Based Categories in the Asset Management system.
Classifying assets as Product - Based or Item - Based will enable utilization of different features within the system. Custom fields can be assigned to both product and item based assts. Here is more information about the differences between Product - Based and Item - Based categories. Note: Assets will have both a Product level and an Item level entry in the Asset Management system.
For more information on Categories in the Asset Management System, reference the following article here.
Product - Based Category - If the category type is based on product, the the asset is often associated with a SKU number or a model identifier. A bar code printed from the system will reflect the SKU and not an individual item. The inventory will be the quantity of the product as a whole. An example of a Product - Based Category could be Online Resources or Textbooks.
Item - Based Category - If the category types is based on item, even if it is the same item, will have its own unique asset number and bar code. The inventory will be based on the each individual item in the system.
For example, a Product - Based entry could be "Nationwide 2 - Post Car Lift." It is recorded in the system by the SKU "sku1" as shown below. The value is an example of a custom field that has been associated with Product - Based Categories in our example.
For this product, the institution has two of these products as shown by Quantity: 2 above.
In the Items view of the Asset Management window both of the two car lifts are listed. Each car lift has its own unique asset number as shown below. A bar code that is unique to each car lift can be printed from the system. For more information on bar codes, reference the following article here.
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