Rename vs. Reuse the item number

couberpu · 2007-01-19

Hi All,

First of all, I do not think this is a good practice but I need inputs, o lot of them if possible. Here is the case:

Can anyone find out enough reason not to rename and reuse a dead item into a totally different item, provided nothing been purged?

For example: Item 100/300-1 is a dead item, has not been brought for 2 years; no open entry and no inventory. But it can not be deleted, for deleting it would change the total sales$ if need to run history report. Now since item 100/300-1 will no longer need to produce more sales, and the only reason to keep it in the system is to produce the total sales amount for comparsion. Now there is a new item, totally different in everywhere, 100/455FC-12, and instead of create a new item for it. Can item 100/300-1 be renamed into 100/455FC-12 and reused as a totally new item?

My answer to this question is "Please do not do it!". But now the board turn around to ask me to convince the board "Why not!" ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

Need help! [-o< [-o<

Thanks,
CouberPu

DenSter · 2007-01-19

I don't see why you would want to do that. You have history for the old item, so why would you want to get rid of the Item record?

couberpu · 2007-01-19

If I delete the item, would it delete everything like item ledger entry, sales line, sales shipment line... for the item? So if I need to run total item sales for year 2003 after items deleted, would it be missing some of the sales?

Actually, I do not know if delete an item would make item sales history less for I never really delete anyitem!

ara3n · 2007-01-19

if you delete the item, Item ledger (Sales History) is blanked out I believe. The ledger is not deleted.

David_Singleton · 2007-01-20

Just some background Information:

When you DELETE an Item Record in Navision, you could consider this as the same as renaming the Item to <BLANK> C/SIDE it self does not allow renaming to blank, and this restriction was deliberately placed in the Native database to prevent an actual a case of renaming an Item, Customer or Vendor to Blank. So this is actually done in code, by scanning all entries and changing the field "Item No." to blank. Note that prior to doing this, it checks certain things, such as that there are no open Item entries, and that there are no Sales or Purchase orders open, plus a number of other things.

Bu this is not your case, what you are talking about, is the situation, of taking an existing item that has not been used for some time, and then RENAMING it to a new Item Number. What will happen in this case, is that the system will scan all existing entries, and rename them also (the "Item No." field) so that in effect the history travels with the Item card, even if it is renamed.

What this would mean, is that you would sort of lose all the existing history of the old item, except that all the history would then be transfered to the new Item No.

if you (in your case after such a rename) went back to print sales history for Item No. 100/300-1 the result would be nothing, no sales at all. BUT if you went and printed Sales for 100/455FC-12 it would then show all the past sales of the previous item.

To put it simply, doing what they are suggesting would lose all history of the old item, but would have no advantage, since there is nothing to save. In fact deleting the item and losing all the history that way would have much the same effect, but at least the new Item No would have accurate numbers.

My guess here is that they are familiar with some other system that handles inventory different to Navision, and are trying to apply principles of that system to Navision. Unfortunately that just wont work.

By the way, if the issue is to try to save database space, then it really wont help, since the item Record it self is a trivially small amount of the total database, its the Item and Value ledgers that are storing th emost data, and those will not change.

Alex_Chow · 2007-01-20

You can certain reuse the item numbers. Provided that the board knows what the consequences are.

Here's some off the top of my head.
1. You'll be mixing history for the old item and the new item
2. You'll have to do extra explanation to the auditors convincing them the story on why you reused the item numbers
3. You'll have to spend time to inform your customers of this in case they used your item number as their item number
4. You'll need to explain the "story" everytime you hire someone new so they don't get confused
5. You'll need to explain the "story" everytime you have new auditor's coming in

so forth and so on.

couberpu · 2007-01-20

Hi All,

I could not explain better than any of you. Thanks!

So this is what I gathered:
1. Delete an item would not change the sales total from item leger, cust. sales ledger and G/L. And it goes to delete sales shipments and sales invoices too.
2. It real not help to save space if reuse an item.
3. Best way is to delete the item and create an new item to make it clean.

What I really need to explain to the board is how to take care old, years old, transactions to clear up more space and it should help performance tuning.

Please advise.

Best,
CouberPu

ara3n · 2007-01-20

You can merge Items. Search on tips and tricks on how to merge Customers. Same thing can be applies to old items. You can merge them into one Misc. Item.

http://www.mibuso.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15580

couberpu · 2007-01-20

ara3n wrote:

You can merge Items. Search on tips and tricks on how to merge Customers. Same thing can be applies to old items. You can merge them into one Misc. Item.

http://www.mibuso.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15580

This is cool! I think now I have a plan, or sort of!
I will post how I did it later, could be awhile though!

Thanks ALL

ara3n · 2007-01-20

You are welcome.

DenSter · 2007-01-20

couberpu wrote:

What I really need to explain to the board is how to take care old, years old, transactions to clear up more space and it should help performance tuning.

Removing history from your ERP system is not a good way to enhance performance. :shock:

couberpu · 2007-01-20

DenSter wrote:

Removing history from your ERP system is not a good way to enhance performance. :shock:

Actually, I am thinking of removing 2003 sales shipment, sales invoice and credit memo. I have a 2nd server running Navision with up to 12/31/2006 as the backup. I think delete posted transactions should help with insert at line table, in terms help speed up the system.

Right?

Best,
CouberPu

DenSter · 2007-01-21

No you should hire an expert to help you optimize your performance, by enhancing the performance of your database in other ways. You should not delete history to speed up your app, and create a second instance of your database with historical data in it. That gives the word 'redundancy' a whole new meaning.

So you have one database with everything up to 2003, and one with everything after 2003. What is going to happen next year, when you want to move the 2003 and 2004 data.... create a third database?

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Rename vs. Reuse the item number

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