Line List
Line list (noun) — the flat enumeration of every style in a line with its attributes: style number, name, category, colorways, price, cost, delivery window, and status, one row each. It is the tabular counterpart to the visual board, and in practice it is usually an export from it.
The board and the list are the same range in two forms, built for different work. Judgment happens on the board, because balance, price flow, and color coverage are pattern reads. Everything that has to be filtered, sorted, sent, diffed, or typed into another system happens on the list — costing, sampling, sourcing handoffs, PLM entry, and the flat check that a style with no image has not quietly dropped out of the season.
Three near-identical terms sit next to each other and do different jobs. A line list enumerates what the range currently is, one row per style. A wholesale line sheet is the outward-facing catalog that presents a finished range to buyers so accounts can order from it. A line plan is the numeric target structure — option counts by category and tier, margin, open-to-buy — and it exists before any of the styles do. The list describes, the sheet sells, the plan governs.
Two practical failures attach to the list. The first is grain: a list written one row per style and a list written one row per style-colorway are both called line lists, and every count taken from them differs, which is the option ambiguity in file form. The second is age — a list exported for costing is a snapshot, and a fortnight later sourcing is working from it while the board has moved. Both are cheap to avoid by stating the grain in the header and dating every export, and both stop happening altogether when the list is a view of the board rather than a copy of it.
Canvas — the visual line board inside RetailNorthstar — puts these on one connected board, live against the plan from board to buy.