Relationship between Vendor Item No. and Our Item No.

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Posted on by Joe PencilPusher

As far as I can see there is a 1:1 relationship between our internal item number and a vendor’s item number. Is there a way to have a 1:M relationship between our product and the vendors? Here’s the issue.

Let’s say I buy flour. Vendors sell it in multiples of 2lb bags and they have separate skus per qty. So if I buy one 2lb bag the sku is say F1 and the price is X. If I buy 5 2lb bags the sku is F2 and the price is Y. If I buy 10 2lb bags the sku is F3 and the price is Z. But the product is all the same. So if I need to order F2 I need to setup a separate sku in inventory and associate it to the vendors F2. If I need to order 10 2lbs bags, I need to setup another sku in our inventory and associate that sku to the vendors F3. And this is only for one vendor. They all do this. Now it’s time to do an inventory count. Should each of my flour skus be in a separate location? No, because it’s all the same product. So it gets confusing when you see a big pile of bags of flour but it represents many skus.

Is there a better way?

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Mahmoud Saadi 32,738 on at

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Hello Joe,

You are absolutely right about this requirement, it is such a headache to have several SKUs for your item which are actually the same. The vendor item number and item number have one to one relationship. Although, you may get an added value from the use of manufacturer-item number; one of your inventory items can be linked to several "Manufacturer Item Numbers". This is a previous post with addition details, Item number and Manufacturer Item Number

Your feedback is highly appreciated,

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Frank Hamelly | MVP... 46,625 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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This sounds more like a unit of measure issue than a vendor item - your item issue. In the UoM Schedule, you could setup units of measure that equate to 1x2 lb. bag, 5x2 lb. bags, 10x2 lb. bags, etc. Then, just associate your 1 SKU to the vendors you buy from. PO price, whether it's a 1 bag, 5 bag, or 10 bag quantity, will determine the unit cost of the quantity ordered and update your unit cost accordingly. When you perform physical inventory, count X bags of the 1 SKU.

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Joe PencilPusher on at

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Frank, thanks for responding. So what you’re saying is, in the vendor item maintenance screen setup a generic sku like “flour” and in the UofM schedule setup measurements that represent the vendors sku and in the PO entry screen select the generic sku and use the UofM field to represent the vendors sku. And let the vendor figure out what I mean.

So on the PO screen it would look something like:

Item: Flour

UofM: 2-10lbBag

Qty: 2

Cost: Z

Now do I mean 2 of the vendors 2 10lb bag skus so I would receive 4 10lb bags. Or do I mean 1 of the vendors 2lb bags and I only want to receive 2 bags? I like your idea (if this is indeed what u mean) but not sure if it will cause confusion since I'm not using their sku.

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