One product in several sizes or colours: a T-Shirt in Red and Blue, Small and Medium. Each combination is a variant, an ordinary item with its own SKU, barcode, price and stock. The item they come from is the template. It groups them and never goes on a document itself.
#Attributes
Settings → Inventory → Item attributes. New attribute opens a drawer:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name * | Size, Colour, Material. |
| Position in variant names | Lower comes first: Colour 1, Size 2 names a variant T-Shirt - Red / M. |
| Values | One row each: the Value (Medium), its SKU code (M, used in generated SKUs; without one the value itself is used) and a Price extra added to the template's price (XL +2). |
A value a variant uses can be renamed but not removed, and an attribute in use can't be deleted. Archive the variants first.
#Generating variants
- Create the item as usual (Inventory → Items → New item) with the settings every variant shares: type, category, accounts, taxes, unit, tracking, price.
- Open it again and expand Variants. Tick the values to make, e.g. Red, Blue and Small, Medium. The button counts the combinations (Generate 4 variants).
- Confirm. The item becomes a template, and one variant per combination is
created:
- Name: QA Tee - Blue / Medium.
- SKU: the template's SKU plus the value codes, TEE-BLU-M (no SKU when the template has none).
- Price: the template's sell price plus the values' price extras.
- Everything else is copied from the template.
Only an item that has never been used can become a template. An item already on a document or with stock movements is refused; create a new item for the template instead. Generating again only adds the combinations that don't exist yet, so you can tick a new size later. It never deletes a variant. Once variants exist, their set of attributes is fixed: add values, not attributes.
#Working with variants
- Each variant is its own item. Edit its SKU, barcode, price, weight or reorder rules in its drawer. Its Variants card names the template and its values.
- Apply to all variants (on the template's Variants card) copies the template's saved settings to every variant: category, accounts, taxes, units, tracking, sellable or purchased. Tick what to copy. Prices, SKUs and barcodes stay each variant's own. Save the template first.
- Documents. Pickers on invoices, bills, orders, adjustments and transfers list the variants (TEE-BLU-M · QA Tee - Blue / Medium), never the template. A template sent through the API, an import or Fusion AI is refused with "… is a template: pick one of its variants instead".
- The Items list tags the template Variants. Variants are listed with every other item.
- Pricing. A rule for variants of the template covers all of its variants (Chapter 22, Price Lists).
- Reports. Stock Summary and Inventory Valuation can show one template's variants: open the report settings, More options, Variants of.
- Retiring. Archive a variant you no longer sell. Archiving the template archives all of its variants. A template with variants can't be deleted.