a2a2NSoftDocumentation
⌕
Home/Master Data

Master Data · Daily operations · 9 min read

Create and maintain a product

Create a stocked product or service in the Catalogue, set price, cost and tax, and later duplicate, share, discontinue or archive it.

Required permission: product.view (read); product.manage (create and edit); product.cost.view (cost)

Before you begin

Create the unit of measure, category and tax codes first (see Get started). You need product.manage, and today you must be a company administrator to see New product. To see or set cost you also need product.cost.view.

Steps

  1. Open Catalogue > Catalogue and press New product.
  2. Enter the Product Code (2 to 30 letters, digits, _ or -; stored in capitals) and the Product Name. Both are required: 'Enter the product code and name.'
  3. Choose the Product Type. Stocked goods, Manufactured, Raw material, Semi-finished, Finished good, Kit / bundle, Asset, Consumable and By-product are goods. Non-stocked goods, Service and Expense item hold no stock. The Inventory, Manufacturing and Logistics tabs only appear for goods.
  4. Choose the Unit of Measure (required). The read-only Base Unit shows the ratio-1 unit of its dimension; choosing grams shows kilograms.
  5. Choose the Product Category, Brand and Product Group if they apply.
  6. Enter the Sales Price (AED) and Standard Cost (AED): zero or more, two decimals.
  7. In Taxes, pick the tax codes for sale (up to 8). Tax % is the sum of their rates and shows as the Combined rate. A new product with no code starts at 5.00%.
  8. On Purchase, pick the Purchase Taxes and add supplier references (see below).
  9. Press Save. The product opens read-only and the message is 'Saved successfully'.

What happens next

The product is Active and shows on the Products list with its price, cost, tax percentage and, for goods, the quantity on hand. Sales and purchase documents can use it as long as Active for Sale and Active for Purchase are on. Services and non-stocked items show '—' under On hand.

Supplier references

On the Purchase tab, add a row per supplier: the supplier (a supplier or customer-and-vendor contact), their product code, minimum quantity, quoted cost, lead days, currency and validity dates. Mark one as Preferred. More > Create purchase then preselects that supplier and starts an RFQ at the quoted cost. A customer-only contact is refused with 'Choose a supplier contact.'

Price and cost history

Every change to the sales price or standard cost is kept in the Price History and in the change history with the old value, the new value and the user. Change 899.00 to 949.00 and 450.00 to 470.00 and both rows appear.

Duplicate a product

  1. Open the product and choose More > Duplicate product.
  2. Leave the code blank to get <CODE>-COPY (then -COPY2), or type your own. Leave the name blank for <name> (copy).
  3. Tick what to copy: pricing, purchasing, packaging, BOM, routes, quality, documents. Without Copy pricing price and cost are 0.
  4. Press Duplicate.

Barcodes, PLU, scale settings, alternates and variants are never copied, because each must be unique.

Share a product with another company

  1. Open General > Company Access.
  2. Tick the other companies. You must belong to them and hold product.manage there. The current company always stays ticked.
  3. Press Apply sharing, then set that company's own cost and price.

Each company keeps its own cost, price and stock. Renaming the product in one company renames it in the others. To stop sharing, the other company must hold no stock: '<CODE> still holds stock of <PRODUCT>; it stays shared until that stock is zero.'

Discontinue and archive

  • Set Status to Discontinued to keep selling but stop buying. Active for Purchase is switched off and locked.
  • Use More > Archive to hide it from new documents. Archived products are refused with 'Archived products cannot be added.' More > Restore brings it back.

Rules that refuse a change

What you tryWhy it is refused
Change the product codeCodes never change. Duplicate the product instead.
Change goods to a service when the product is on documents'This product is already on documents, so it cannot switch between stocked and non-stocked. Create a new product instead.'
Change goods to a service with stock'This product has stock. Set on-hand quantity to zero before making it a service or non-stocked item.'
Change the unit once the product is on posted documents or stock moves'<CODE> is already on posted documents or stock moves, so its base unit is fixed...'
Change tracking while stock exists'Set on-hand quantity to zero before changing tracking or valuation scope.'
Turn on negative stockNot allowed in this version.
Gross weight below net weight'Gross weight cannot be less than net weight.'
Save over someone else's change'This record changed. Reload it before saving.'

Good to know

  • The product image takes PNG, JPEG or WebP. The screen says 5 MB, but the server accepts 2 MB: a 3 MB picture is refused after the product is saved, with 'Images must be no larger than 2 MB.' Save again without it. Pictures are re-encoded as PNG, at most 800 px.
  • Minimum margin, minimum selling price, default sales and purchase units, reorder fields, allowed branches and warehouses, quality flags and some account overrides are recorded but not enforced yet.
  • Without product.cost.view the cost shows •••, the Accounting tab is hidden, and a cost sent in a save is ignored.
  • Contact and product codes are not checked for uniqueness when you type them yourself. Search before you create.
Updated 3 October 2026