It all depends on what your definition of easy is.

The simple way is to go into each item and change the part number on the screen.

How many part numbers do you need to change, if it is only a few hundred it might not be worth the time to create the script?

If you are proficient with SQL scripting/transaction language (not sure of the correct terminology) you can run a batch update and change them all in one operation, but you still have to create the script with the list of all the old part number and the new part numbers along with the information on where you want to put the old part number for reference.

If you have the list of old numbers and new numbers in a spreadsheet, you might be able to save some time creating the SQL script as you could build the commands in the spread sheet then export the information to a script file.

If you are looking for a quick easy solution, you are likely to be disappointed, there is never any easy solution to these sort of changes! It will be a choice of which one is least difficult!!!

g2685516 said:

do a mass change of inventory item numbers

If you're looking to more or less start over with your inventory setup, and leave the old part numbers with the old transactions, then do an export, make the changes, and re-import.

It depends what sort of change.   If you're making rule-based changes (like all items beginning with 'WAU ' become 'WAUK', then as already suggested, a script or connecting to tInvent with ODBC would allow you to just make the change.   I have done mass changes using Access / ODBC (mostly cleaning up descriptions to make them consistent - i.e. Seal Ring, Viton Ring, O Ring, Oring, oring, o-Ring, etc. all changed to O-Ring).  If you go that route, be extremely careful, don't make changes while others are logged in, and make frequent backups.

Current inventory item numbers and descriptions are stored in one table, tINVENT.   There are additional text fields (how many depends on which Edition) referenced by tInvent.ID in tInvUDF, and a 255 character long description field in tInvEXT (originally for the long-dead Simply Webstore)

If you needed a copy of all the existing part numbers attached to those IDs, you could, for example create a simple join between tInvent and tinvUDF, then in Access copy the part number column to one of the text fields in tInvUDF.

Past inventory transaction history stored in tItLuLi (item number, description) and tItRLine. (Item number, Item ID) is not affected by a change of inventory number, whether through the software interface, the SDK, or editing the raw table data, BUT if you modify an inventory item or description, when later opening prior invoices that contain that item you can expect to see a warning that the inventory item  / default description has been changed.

I hope that helps, please post back

Thanks for the replies.

I am more or less looking at starting over with inventory numbers. I have a few thousand products that I would like to change the inventory numbers on so going through individually and changing them is not ideal.

If I do an export, change the numbers, then import, do I lose the statistical information about that item? The part numbers on the previous transactions are okay being left with what they are currently. I would like to have an additional field on each item that holds the old item number, I assume that can not be done with a simple export and import and would need to be done by editing the database? The statistical information for each item is important and I would like to be able to retain that.

g2685516 said:

I would like to change the inventory numbers on so going through individually and changing them is not ideal

Each inventory / service item has an internal 'ID' that is the 'real' item number.   The 'Item Number' and 'Item Description' are two fields in a database table. 

g2685516 said:

If I do an export, change the numbers, then import, do I lose the statistical information about that item?

If you export / import using the Sage 50 software, the answer is Yes, because the imported items are are 'new' item numbers, there's no way for the software to know which items they came from in your spreadsheet.

If you export / import using an ODBC connection to get the internal ID, then the answer would be no, because all you would be updating would be the text fields for 'item number' and 'Description' 

I have personally cleaned up a Sage 50 database that contained over 11,000 item numbers.  There was 6 years of history they wanted to keep, so changing:

113204    Gasket

to

ABC 113204   Gasket, Governor mount flange

took a lot of time, but rather than set up the prices, etc. all over again, it was the best way.