Hour items are used throughout various functionalities such as payroll, project, and staff absence administration, as well as MRP planning. In an organization, it is important to allow people to register the realized hours when completing the tasks which have been planned for them. Realization of labor hours is essential in project management as you need to allocate people to perform specific tasks within a specified time frame.
Each item contains its own data and attributes which you can register and maintain in its own maintenance screen. The information of the item is divided into several categories which are presented in different tabs: Basics, Purchase/Sales, Financial, Activity, People, Machines, Document, Analysis, Extra, and Log. When defining a new item, you should at least enter data in the Basics and Extra tabs. Click each tab to fill in or edit the required information. The Basics tab is where most of the static information of the item is recorded and maintained. The other tabs are for viewing and entering information for established items. Once saved, you can view or maintain the item at the menu path listed under the Menu path section. For more information, see Overview of hour items.
Hour code
Type a unique code for the item which may contain up to 30 characters. This is mandatory. If you are viewing an item, this displays the code of the item, which can only be edited using the recode functionality. For more information, see Recoding.
Description
Type a description for the item. This is mandatory. If you are viewing an item, this displays the description of the item which you can edit as required.
Type
Select Labor hour or Machine hour to define the item with the corresponding type.
Status
Select one of the following statuses to define the corresponding status for the item:
- Active — Select this option to define that the item can be sold, purchased, manufactured, received, and delivered.
- Blocked — Select this option to define that the item can be used in stock counts, creating Bill of Materials, and budget scenarios, but cannot be used in sales and purchasing.
- Discontinued — Select this option to define that the item can be used in stock counts, sales, creating Bill of Materials, and budget scenarios, but cannot be used in purchases.
- Inactive — Select this option to define that the item can be used in stock counts, but cannot be used in sales, purchasing, creating Bill of Materials, and budget scenarios.
- Future — Select this option for an item which has yet to be activated.
From
Type or select a date or range of dates when the status of the item is activated. For example, if the item is defined as Active, and the date range is defined from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009, the item is in an active status during this period.
Basics tab
This tab should contain most of the static information of an item. In this tab, you can define and maintain the sales pricelist, sales unit, sales price, cost price, and tax code of the item. Besides that, you can define extra description or remarks about the item, as well as specify which business units are linked to the hour item.
When defining a new item, you should at least enter data in this tab, apart from the Extra tab. A list of options will be displayed if you click 
in the Taxes and Sales unit boxes. Make your selection and click Select.
Sales section
Price lists
Type or select a price list for the item. By default, Default(Pricelist) is displayed once you save the item.
Note: This can be edited only when the item is saved.
Price column
Type the per unit sales price of the item in the Price column in the price list table.
Note: This column can be edited only when the item is saved.
New
Click this to define the sales price and the date range for the validity of the sales price for the item.
Edit
Click this to edit the selected sales price.
Delete
Click this to delete the selected sales price.
Note: The Edit and Delete buttons are disabled if the Default(Pricelist) is selected at Price lists.
Taxes
Type or select a tax code for the item.
Cost price
Type the cost price of the item.
Sales unit
Type or select a sales unit of measurement for the item. For more information, see Creating and maintaining units.
Note: When using the item for planning purposes, the unit should be hour since planning is always calculated in hours. Using a unit like minute, second, month, year, or day is possible, but this however, will have no impact on planning of hour items in Exact Globe.
Assortments section
Assortment 1 - 5
Select one or more assortments to group the item under the assortment(s).
Note: The number of assortments displayed depends on the defined assortments. For more information, see Creating and maintaining assortments or Item data settings. You can define up to 10 assortments. If you have defined two assortments, then two assortment boxes will be displayed.
Business unit section
Since an hour item is not a physical stock, the warehouse will be the business unit. The business unit will be used when making profit and loss entries for the item.
New
Click this to add a business unit for the item.
Note: By default, the main warehouse will be automatically added as a business unit when the item is saved.
Edit
Click this to edit the selected business unit.
Delete
Click this to delete the selected business unit.
Project (Where-used) section
This section displays a list of projects which use the item.
Edit
Click this to edit the selected project which is linked to the hour item.
Project card
Click this to open the maintenance screen of the selected project linked to the hour item.
Text section
Type the additional text description for the item. The description will be displayed in the Long description columns of quotations, orders, or invoices.
Text
Type the extra description of the hour item.
Description “Language code”
Type the description(s) of the item in other language(s).
Note: The number of boxes displayed depends on the languages defined in the Descriptions in list boxes section of General settings. You can define up to five languages. “Language code” denotes the code of the selected language. For example, if you have selected Malay and Dutch, then Description MS and Description NL will be displayed. For more information, see General settings.