Your catalogue is built in layers, and each layer does one job:
- Families group products that belong together. A “Clothing” family can hold the attributes Size and Colour.
- Categories sort products. The terminal filters by category, and a session’s report totals sales by category. A category does not depend on a family.
- Attributes describe products, such as a colour, a size or a material. Beelocity uses only the attributes that make variants.
- Products are what you buy, make and sell. Each product has one of the four types below.
- Variants are the forms of a configurable product. Each variant has its own reference and its own stock. A “T-Shirt” product with 4 sizes and 3 colours gives 12 variants.
- Price lists are named sets of prices. No screen can add a price to a list today, so you sell at each product’s base price.
- Currencies are the money that your documents use, with their exchange rates.
Product Types
Every product has a type, which decides how it behaves:
| Type | What it is | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Simple | One product with no variants. | A product that comes in one form, such as a hammer, a cable model or a cleaning product. |
| Configurable | A product with one variant for each combination of its family’s variant attributes. | A product that comes in several forms. A shirt in 4 sizes and 3 colours gives 12 variants, each with its own reference and stock level. |
| Bundle | Several products sold together under one name and one price. | A gift set or a starter kit. You can sell a bundle on a sales document, but not at the terminal or in your online store. |
| Virtual | Something with no physical form, such as a service, a subscription or a delivery charge. | Anything that you do not keep in a warehouse. The terminal and your online store refuse it. |
You choose the type when you create the product. The type decides how the product works with stock and variants:
- A virtual product is never kept in stock. Beelocity does not offer it on a stock movement, a transfer, a count or an adjustment. It does not offer it on a stock level, a bill of materials or a spare part either. If a line names it there, Beelocity refuses the line.
- A configurable product is stocked through its variants. Pick the product, then its variant. A line that names a product alone does not offer it.
- A configurable product needs a family, because Beelocity makes its variants from the family’s attributes. If you save one with no family, the refusal shows under the Product family field.
- A configurable product stays configurable while it has variants. Remove its variants before you change its type.
How Products Relate to Other Features
| Feature | Relationship |
|---|---|
| Families | A product can belong to one family. A configurable product must belong to one. |
| Categories | A product can belong to several categories. |
| Warehouses | Beelocity keeps the stock of each product and variant by warehouse and location. |
| Partners | Suppliers sell you products, and clients buy them from you. |
| Price lists | A line on a list replaces the product’s base price. No screen can add a line today. |
| Units of measure | Units say how you buy, stock and sell a product, and how one unit converts into another. |
Navigation
Products is the first entry of the Inventory panel in the sidebar. It opens the main product list.
The lists that describe products are tabs of Inventory › Setup: Product Categories, Product Families, Product Attributes and Tax Classes. The price lists are a tab of Sales › Setup, and Pricing and Price Lists explains them. The currencies are a tab of Treasury › Setup, and Currencies explains them.