What are Vendor Items and Inventory Items

Vendor Items are how you purchase an item from a specific vendor. They are to be used in Purchase Order Entry.
Inventory Items are how you stock an item in inventory and then use the item in Work Orders.

For Example:

To purchase 75 watt light bulbs from Walmart, you may have a Vendor Item named LBulb75W with Walmart as the vendor setup in the Vendor Item Master. You may also purchase the same 75 watt light bulbs from Home Depot and have a LBulb75W also setup in the Vendor Item Master with Home Depot as the vendor. You may setup multiple Vendor Items for the same item with the same Code# but with a different vendor. Or you may make the Code # match the vendor's identification number from their catalog. They would all have an Inventory Link to Bulb-75W

Bulb-75W is the Inventory Item Number. This is the code that the inventory stock is tracked by.

When completing a PO for Home Depot you would add Vendor Item LBulb75W to purchase 25 light bulbs. When the PO is received, the system will link LBulb75W with the Inventory Item Bulb-75W and 25 will be added to the in stock quantity for Inventory Item Bulb-75W.
When entering inventory transactions, such as: Inventory Receiving, Inventory Adjustments and Inventory Transfers - use an Inventory Item code, not a Vendor Code. These are direct inventory transactions.
When entering a Work Order in the Maintenance Management program, the Inventory Item is always used as this is an inventory transaction.