Attributes with suppliers product code

I have a lot of products to display and the suppliers codes are like this -

l0001
l0001
l0001
l0001

The above code represent a certain line of products, say for example, Socks.

There is also another line of codes (for the exact same socks) for sizes and colours like this -

l0001BLK (black)
l0001RD (red)
l0001SML (small)
l0001LRG (large)

So when I put this into the system I only want to put the
l0001 code in and then let the customer select the colour and size by checking the boxes I would put in by attributes rather than have multiple product listings of the same products in different sizes and colour.(by using the 2nd line of codes)

The problem is this, by using the first line of codes I would have to manually check all the products every day and see what colour and size the customer ordered.

Am I missing something and is there a way to do this so we just have one listing of the same product with options for size and colour via checkboxes but the system can tell what individual code to use as in the 2nd line of codes.

Hope you understand what Im trying to say.

Thanks, Spot.

First - BACKUP YOUR FILES AND DATABASE BEFORE PROCEEDING

Get and install the stock-by-attributes module by kuroi and configure for your attributes

Thanks for the reply Kobra,

I discovered something quite usefull today.

I ended up inputing a master catagory for a given item, lets say socks again.

Then a subcatagorie, size. Then another subcatagorie, colour.

What this did is made it so when anyone clicks on socks they are taken to the size tree and from there to the colour tree.

The trouble with this was the customer would find his exact size and colour easily enough but they wouldnt see all the other colours unless they backtracked and repeated for every colour and size in the line, not ideal.

So I went back to my text deliminated files and took the headings off the sizes and colours. I now assumed that all the socks would be lumped together in one big heap all jumbled up.

Instead all the socks still had sub catagories of size and colour only now you can click on socks to get the whole lot up in one go or you could click on sizes to get individual sizes up with ALL the colours or go right to the end of the tree and click on colour to get the exact size and colour up plus everything has its own code.

So even though I had removed the subs they were still present only they werent so limiting.

One thing though, if anyone can help me out on this the catagorie of socks again as an example shows triple the number of socks in the menu tree that are there and the size catagorie shows double whats there.

Or alternatively how do I get rid of the numbers in brackets in the catagories menu.

Thanks, Spot.