1. About
For both InventoryIQ and Sales based COGS tracking, you can merge products and group them together under one ‘primary’ product. This is a great feature when you have identical products coming from multiple sources, such as Amazon and Shopify.
If you are using the sales based COGS method, merging products will apply cost updates to both products. If you are using InventoryIQ, merging products will treat both products as the same SKU for purposes of calculating FIFO COGS.
In this article, we'll explain how to do this and how merging products impacts your financials.
2. Merging products
Merging products in Finaloop, won’t impact your sales channels and is only for purposes of managing these products in Finaloop.
NOTE: Merging products can affect your COGS numbers so review your products and and COGS carefully and make any necessary adjustments.
> To merge multiple products:
Navigate to Inventory > Products tab.
In the lower part of the screen, select the products you want to merge.
From the Actions dropdown, select Merge products.
In the upper part of the screen, select the product that is the primary product by clicking on Make Primary.
Click Save.
When merged you’ll see a success message on the screen. The product page now shows only the primary product. You’ll see a symbol in green that shows it’s a merged product.
Click the product line to open the screen and see the merged SKUs. You’ll see that the primary product also has a link icon next to it.
That’s it, the products are merged!
3. Unmerging products
> To unmerge products:
Navigate to Inventory > Products tab.
Select the merged product you want to unmerge.
From the Actions dropdown, select Merge products.
X the specific product/s to remove from the merge.
Click Save.
Note: You will not be able to merge or unmerge products that would have an impact on a closed year.
4. How merging products impacts your books
The steps to merge your products in Finaloop are similar whether you are using the sales based method or InventoryIQ to manage your COGS, but the impact that the merge will have on your books is different for each method.
Sales based method
When merging two or more products using the sales based COGS method, Finaloop will use the cost per unit of the primary product to apply to all merged products as well. If you change the cost of the primary product in Shopify or directly in Finaloop, this cost change will also impact all merged products.
InventoryIQ
When you merge two or more products in InventoryIQ, those products will be recorded in the relevant warehouses, under the Primary product.
In this example, when you sell Black legos or Pink legos, the landed costs will be taken from the same batch of POs and will be treated the same for purposes of determining the COGS. In other words, each of the PO cost layers will be merged together for purposes of the FIFO COGS calculation.
Important note: When you merge 2 products in InventoryIQ, only the recipes and assemblies for the Primary product will remain in existence. In other words, in this example, if there were any recipes or assemblies relating to Pink legos, they would be invalid upon the merge and will need to be created again if you unmerge these products later on. So, always merge products before adding recipes or assemblies to save yourself some unnecessary inputs.