This is for Newsagencies Only

Proper parent and child item relationships within your magazine stock is vital for aspects such as arrivals, sales, returns, deliveries/putaways and reporting to XchangeIT.  
This relationship is explained in more detail HERE.
You should read and/or understand this relationship before proceeding with this article.

Parent items are highlighted in yellow in the find stock screen; if a single title has multiple highlighted issues, it means it has multiple parents. It is typical for one parent item to have the correct barcode and PLU, while the other has a Retailer-generated barcode and no PLU. The items commonly have different supplier stock codes (aka product codes).

How Duplicate Parent Items Occur

The most common scenario that causes this is when the Product Code from the supplier/publisher changes. In this particular example:

  • Are Direct / Gordon & Gotch decided to use a new Product Code for a title.
  • When it arrived, Retailer detected a new Product Code that did not exist in the database.
  • Instead of selecting the existing title to be overwritten with the new Product Code, the user incorrectly added it as a new item.
  • As such, a duplicate parent item is created with the new Product Code.

Merging Magazine Parent Items

For newsagencies, you will need to make sure that the Frequency and Delivery Day of the items match. To match up the Frequency and Delivery Day:

  1. From the main screen of Retailer, click on Stock -> Stock Screen.
  2. Click on the magnifying glass and search for the CORRECT parent item. Select the item and press OK.
  3. If the item does not have a PLU, type one in. Take note of the PLU or write it down.
  4. Click on the Newsagency tab.
  5. Check and take note of the Frequency and Delivery Day of the item.
  6. Click Save.
  7. Click on the magnifying glass and search for the DUPLICATE parent item. Select the item and press OK.
  8. If the item does not have a PLU, type one in. Make sure the PLU is different to the first parent item. Take note of the PLU or write it down.
  9. Click on the Newsagency tab.
  10. Check the Frequency and Delivery Day of the item. Make sure it matches the first item.
  11. Click Save.
  12. Repeat the steps above for any other parent items that need to be merged.

Once the details of the parent items have been matched, they can then be merged.

  1. From the main screen of Retailer, go to Utilities -> Change / Merge Barcodes.
  2. A warning message will appear. We recommend running this process only when it's not busy as it locks the stock database and may take a while depending on the amount of history attached to them. Click Yes to continue.
  3. In the first box, type in the PLU of the UNWANTED parent item. Alternatively, press [Enter] to search for the item.
  4. In the second box, type in the PLU of the CORRECT parent item. Alternatively, press [Enter] to search for the item.
  5. Press [Tab] and the items will appear in the grid below.
  6. Repeat the steps above to add multiple items to the grid of barcodes to be merged.
  7. Once you have finished adding the parent items to be merged, click on the Modify All button.
  8. Click OK to confirm and proceed with changing the barcode(s).
  9. You will be presented with another warning message to indicate that the duplicate parent item as well as all its history will be merged into the other parent item. Click Yes to continue.
  10. You may also be prompted to enter your Staff Initials. Type them in and click OK.
  11. A report may appear that shows the customer orders that have been brought over to the correct parent item.