# Stock item sub-types

Every stock item in Breww has a **type**, chosen from Breww's fixed list: Ingredient, Packaging, Chemical, Guest Beer, Merchandise & POS, and Other. Sub-types are your own second level of categorisation underneath those types, so you can group your stock items in whatever way suits your brewery, such as splitting Packaging into cans, labels, cardboard and closures.

For ingredients, sub-types do more than categorise. They're how you tell Breww that an ingredient is a hop, a grain, a yeast, and so on, which unlocks the features specific to that kind of ingredient.

To manage them, go to **Settings** -> **Stock, sites & purchasing** -> **Stock item sub-types**. You'll need the **General production** permission.

## Adding a sub-type

Click **New item sub-type** and complete the form:

### Name

What you'd like to call the sub-type. Names must be unique within your brewery so that they're easy to tell apart when you're creating stock items.

### Type

The parent stock item type that this sub-type belongs to. A sub-type is only offered on stock items of its parent type, so a "Cans" sub-type of Packaging will never appear on an ingredient.

> **Warning:**
> The type can't be changed once the sub-type has been saved, so it's worth getting this right first time. If you pick the wrong one, create a new sub-type with the correct type instead.

### Special ingredient type handling

This field only applies to sub-types with a parent type of **Ingredient**, and it's required for them. It tells Breww what kind of ingredient this is (Hop, Grain, Yeast, Fruit, Sugar, Spice, Herb, Fining, Flavouring, Water agent, or Other) so that Breww can do the extra things that only make sense for that kind of ingredient.

For example, choosing **Hop** is what lets you record an alpha acid percentage against each batch of that stock item, use [automatic hop quantity adjustment for alpha acid](https://breww.com/docs/hop-alpha-acids/) on your recipes, and select the stock item when creating a [hop contract](https://breww.com/docs/hop-contracts/). Choosing **Grain** gives you extract and colour values instead.

You can have as many ingredient sub-types with the same handling as you like, so "Pellet hops" and "Whole leaf hops" can both be set to **Hop**.

> **Warning:**
> Like the type, this can't be changed after the sub-type has been saved.

### Accountancy accounts

If you have an accountancy integration connected, you can set the default accountancy account(s) to use for stock items of this sub-type. This saves setting them one stock item at a time, and can still be overridden on an individual stock item where you need something different. This field is hidden if you don't have an accountancy integration set up.

## Using sub-types on stock items

When you create or edit a stock item, the sub-type list is filtered to the sub-types belonging to the type you've chosen.

- A sub-type is **required** for stock items of type Ingredient, because Breww needs to know what kind of ingredient it is.
- For all other types, a sub-type is optional.
- If only one sub-type exists for the type you pick, Breww selects it for you.
- You can create a new sub-type without leaving the stock item form, using the add button next to the sub-type field. When you do this, the type is fixed to match the stock item you're creating.

## Editing and deleting sub-types

From the sub-types list you can see how many stock items are using each sub-type, along with who created it and when. Use the pencil icon to rename a sub-type or change its accountancy accounts.

A sub-type can only be deleted while nothing is using it. The delete button is hidden as soon as the **Items using sub-type** count is above zero, so you'll need to move those stock items onto a different sub-type first.

## Packaging sub-types and EPR reporting

If your business is in the UK or an EU country, packaging sub-types also hold the details used by the [Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) report](https://breww.com/docs/extended-producer-responsibility-epr-report/), such as the packaging material and class, and whether the sub-type counts toward the report's weight and unit count. These details are set on the **EPR packaging sub-types** page, which you reach by clicking **Manage packaging sub-types** on the EPR report, rather than on this settings page. Sub-types created from that page always have the type **Packaging**.