Managing Products

A product is anything in your catalogue. It can be something that you stock and sell, a service, several products sold as one, or something with no physical form. A product can belong to a family. A configurable product must belong to one, because the family’s attributes make its variants.

Creating a Product

1. Go to Products and click New.
2. Fill in the General section:
   • Product name: the name shown on quotations, invoices and the catalogue, such as “Basic T-Shirt” or “Industrial Cleaning Solution 5L”.
   • Type: Simple, Configurable, Bundle or Virtual. Products says when to use each type.
   • Stocking unit: the unit the product is counted in. It opens on EA — Each, the unit most products are counted in, so pick another for a product sold by the kilogram or the litre. Beelocity saves it as the product’s first unit, and the product’s Units tab holds it and the others, such as a carton or a pallet. Without a unit, a line of the product is refused, so set it here rather than later.
   • Reference: the product’s code, unique in your organization. Stock, purchasing and sales all use it. The field already holds the next code, such as PRD-000042 after PRD-000041. Keep it, or type your own, such as CLEAN-IND-5L. If you clear it, Beelocity gives the next code when you save. A simple product prints it on its lines, and each variant’s reference starts with it.
   • Barcode: the code that a scanner sends at the terminal, such as an EAN-13 code, a UPC-A code or a code of your own. It is unique in your organization. A configurable product has no such field, because each variant has its own barcode.
   • Tariff sub-heading: for a product that you import, the ten digits that class it in the customs tariff. Type it as the tariff or the visa of your import programme prints it, dots and spaces included (8471.30.00.00). Beelocity keeps the ten digits, and it refuses anything else when you save. An import programme uses them to count the orders for this product. A variant uses its product’s sub-heading.
   • Product family: the family that this product belongs to. A configurable product must have one. On the other types, you can leave it empty.
   • Received as an asset: for a machine that you keep. See A machine you keep.
3. Fill in the Pricing section:
   • Base price: what the product sells for. Pricing and Price Lists says where each sale takes this price from.
   • Standard cost: what one unit costs you when this product goes into another product. If you leave it empty, Beelocity uses the last purchase price.
   • Tax class: the class that the terminal reads to tax this product. Leave it empty to follow your default class. A new line of a sales document opens its rate on it too, as Taxes explains.
4. In Details, write what the product is. Your online store shows it. A purchase or sales line takes the product’s name instead.
5. Click Save.

When you save a configurable product, Beelocity makes one variant for each combination of the family’s variant attributes. So you do not create them by hand. This happens once. If you change the family or its attributes later, Beelocity adds no variant and changes none.

What a scanner sends at the terminal. A barcode scanner works like a keyboard. It types the code into the terminal’s search box and presses Enter. The terminal then looks for a match, in this order:

1. A variant whose Barcode or Reference is that code. The terminal cannot sell a variant today, so a message says why. Nothing goes on the ticket.
2. A product whose Barcode, Reference or name is that code.
3. Any product whose name, reference or barcode holds that text.

If one product matches and the terminal can sell it, it goes on the ticket. If the terminal cannot sell it, a message says why. If nothing matches, or if several products match, a message says so.

So a barcode belongs on the thing that you sell. A simple product holds one barcode. A configurable product holds none, and each of its variants holds its own. The form also shows Barcode on a bundle and on a virtual product, but the terminal refuses both.

Beelocity refuses a second product with the same barcode. It does not check a variant’s barcode, so two variants can share one, and the terminal then takes the first that it finds. Give each variant its own barcode. Beelocity uses a barcode only at the terminal and in search boxes.

The Product List

The main Products page shows all the products of your organization. You can:

• Search by name, reference or barcode.
• Filter by type, family, active status, a base-price range, the tariff sub-heading or the date that you added a product. Use the filter button beside the search box (Working with lists).
• Sort by a column, such as the name, the reference or the price.
• Export the list as a spreadsheet file from the More actions menu, at the right of the top edge.
• Choose the columns that you want to see.

Click a product to open its page. There you can edit its fields, manage its variants and see the records linked to it. The bar at the top names the product and shows the product list one step up. To go back, click the list, or the arrow beside it.

Product Variants

For a configurable product, the variants are what you stock and sell. The product is a template. Each variant is one form of it, such as the red one in medium.

The variants are on the product’s Variants tab. The tab searches by reference or barcode. Its filter button narrows by a Price adjustment or Weight range, and to the Default or Active variants (see Working with lists). To add a variant by hand, click Add.

What a Variant Contains

Each variant has its own set of fields:

The variant’s options, such as Colour: Red and Size: M, have no column on this tab. The reference carries them, and your online store shows them.

How Variants Are Generated

When you create a configurable product, Beelocity makes one variant for each combination of the family’s variant attributes. See Product Attributes for how this works and how to control the number of variants. After that first save, you add and change variants on the Variants tab.

Product Relationships

Beelocity has no screen that links one product to another. So you cannot list what a bundle holds, suggest a related product or name a product’s replacement.

A Bundle product is a product of its own, with its own name, price and stock. Selling one takes the bundle out of stock, and it takes nothing out of the products that you put in the box. If you want each product to leave stock, put one line for each product on the document.

Translating your catalog

Your customers may read another language than the one that you typed your catalogue in. So you can write each product’s name in each document language. The names that your team works with do not change.

• The fast way: one grid for each kind of record. On the Products page, open the More actions menu and choose Go to Product Translations. Product Categories, Product Families and Product Attributes offer the same choice. The grid has one line for each record and one column for each language. Type in a cell to give the record its name in that language. Clear the cell to remove the name.
• The complete way: the Translations tab. Every product, category, family and attribute has a Translations tab after its first save. The tab has one line for each language. Each line holds the name, the details if the record has them, and a category’s Slug.
• Mark a line as reviewed. A new translation starts unreviewed. After somebody has read it, tick Reviewed on its line. Only the tab has this box, and the grid does not.

Each place reads a translation in its own way:

• A purchase or sales line: this covers requisitions, purchase orders, quotations, orders and invoices. If you leave a line’s description empty, Beelocity fills it with the product’s name, and never with its details. It uses the partner’s preferred language, or else your organization’s document language. It takes the translation even if nobody has reviewed it. You can still edit the line’s text.
• Your online store: the store shows a product’s name and details in the buyer’s language. It skips an unreviewed translation, unless the store’s Unreviewed translations setting is on. So a name that you type in the grid reaches the store only after you tick Reviewed on the tab.
• The terminal: it shows a variant’s attribute names and option labels in the terminal’s language, if somebody has reviewed them. It shows a product’s name as you typed it.
• Categories and families: no page that customers read shows one yet, so Beelocity only keeps these translations.

If you leave a language empty, Beelocity uses the text as you typed it. It never shows a blank, and it translates nothing for you. The lists and forms that your team uses keep the name as you typed it, in every screen language.

Option labels are the Small / Medium / Large of a configurable product. You translate them on the attribute’s own page, under its Translations tab, with one label for each language beside each option. If you rename an option later, its labels no longer apply. The option then shows as you typed it until you write its labels again.

Adding photos to a product

A photo tells a buyer more than a description. A product can have up to ten photos. The first one is its main photo. The product list shows it beside the name, and it stands for the product wherever only one photo fits.

1. Open the product and go to its Photos tab. The tab appears after you save the product.
2. Click Add photos and pick one or several pictures.
3. Put them in order from each photo’s ⋮ menu: Make main photo, Move earlier or Move later.

You can add PNG and JPEG files of up to 5 MB each, and up to 6,000 pixels wide or high. Beelocity reads what a file holds and not its name, so it refuses a document renamed .jpg.

On a configurable product, each photo has a Variant shown list. Pick the variant that the photo shows, such as the red one or the large size. If the photo shows the product as a whole, leave Every variant.

Remove, in the same menu, takes a photo off the product. If it was the main photo, the next one takes its place.

Photos have permissions of their own, apart from editing the product. For example, the Online store manager role can add photos, and it cannot change a product’s prices or its tax class.

A machine you keep: equipment

Not everything that you buy is stock. You buy a delivery van, an oven or a press once, and you keep it in service. So it belongs with your assets and not in stock. You say so on the product.

1. Open the product and click Edit, or create it as a Simple product.
2. In Received as an asset, pick the asset class, such as Vehicles or Ovens.
3. Click Save.

Beelocity shows that field while the Maintenance module is on, and only on a simple product.

After that, when you complete a goods receipt of the product, Beelocity adds each machine to your assets. Its purchase cost is the order line’s price for one machine, less its discount, in your own currency. A product received as an asset never goes into stock. The product pickers of stock movements, transfers, inventory adjustments, counts, bills of materials and maintenance work orders do not offer it. If a stock document names it anyway, Beelocity refuses the document.

A product with stock on hand cannot become equipment. While it has stock on hand, Beelocity refuses the class and says so under the field. First use up that stock, sell it, or bring it to zero with an inventory adjustment. You can always take the class away, and the product then goes into stock from its next goods receipt.

Deactivation

Deactivate a product that you stop selling, and do not delete it. Open the product and click Deactivate, or select several products in the list and choose Mark as inactive. Delete is for a product that you created by mistake. If an order, an invoice, a ticket, a goods receipt or a stock record names the product, Beelocity refuses to delete it.

• The terminal and your online store stop selling a deactivated product.
• New documents still offer it. The product stays in the pickers of quotations, orders, purchases and stock documents, so check what you pick.
• Past records stay as they are. Past orders, stock movements and invoices keep the product.
• You can bring it back. Open the product and click Activate, and you do not have to create it again.

Beelocity has no field that names a product’s replacement (Product Relationships).

Tips

• Let the references number themselves. Each new product opens on the next reference, so all your references have one shape. Type your own only if a product already has a code that your customers or suppliers use.
• Set the base price to your usual selling price. The terminal and your online store sell at it today, because no screen can add a price to a price list.
• Set the standard cost on raw materials and purchased parts. A cost rollup reads it for each component of a bill of materials. If it is empty, the rollup uses the last purchase price. If neither exists, the rollup counts zero and warns you that the result is incomplete. So set it once on each purchased input.
• Check the number of variants before you save a configurable product. With 3 variant attributes of 5, 4 and 3 options, you get 60 variants. Make sure that this is what you want before you create the product.