The product catalogue is the master list of everything you sell. Every quotation, order and invoice draws its lines from here, so the catalogue is where pricing, tax and stock behaviour are decided once and reused everywhere.
A product is not a SKU
This is the single most important idea in the catalogue. A product is a line a customer can buy. A stock item (SKU) is a thing you physically hold and value in inventory. They are deliberately decoupled, so one product can map to stock in whatever way the sale needs, or hold no stock at all.
Product type
Every product is one of three types, which decides whether it is delivered and how it behaves:
- Inventory – a tangible good that is delivered on a delivery order and tracked in stock.
- Service – work performed, also deliverable on a delivery order, but not held as stock.
- Fee – an intangible charge (for example a handling or admin fee) that is billed but never delivered or stocked.
How a product handles stock
For products that touch inventory, the stock type sets the relationship between the product and the SKUs behind it. There are four:
- Single item – the product is exactly one SKU. The simplest case: sell a Widget, draw one Widget from stock.
- Multiple item – the product is a fixed bundle of several SKUs, each in a set quantity. Selling one product draws all of its components from stock at once. Use it for kits, gift sets and pre-packed assortments.
- Loose item – the product does not fix a SKU in advance; the actual stock item is chosen at the point of sale. Use it for pick-your-own lines, spare parts and made-to-spec items where the exact SKU is decided on the order.
- No stock – the product holds no inventory at all. This is how services and fees are configured.
Units of measure
A product is sold in a selling unit (its U.O.M), which need not be the unit you hold stock in. Where they differ, a multiplier links the two: it says how many stock units one sold unit consumes. So you can hold singles but sell a carton of twelve, or hold a roll but sell by the metre, and stock moves by the right amount automatically. Unit conversions are defined on the underlying stock item.
Pricing
Each product carries its default selling price and its tax treatment:
- Price – the default unit price used on documents (a customer pricebook can override it; see Customer Management).
- Tax code – an optional default tax applied to the line.
- Tax inclusive – whether the price already includes tax.
Costing
For margin to be meaningful, a product needs a reliable cost. Rather than fix one number, Cloudby lets you set a cost retrieval priority: the order in which it looks for a cost, falling back through the chain until it finds one. The sources it can draw from are:
- Inventory – the current weighted-average cost from the stock ledger.
- Purchase – the recent average of the last purchase invoices.
- Vendor – the price from a preferred vendor catalogue.
- Standard – a manual benchmark cost you set.
- BOM build-up – the rolled-up cost of a bundle from its components.
You can also add a landed markup (a percentage) and a fixed landed fee per unit to account for duties, freight and insurance, so the costed figure reflects the true landed cost.
Description, photo and category
- Name and description – what shows on documents; an option auto-copies the description onto each sales line.
- Photo – an image for the catalogue and documents.
- Category – the catalogue grouping the product belongs to (categories can nest), used for organisation and reporting.
- Active – whether the product is available to sell.
How it is used
Because every sales document pulls its lines from here, a well-built catalogue means accurate, consistent pricing and costing across every quotation, order and invoice, with no re-keying. Set a product up once, thoroughly, and the rest of selling becomes fast and reliable.
Related
- How to: Set up a product
- Reference: How products and stock items relate (the inventory side)
- Reference: Customer Management (pricebooks)