Products & services

Your product catalog

Products & services (Accept Payments → Products & services) is the one catalog behind everything you bill for. Add an item once and it appears in the line-item picker on invoices, estimates, payment links, and work orders. Price a thing once and every tool agrees on it.

An item can be a product, a service, a digital good, a bundle that rings several components at once, or a variable item that generates a child for each size or colour. A service works exactly like a product without stock; Consultation, 1 hour needs a price, not a quantity on hand.

The editor is organised into tabs so you only look at what your business actually needs. A dental practice fills in General and Pricing and is finished. A liquor store works through all of them. The Stock tab disappears entirely for anything that does not track stock.

Start here before you send your first invoice, and use Import CSV if you already have a price list in a spreadsheet: it takes a file with the item name, SKU, price, cost, quantity, and classification columns and creates or updates items in one pass. Done looks like this: every row in the catalog has a price, physical goods show an On hand figure, and the margin column reads the way you expect.

If an item does not show in the invoice picker, it is probably archived; use the Archive filter to find it and restore it. If a margin reads blank, the item has no cost on the Pricing tab. If an import fails, open the error list, fix the named rows in your spreadsheet, and import again; rows that already loaded are not duplicated.

1. 1Click New item and give it a name, a SKU (or leave it blank and one is generated), and a description.
2. 2Set how it is sold: Each, or by Weight for a deli or produce scale item.
3. 3Classify it: Department, Category, Brand, and a Default vendor.
4. 4Move through Pricing, Identifiers & Barcodes, and Stock as needed, then Save.

Departments, categories, brands & vendors

Classification used to be free text, which is how a catalog ends up holding Beverages, beverages, and Bevrages as three different things. Each of these is now a real list you pick from: Department (Liquor, Grocery), Category (Red Wine, which can sit under a parent like Wine), Brand, and Default vendor.

You do not have to set these lists up in advance. Click the + beside any picker, type the name, press Enter, and it is created and selected on the spot, without leaving a half-filled item to go find a settings page. Type the same name twice and it reuses the existing entry rather than making a duplicate.

Consistent classification is what makes everything downstream work: filtering the catalog, reading a margin report by department, and knowing who to reorder from. The Default vendor is also what groups items on an auto-drafted purchase order, so set it on anything you reorder.

Done looks like this: every item has a department and category, physical goods have a default vendor, and the catalog filters cleanly by any of them.

If two spellings of the same category already exist, pick the correct one on each item and the unused spelling drops out of the list. If an item is charging tax you do not expect, untick Taxable. If a shelf price already includes tax, tick Price includes tax so the receipt does not add it again. If a service keeps showing as out of stock, turn Track inventory off on its General tab.

1. 1Pick a Department, Category, Brand, and Default vendor, or click + to create one as you go.
2. 2Tick Taxable, and Price includes tax when your shelf price already has tax baked in.
3. 3Tick Available online for anything you sell through an online channel.
4. 4Leave Track inventory on for physical goods; turn it off for services and anything that should never be blocked as out of stock.

Pricing, cost & scheduled price changes

The List price is what a card pays. If you run dual pricing you can also set an exact Cash price on the item; leave it blank and your account-wide dual-pricing rate is used instead. Setting it per item is how you pin a clean shelf price rather than a derived one, such as a $9.99 that has to read $9.75 in cash.

Three costs are tracked: Vendor cost is what you are billed, Average cost is the weighted average of the stock you are holding, and Last cost is what the most recent delivery actually cost. Your live margin is shown as you type. Average cost and Last cost update on their own when you receive stock against a purchase order.

A markup rule lets a price follow cost instead of being retyped: choose which cost to work from, whether the markup is a percentage or a flat amount, and the value. Scheduled price changes let you set tomorrow's price today. Enter the new price and an effective date, and it applies automatically on that date, before the store opens, without anyone remembering to do it.

Done looks like this: the margin under the price reads the way you expect, cost updates itself with each delivery, and price changes you planned show up on the morning they were due.

If the margin looks wrong, check which cost the markup rule is working from. If a scheduled change did not apply, open the item and confirm the effective date and that the change was saved. If a discount takes an item below what you will sell it for, set a Minimum price on the Identifiers tab and it becomes a floor.

1. 1On the Pricing tab, enter the List price and, if you run dual pricing, an exact Cash price.
2. 2Enter Vendor cost. Average cost and Last cost fill in as deliveries are received.
3. 3Optionally set a markup rule: the cost to work from, percent or flat, and the value.
4. 4To plan a change, enter the new price and its effective date under Scheduled price changes, then Save.

SKU, UPC, PLU & barcodes

Retail uses several codes for the same item and they are not interchangeable. The SKU is your own internal number. The UPC is the barcode printed on the package. The PLU is the short code a cashier keys for loose produce. The Vendor item # is what your supplier calls it when you reorder.

One item can also answer to several barcodes. A case, an old label, and a distributor's own code can all be added under Alternate barcodes, each with the quantity that scan represents, so scanning a case of twelve adds twelve, not one.

Fill these in for anything you scan or reorder. Done looks like this: scanning any barcode the item carries finds it, a case scan adds the right quantity, and the vendor item number prints on purchase orders.

If a scan finds nothing, the code is not on the item yet, so add it under Alternate barcodes with quantity 1. If a case scan adds one instead of twelve, edit the alternate barcode's quantity. If a SKU was left blank, one was generated for you and can be replaced with your own.

Stock, reordering & shelf locations

Turn on Track inventory and Merchant360 keeps a live quantity on hand. Every sale decrements it, and each change is written to a movement ledger, so on-hand is always reconstructable rather than a number someone typed.

Four levels drive reordering, and they answer different questions. Low level is the point at which the item is flagged for reorder. Reorder qty is how many you buy when it is. Min order qty is your vendor's minimum. Safe qty is the cushion you never want to drop below. Shelf / bin records where the item physically lives, so whoever is picking or counting can find it.

Purchase orders turn the low-stock list into an order. Open Purchase orders from the top of the catalog; every item at or below its reorder point is listed with its on hand, reorder level, suggested quantity, and unit cost. Generate draft PO builds one order for the vendor you name, and Auto-draft by supplier builds one draft per supplier from every low-stock item at once. Mark the order Sent when it goes to the supplier, then when the delivery arrives open it and use Receive stock to enter what came in; on hand goes up and the item's average and last cost update.

Valuation & dead stock shows what your stock is worth at cost and which items have not sold, so you know what to discount or stop reordering. Done looks like this: on hand matches the shelf, Low badges appear before you run out, and each delivery is received against a purchase order instead of typed in.

If on hand is wrong, use Stock on the row with the reason Count correction rather than editing the number, so the ledger explains the change. If an item never shows in the low-stock list, its Low level is blank. If a purchase order shows Partial, only some lines were received, so open it and receive the rest when they arrive. Cancel PO removes an order that was never sent.

1. 1Turn on Track inventory on the General tab.
2. 2Set the quantity on hand, and the Low level that should flag a reorder.
3. 3Add Reorder qty, Min order qty, and Safe qty if you buy to a plan.
4. 4Use Stock on any catalog row to receive, count, or write off, with a reason; every change lands in the ledger.

Bundles & variants

A bundle is one item that rings several components at once and decrements each component's stock, such as a gift basket or a starter kit. A variable item carries option groups such as Size or Colour and generates one real child item per combination, each with its own price adjustment, SKU, and stock.

Both live on the Bundle & Variants tab, and both are set by choosing the item type on General first. Use a bundle when you sell a set of things you also sell separately, so stock stays right on each part. Use a variable item when one product comes in sizes or colours you count separately.

Done looks like this: selling a bundle reduces each component's on hand, and each size or colour of a variable item shows in the catalog as its own row with its own SKU and stock.

If a bundle will not save, one of its components has no stock tracking or was archived. If a variant is missing, add the option value on the parent and the child is generated. If a child needs a different price, set its price adjustment rather than editing the parent price.

1. 1Create the item and choose Bundle or Variable as the type on the General tab.
2. 2On the Bundle & Variants tab, add each component and its quantity for a bundle, or add option groups and their values for a variable item.
3. 3Set a price adjustment per child where needed, then Save.