Products Overview
This screen provides information about the products that you sell.
The top half of the screen (known as the form), shows the details for the product that is
selected in the table that is in the bottom half of the screen. In the middle of the screen
is a filter. By right-clicking in the table, you open a context menu
where you can do things with your products. There is also the product menu at the top (with all
the normal menus), where you can do more things with your products. You can activate the products screen using
CTRL+SHIFT+2.
Special things to note about the top half of the page:
- The supplier must be one of those specified on the suppliers screen.
- The ID is a reference number assigned by BookStore. On the other hand, the Product ID is the reference
which your supplier uses. For books, it might be the ISBN number, for example.
- The Supplier RRP is the price that the supplier recommends you sell the product at. If the
supplier uses a different currency than your business, then this price is shown in their currency.
- Price is the price you are currently selling this product for. It is in your own currency. It may
be the same as the Supplier RRP, or you may choose to set it differently. During a product import,
the supplier RRP is examined (and if required exchanged into your own currency). If it lies outside
of the threshold you set in the configuration,
it is automatically updated and a
warning on this product is set, which tells you what the old and new price are.
- Supplier Stock State is an indication about the suppliers stock of this product. Some suppliers
publish this information and it can be useful for you being able to gauge if they hold enough
stock for you to be able to order it in to fulfil your
sales orders.
- Lower and Upper Age Limits are indicators to you as to the suitability of a product. For example
fireworks should not be sold to young children! Similarly an encyclopedia is not normally an
interesting present for a 2 year old child.
- The "In Catalogue" checkbox can be used to show you if you are currently selling this product. If
it is not in your catalogue, you cannot sell it to customers. If during a product import, it is
determined that you have no stock of a product, and that product is no longer found in the import file
(which your supplier might give you), then the product is automatically marked as not in the catalogue,
because it is not possible for you to sell it to your customers.
- The Notes field is where you can make notes about this product.
- The "Changes during Import" field is used to tell you about things that were automatically done during
a product import. See the import menu for more information.
If this field is changed during an import, then the
icon is displayed. Click the button
to confirm this change (or read the text and manually reverse the automatic action that was taken.
Alternatively, warnings like this can be confirmed using the context menu.
In the middle of the screen is a filter. You can type search text there and it will limit what is shown in the
table below. Click on the 
icon for more information. The number in brackets, in the
header cell of the ID column of the table indicates how many rows match the given filter.
If the filter is empty, then this number is the total number of products that you have.
If the cursor is in the filter, you can use the down arrow to move focus into the table.
The table in the bottom half of the screen has the following columns:
- ID - The Product ID, as used by the supplier
- Warning (W) - If this product needs attention, then a icon is displayed
- Title - The name or title of the product
- Supplier - The name of the product's supplier
- Supplier Stock State (SSS) - The supplier's stock state which is an indication of how many of
this product the supplier is currently holding.
- Reserve - The number of stock that you hold, but which are currently reserved for
sales orders.
- Free - The number of stock that you hold and which are free for sale right now.
- RRP - Your recommended retail price, which is the price you are currently
selling your stock for.
- Categories - The categories in which a product is listed.
You can sort rows in the table by clicking on the header cell of the column you wish to sort by, for example to
sort by "RRP", click on the column header in the table. To reverse sort, click the header again.
Selecting a product in the table shows you its details in the form.
Products are sometimes shown in gray in the table, if they are not currenly sellable.
This means they are not in the catalogue and you have none which are not reserved
for sales orders (no free stock).
Right clicking on the table gives you a menu:
- New... - Opens the New Product Dialog
allowing you to enter details of a new product.
- Confirm Warnings - Removes warnings from the selected product.
- Confirm All Warnings - Removes warnings from ALL products, for all suppliers.
- Add Stock - Opens the Stock Dialog
allowing you to enter details of new stock of this product.
- Show Stock - Activates the stock screen and sets the filter so
that only stock of this product type are shown.
- Add to Purchase Order - Opens a wizard where you can choose which temporary
purchase order you want to add
this product to. You would use this menu if you want to order this product to keep in stock,
as opposed to ordering it directly for a specific customer in
a sales order. To order it for
a customer as part of a sales order, see the
sales wizard.
Also see the product menu for more help.