Trade
PIM system in Uniconta: managing product information
Once you have many items or sell through a webshop, the question of a PIM system comes up on its own. PIM stands for product information management. This page explains what that is and how you do it in Uniconta, where it is standard functionality.
How it works
What managing product information means
Product information management is the central recording and upkeep of everything you know about an item. Think of the item number, the description, dimensions, colour, size, photographs, the EAN and the texts a customer sees. For an SME with a few dozen items that is a short list. For a wholesaler with thousands of items and several sales channels, item management is a discipline of its own.
There are really two kinds of product information. The first is the basis your books need: item number, description, unit, cost price, stock location, VAT code. You use it on every quote, order, purchase and invoice. The second is commercial content, meaning long descriptions, several images, attributes per category, translations and texts per sales channel. That is mostly needed by your webshop or your sales team.
While you have few items and one channel, a single source is enough. When things get more complex, the question becomes where the truth sits and who guards the data. With PIM functionality in your ERP, the basic data and the commercial content stay in one place, instead of in a separate system you have to keep in step. How much you need depends on how many items you have, how many channels you serve and how often the information changes.
What often goes wrong
What often goes wrong
Untidy product information costs time and customers, even in a small business.
The same data in three places
The item sits in the accounts, in the webshop and in a sales rep's spreadsheet. When something changes, it is updated in one place and forgotten in the others.
Webshop and books that disagree
The webshop shows a different description, price or EAN from the order you process later. That leads to returns and arguments.
Variants without structure
A shirt in four sizes and three colours is created as twelve separate items, each with its own number and description. That is hard to read and easy to get wrong.
Nobody owns the data
Purchasing, sales and marketing each change something, but nobody guards the quality. After a while nobody knows which version is right.
In Uniconta
What Uniconta offers here
Product information management is standard functionality in Uniconta. You do not need a separate module for it, it is part of the ERP. Besides the item data your administration needs, such as item numbers, EAN numbers, an image per item and variants, you add your own fields, tables and tabs. That is done without programming, with no-code. You do not manage your product data in a separate environment, with all the synchronisation worries that brings, but in the place where your orders, purchasing and stock already live.
One example is a tab per sales channel. The webshop needs different texts and attributes from your sales rep, and you record them on the tab of that channel. With business rules, in other words if this, then that, you enforce the input. When you switch a channel on for an item, a rule can require the description to have a minimum length. That keeps half-finished items out of the webshop. Which fields, tabs and rules are included is something we agree with you beforehand. Together we decide which fields each channel needs and which rules stop incomplete items from going live.
Product data can be synchronised to channels and webshops. If a webshop is involved, we agree beforehand what comes with it. Shaping or building the shop itself falls outside our work.
Think too about who maintains the data. Agree which side is the source for which field. Often the administration is the source for item number, EAN and cost price, and the channel tab is the source for texts and images. That stops two people changing the same item in two places in different ways. Without such an agreement no system helps, however extensive it is.
Our package
Which package it belongs to
The item data in Uniconta belongs to the Uniconta ERP standard package from Operion, with a fixed scope and a fixed price. We set up proven software to a fixed standard. We do not develop custom work in Uniconta. What is in the scope is agreed with you beforehand, and the scope is fixed before the start. Transfer of your basic data is part of the package, while cleaning and multiple sources are agreed beforehand.
How you synchronise product data to a webshop or another channel is agreed beforehand. If you want a separate system alongside, that can be a project of its own with a scoping phase. How the data relates to inventory management and to subscriptions is covered on those pages. You will find more about the platform at Uniconta. If you work with a price list, it belongs to the same item data.
Read on
More about Uniconta
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Part of the fixed package
Product information is part of the fixed Uniconta package, with a fixed scope and a fixed price.
Decide which product data you need
Tell us how many items and channels you have. Together we look at which fields, tabs and rules you need. The standard package comes at a fixed price.