Information is organized in category folder groups within the EBMS software. These groups are valuable when organizing data such as products, customers, vendors, or workers. Some common grouping within the software is as follows:
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Go to Inventory > Options > Product Categories tab from the EBMS menu. Inventory can be grouped as a product catalog containing item groups and subgroups, as shown below:
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Review the Adding and Deleting Product Categories section of the Inventory Manual for more details on creating and organizing a catalog of products.
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Create a new category folder or subfolder by highlighting the correct root folder and clicking the New Category button.
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Delete a category folder or subfolder by highlighting selected folder and clicking Delete Category. A category folder cannot be deleted if it contains records, but an empty folder can be deleted. Use this option with caution.
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To check or edit settings for an existing category folder or subfolder, highlight a folder and click Properties.
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To check or edit global defaults for an existing category folder or subfolder, highlight a folder and click Edit Defaults. Use this option with caution.
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To change the location of a category folder or subfolder, highlight it and click Move Category.
Customers may be grouped for marketing purposes or mailing lists as shown below:
Go to Sales > Options > Customer Categories to view the customer folder settings. Review the Adding and Deleting Customer Categories section for more details.
The General Ledger Chart of Accounts is organized by category folder groups. Go to Financials > Options > General Ledger Categories to organize the Chart of Accounts by categories and subcategories.
Vendors are organized by category folders. Vendor information is very similar to customer information. Go to Expenses > Options > Vendor Categories to configure the vendor groups.
The payroll system contains many folder groups such as Workers and Work Codes. Review the labor manual for more details. Go to the Labor > Labor Options > Work Code Categories tab or Worker Categories tab.
Some modules use the folder grouping within multiple levels. For example, within the job costing module, the jobs can be organized in folder groups, and the stages within individual jobs are organized using folder groups. Review the job costing manual for more details.
Category or Folder
The root folder in our customer example is labeled Customers with subfolders named Retail and Wholesale. Folders can be nested inside of other folders, forming a nested hierarchy structure. In our example, we have three Wholesale subfolders named General Contractors, Masons, and Roofers within the folder named Wholesale. It is recommended not to have more than five levels of nested subfolders because of report restrictions.
Subfolders within the inventory system are especially powerful since the user can organize thousands of items in an orderly fashion, so items can be found even if the user does not know the Product ID.
The New Category button is used to add an additional folder to the category folder list.
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Select the folder that will house the new folder and press the New Category button.
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A Category Properties dialog will open, allowing you to enter the new folder name.
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The Allow only subcategories switch should be switched ON if you do not want to insert any information into the category folder itself but only allow records to be stored in subfolders. This is useful when planning your folders and requiring the user to place all data in subfolders rather than parent folders. In the example above, the user will not be able to place customers in the Wholesale folder. The Wholesale folder will only be useful to insert subfolders.
- The Tree ID is used to within records to identify the folder group. The Tree ID number can be used to query the items within a folder group. Review Set Query Options for more details on query settings.
The Category Properties dialog may include some other information that is related only to the specific category list. For example, the General Ledger category properties include a pair of Allowable Range entries.
Review the Changing IDs section for more details on the Category Properties > Naming tab. Other tabs may appear such as the Special Pricing tab. Refer to the Special Pricing Overview for details on advanced modules.
Save any updated category information by clicking OK.
If you press the Delete Category button, the folder that is highlighted will be removed. A folder must be empty before it can be deleted. Note that the root category folder (the folder at the very top of the list) cannot be deleted. These are system folders and should not be removed.
The Properties button allows the user to edit the category folder properties.
The Edit Defaults button activates the defaults window that can be used for two different powerful features: to edit defaults and to globally change information. Review the Setting Customer Defaults section for more information on customer defaults. For details on additional sections for other module folders, review the Setting Vendor Defaults section or the Setting Worker Defaults section within the Labor manual.
The Move Category option allows the user the to change the location of a category folder. Select a folder and press the Move Category button. Choose the folder you wish to place the selected folder inside of.
