Now that you’ve got your store setup and your preferences set, you’ll want to create some products to sell to customers. To do so, first, open the Manager Window. Once there, click on the Products option. On the left side of this screen, you will see a listing of any products that are setup. The right side of this screen will display information for a product if it was highlighted on the left side. In the bottom-left corner of this screen, click on the plus (+) sign. This will bring up the New Product window. The first thing to do here is to provide a name for the product. Once you have named the product, the next box asks you to assign a unique code to the product. You can have duplicate names, but each product must have a unique code. If you attempt to assign a code to a product and that code has already been used, the system will prevent you from continuing. The next steps are to enter the cost of the product and the price you intend to sell the product for. When you enter the selling price, be sure to enter the price excluding any applicable taxes. The cost that you enter will be used to calculate margins. That calculation will be based on what cost matching method you chose when setting up the store. The last option on this screen is a check-box that lets the system know if there is physical stock on that product. If you intend to track stock on this product, be sure to check the box, otherwise, leave it unchecked. If the product is intended to be a stock item but this option is left unchecked, you cannot go back and edit this at a later time. Instead, the product will need to be deleted and recreated.
Since things are always-evolving in a business, you are not going to be limited to your initial setup of products. You can always go back and update information if necessary. Below is a breakdown of the product information screen and what can be changed and how it will affect your store.
Once you have created a product, if you highlight it on the list to the left, the right side of the page will offer you the option to edit the settings for that product. The first thing you will be allowed to edit is the name of the product. To do so, simply key over the existing name. The next option is a check-box to denote if a product requires a serial number or not. If the box is checked, upon allocating an order, you will be required to enter a serial number for that product either by scanning in the serial number with a barcode scanner or manually keying in the serial number. These serial numbers will be recorded on the transactions and orders and invoices can be searched for with the serial numbers, if you wish to do so. Just to the right of that option is another check-box. This box is titled Sell Stop. If this box is checked, it will temporarily disallow sales of this product and will prevent the product from showing up on product lists. Below that, you have the option to select a brand for the product, edit the existing product code, enter or scan in a barcode and key in a description of the product. The next option is for you to select a default or primary supplier for this product. This does not prevent you from purchasing from another supplier, it simply denotes who your primary supplier is. You can select the supplier from a drop down list. If your supplier isn’t listed, click on the pencil to the right and create that supplier. In the Pricing section of this window, you will enter in the value of one piece of this item. The value is used to determine margin on sales and will be calculated based on the cost matching method you selected when setting up your store. You will also enter in your selling price. If you wish to have taxes added to your product price, you can check off one or more of the taxes listed and you will see that the price including tax will be adjusted accordingly. Should you need to add or edit any taxes, you can do so within the taxes pane of the Manager Window.
The first thing to mention is, if a product was not setup to have physical stock, that section of the product information screen will not be available. If you decide to keep stock in this product at a later time, you will need to create a new code for this product and delete the old code. If the product was setup to have physical stock, you will see 4 options listed in the Stock section of the product information screen. The first box shows how many pieces of this product you currently have in stock. To the right of that is a pencil. If you click on that pencil, the Correct Stock window will appear. Here, you can edit the amount of stock you have on hand by entering the difference between what you have on hand now and what the store shows as having on hand. The system makes this easy with a before and after number so there are no mistakes. You cannot put stock in the negative in this window. If you have 6 on hand and you attempt to take out 7, the system will prevent you from doing so by graying out the OK button. Below that is a window to enter the reason for the stock correction. This reason, along with the employee who recorded the correction, is saved in the Ledger and can be exported to be journaled into your accounting software. To the right of the pencil is the minimum count of a product you wish to be in stock at any time. To change this number, simply key over the existing number in the box. Below the stock count is a box labeled On Order. This count shows how many pieces of this product are currently on orders within your store. To the right of that box is a magnifying glass. If you click on that button, all orders containing this product will be listed for you to see. Below that is another box, this one is titled Needed. The calculation for this window is as follows. The amount in stock, minus the amount on orders, plus the amount listed in the minimum stock box. For example, if you have 10 in stock, 1 listed on an order and the minimum quantity is listed as 20, the number listed in Needed will be 11. This number can be used to always know how many pieces of a specific product should be ordered from a supplier.
Note that the stock correction tool is only for corrections (e.g., lost, found or damaged products) and not to receive products into your store. For more information on receiving stock, please see Chapter 21
If certain information is changed on the product information screen, Checkout will update any orders containing those products, however, invoices will be unchanged.