Products and categories

Every item you sell is a product in iTrade. Categories group products for filtering and reports. Owners and Managers can add and change products. Sales People can find and sell them, but not edit them.

Setting up a lot of products at once? Use Upload from Excel instead.

Categories

1. Open Stock → Categories.
2. Click + Add New, type the Name (for example "Beverages") and click Save.

Use Edit to rename a category. If you delete a category, its products are kept but no longer have a category.

Add a product

1. Check the company switcher shows the branch the product belongs to.
2. Open Stock → Products and click + Add New.
3. Fill in the fields (see below) and click Save.

The fields

Field	What it's for
Product Code	Optional. Your own short code, for example RM-HOME-L. Handy for quick searching.
Barcode	Optional. Click in the box and scan the pack's barcode. Then scanning it at the till, in a stock take or on a delivery picks this product. Two products can't share a barcode.
Category	Optional grouping.
Brand / Manufacturer	Optional, for example "Coca-Cola" or "Sunlight".
Item description	Required. What the product is, for example "500ml" or "Soap 175g".
Size	Optional, for example L, 42 or 2kg.
Unit	Piece, Pair, Set, Dozen or Other.
Unit cost	What one unit costs you now. Used for stock value and profit.
Selling price	Required. Your normal price. It fills in automatically on sales.
Supplier	Your usual supplier for this item.
Opening stock	How many you had when you started using iTrade for this product. Leave at 0 if you will record a delivery for it instead.
Reorder level	When stock falls to this number or below, the product is flagged as low stock. Default 3.
Reorder quantity	How many you usually order at once. Used to fill in purchase orders.
Notes	Anything else.

The name you see everywhere is the brand, item description and size together, for example "Coca-Cola 500ml". Each combination can only exist once per branch.

How iTrade works out stock

You never type in "current stock" directly. iTrade calculates it:

Current stock = opening stock + deliveries + transfers in − sales − write-offs − transfers out ± stock take adjustments

Keep costs and prices up to date

When your supplier's price changes, edit the product and update Unit cost. The cost you type on each delivery is kept with that delivery, but the product's Unit cost is what the stock value and Profit & Loss use. When you change your own price, update Selling price. Sales already made keep the price they were sold at.

Finding products

The Products list shows code, name, category, unit, cost, price, stock, reorder level and stock value for each product.

• Use the Search box for a name, code, barcode, brand, size or supplier.
• Click Filter: Needs Reorder to show only products at or below their reorder level. Click it again to show everything.
• Use the list and tile buttons next to + Add New to switch between a table and cards.

The product page

Click the product's code in the first column of the list to open its page. It shows:

• Its details: code, category, unit, supplier, cost and price.
• Current Stock, the reorder level and quantity, and the Stock Value (stock × unit cost).
• Backordered in red if more has been sold than you had. Record the delivery or recount.
• Recent Purchases and Recent Sales: the last 10 of each.

Click Edit to change the product.

Deleting a product

Use Delete only for a product added by mistake. A product that has been sold, bought, counted, written off or transferred can't be deleted, because its history is part of your records. If you stop selling it, leave it in place and let its stock run to zero.

Product photos

You can put a photo on a product and have it shown beside the name on the sale screen, so staff pick the right one by sight. It is off until you turn it on, under Company Settings → Sell using product photos.

It is worth turning on if you sell things that look different but read almost the same - jerseys in several teams and sizes, fabric, packaging. Leave it off if your products are barcoded or tell apart by name: scanning is faster than looking, and photos are one more thing to keep up to date.