Product Matrix and Variants

Product Matrix and Variants helps you maintain a related family of products, such as one item offered in several sizes, colors, or materials. Each selected combination becomes its own product record, so it can carry its own SKU, price, supplier information, and inventory settings.

Use a product matrix when customers buy specific combinations and your team needs those combinations to remain distinct in sales, purchasing, and inventory work.

Before creating records, product, sales, purchasing, and warehouse owners should agree which combinations are actually offered. A generated variant is a product to maintain, not a decision that the combination is stocked, priced, sourced, or ready to sell.

Who can use Product Matrix and Variants?

Your administrator must enable the Product Matrix Management firm feature. Users who create or maintain products need Inventory Control Full Access. Dimension and option maintenance is controlled by administrative access.

Plan the options first

Start with the product range your business intends to sell. Confirm the customer-facing names and any supplier restrictions, then decide which combinations need their own SKU and inventory record. This prevents a large matrix of products that nobody can order or fulfill.

1. Define the dimensions your business needs, such as size, color, or material.
2. Maintain the available options for each dimension.
3. Use names that sales, purchasing, and warehouse teams will recognize on product records and documents.
4. Decide which combinations you actually offer before generating variant products.

For example, a product may be offered in two sizes and three colors, but a supplier may provide only four of those combinations. Select the four that can be sold rather than generating every possible pairing.

Create variants from a parent product

1. Create or open the parent product.
2. Open the Variant Options tab.
3. Select the dimensions that apply to the product family and choose the combinations you offer.
4. Generate the selected variant products.
5. Review each generated product and maintain its SKU, pricing, supplier information, and inventory settings as needed.

Give purchasing the approved supplier and item information, give sales the available combinations and prices, and give the warehouse the product identifiers it will use to receive and pick the correct variation. Review a sample sales and purchasing document before the family becomes part of normal work.

Maintain the product family

When the assortment changes, the product owner should tell sales, purchasing, and the warehouse which variants are being added or retired. Review open customer and supplier commitments before deactivating an existing combination.

• Review generated variants before using them on sales or purchasing documents.
• Deactivate a combination that is no longer offered instead of treating the parent product as the inventory record for every variation.
• Plan large matrices carefully. Every generated combination is a separate product record that needs ongoing maintenance.

Check the result

Confirm that each approved combination has the intended SKU, price, supplier details, and inventory settings. The sales team should be able to identify the correct variant on a customer order, and receiving should be able to distinguish it from the other combinations.

If you do not see Variant Options

• Ask an administrator to confirm that Product Matrix Management is enabled for the firm.
• Confirm that you have Inventory Control Full Access.
• Confirm that the parent product is saved before you begin setting up its variants.

Related topics

Use product setup for the common details shared across your catalog. Use pricing policies and supplier setup to maintain the details that differ for each variant.