Stock Kit Solver

Activating Kit Management

• In order for stock kits to be recognized by invoicing and other transaction systems in CAPITAL, be sure that INSTALLATION Workshop has the stock kits option ticked. Consult the topic: Stock Control General Options for further information.

Kits As Stock Items

• When a stock kit is created a stock item with the same product code is placed in Stock Control. This is not a "real" stock item in the sense that stock kits are not products in themselves. They represent other products or groups of products. For example, you cannot change the quantity in stock because this quantity is dependent on the availability of the components of the kit. You can, however, edit this record to specify the sale price of the kit.

• The cost of a kit is determined by the cost of all the components that make up that kit. As such, a kit does not have a real physical cost in your inventory file. If you assign a cost directly to a kit, this price will be ignored and overwritten the next time a kit is invoiced. This is because CAPITAL recalculates a kit's cost price before invoicing it. A kit cost price usually represents the last total cost price of all the components that make up a kit based on the last invoiced date of the kit.

• Because calculating a kit's cost price may be resource intensive, CAPITAL does not recalculate a kit's cost until it needs to. Normally this occurs when a stock kit is invoiced. However, you may also update a stock kit cost price by locating the stock kit in Stock Control, and selecting from the Stock Control menu Tools|Kit Management. Press the Statistics button to update and display the kit's current cost price.

• You may force an update of all kit cost prices by running the Kits - Component Listing Report. However, there is no particular need for you to do this normally, as CAPITAL always recalculates's a kit's cost during the invoicing process. However, if you wish to view the latest kit cost prices in Stock Control, you can print or print preview this report in order to force all kit costs to be updated.

• Whenever a stock item is invoiced, this price is automatically updated. Attempting to change the cost price manually through Stock Control will have no worthwhile effect, since the cost price is always recalculated and adjusted the moment before actual invoicing takes place.

Kit Limits & Capabilities

• A stock kit can be part of another stock kit. Stock kit ABC, for example, might be made up of stock kits DEF and GHI, and stock kit DEF might consist of stock kits KLM and NOP. Stock kit NOP might then be a series of components.

• There is no limit to the number of components that may be placed in a stock kit and no theoretical limit to the number of stock kits that can be part of other stock kits.

• CAPITAL will tell you that the stock kit is out of stock if any component needed to make up a stock kit is out of stock.

• If you need to alter the contents of a kit in order to update it, consider if you may get returned kits or will need to credit kits back into stock. In these cases you should keep the existing kit as a reference, especially if you have already sold them. It is very easy to copy the contents of an old kit into a new kit and then modify the new kit, rather than change the contents of an old kit and produce potential confusion.