The Merge Products feature is a great tool when you have products that are obsolete and you would like to remove them from your inventory.
You can create a new product to use just for this purpose. You could make the new Product Code ZZOBSOLETE, this way it will be at the end of your Product list and will not come up in searches. You can use this new ZZOBSOLETE Product over and over each time you have a Product you no longer want in your system.
The Steps are as follows:
First create the obsolete Product, assuming you do not already have one. This new Product must have the same unit of measure and tracking settings as the product you would like to obsolete. If you have multiple Units of Measure for these products you can create multiple ZZOBSOLETE Products such as: ZZOBSOLETE-EA, ZZOBSOLETE-C and ZZOBSOLETE-M.
After you have created your Product, you can now merge your obsolete Product into the new Z part number by following the menu path below:
Inventory System
Inventory File Maintenance
Duplicate & Merge Products
Merge Product History
Your Primary Product will be your ZZOBSOLETE Product which will contain all of the history of the Product you are Obsoleting.
The Product to be Absorbed is the Product that you want to remove from the system.
You can choose whether or not you would like to merge Notes and Alternate Product Codes. If you were merging two like parts due to duplication you would want to merge that information into the new part. In the case of an obsolete Product the notes may not be useful but it may be useful to know that an Alternate did once exist for an Obsoleted Product.
Once you answer Yes to the last question to Merge the Products, the Product you chose to be absorbed will no longer exist. You will be able to view the history of the obsolete part number by selecting the ZZOBSOLETE Product Code in a Product Inquiry, however the obsolete Product Code will no longer be seen in any product searches within The Business Edge
As you continue to merge Products into the ZZOBSOLETE PRODUCT the history and notes will be the accumulation of all obsoleted Products.