Items & pricing

Items are your catalog: the products and services you put on quotes, orders and invoices, and the materials you buy and use up.

The item page

Everything about an item is on its page, in tabs, and you edit each tab where you read it. There's no separate edit screen.

• Details: number and revision, name, SKU, type, unit, category, tags, description, whether it's active, the personalization box and your custom fields.
• Pricing: its price on each of your price lists and the tax lines start with, a calculator for what to charge (see Pricing guidance), and the clients it applies to and what each pays.
• Cost: the base cost and where it comes from, your variables, and the vendors you buy it from.
• Stock: how many there are, where they are, the adjustments, and the stock settings: track stock, reorder point, reorder quantity and made to order.
• Barcodes: the item's code, how it prints, and label printing. A product sold in variants has no code of its own; this tab lists its variants' codes.
• Variants, Bill of materials, Kit contents and Images, described below. Only a product has variants and a bill of materials, only a kit has contents, and a service has no images.
• Shipping: weight, HS code, Made in and care instructions.
• Movements (while stock is tracked) and History: the stock ledger and who changed what.

Change something on a tab and a bar appears at the bottom of the page with Save and Discard. Save saves every tab you changed and nothing else. If one can't be saved, its message shows beside it and the others still save. Leave the page with something unsaved and you're asked first.

Variants, the bill of materials, kit contents and the Prices card save with their own buttons (Save variants, Save bill of materials, Save components, Save prices), and leaving the page doesn't warn about them.

The tab is part of the address, so a link can open an item straight on its stock or its barcodes.

Editing items needs the Add and edit the catalog permission.

The item record

• Item # and revision: your own part number, and how you and your clients refer to the item. It's required, and OrderDen never makes one up. A number can't be used twice, except as a different revision. It's the first column on the items list and on document lines. The optional revision lets the same number cover versions: 1042 and 1042 rev B are two items. Wherever the number shows, the revision shows with it. Renumbering an item already on documents is allowed; the box says how many, and they keep the old number in their text.

• SKU: an optional second code.

• Name, description, type and unit (each, hour, box).

• Price (the default list's row in Pricing → Prices) and Base cost (COGS) (on Cost). For an item that tracks stock, a blank cost is filled in by its first purchase delivery. A cost you set yourself stays, with Average cost from purchases beside it so you can see when they drift apart.

  A document line records the item's cost when it's added, and that cost goes with it when a quote becomes an order or an order is invoiced or duplicated. Changing the item's cost later affects new lines only.

• Care instructions, such as "Trim the wick to 1/4 inch before every burn." They print against the line on the packing slip.

• Shipping weight, HS code and Made in: what one weighs, and the two things a customs form asks. Buying postage adds up what's in the box plus the box's own weight, and refuses an item with no weight, by name. A variant can have its own weight, which wins, but only the API sets it. See Shipping labels.

• Duplicate makes a copy to start a variant from. It asks for the copy's Item # (and revision) first, and names it "Copy of" followed by the original name. Price, cost, tax, category, tags, shipping details, stock settings, formulas and client prices carry over. The SKU, barcode, stock on hand, variants, kit components and images don't. On the API it's POST /items/{id}/duplicate, with the new number in the body.

• Tags, and Active (available in the catalog). Archive hides an item from pickers without touching past documents, and Restore brings it back. The items list shows archived items with Include archived. Delete, next to Archive, is for an item added by mistake: it's refused, saying what the item is on, once it's on any quote, order, invoice, purchase or credit note, or has stock history, a recipe, a production run or a place in a kit.

• Track stock for this item, with a reorder point and reorder quantity, for things you keep on the shelf. The item then has a quantity on hand built from a ledger of movements, and shipping takes it down. See Inventory & stock. The items list shows On hand and Available, marks anything at or below its reorder point Low stock, and Stock → Low stock filters to those.

Changes to an item's number, name, SKU, barcode, prices, cost, unit, type, description, stock settings and shipping details are recorded in its History, with who made them. See Activity & history.

Variants

A product sold in sizes, colors or scents is one item with variants. On the item's Variants tab, tick This product has variants, name the options (up to 3, such as Size and Scent) and type their values. Generate the grid makes a row for each combination, up to 200, with a suggested SKU. Edit the rows, delete the combinations you don't make, and press Save variants.

Each variant is what's sold: its own SKU, price and cost (leave either blank to use the product's), barcode and stock. The product itself can't go on a document any more. Pickers show its variants under it, and picking one fills in its price.

The product's quantity on hand is the total of its variants, and its average cost is weighted by what each holds.

Removing a variant that has stock or is on an order archives it instead of deleting it, so past orders still name it. It leaves the pickers and stays in the record. A variant that's only on quotes or invoices is deleted, and those lines keep their text but lose the link.

Kits and bundles

Set an item's type to Kit, on the new item form or on an existing item's Details tab, and a Kit contents tab appears. List what one kit holds (products, variants, materials or services) and how many of each, then press Save components.

A kit holds no stock of its own, so Track stock stays off for it. Turn it back into a product and its stock settings come back, and its contents are remembered.

• How many it can supply is the smallest number of whole kits its components allow. Three candles a set and seven candles in stock is two sets.
• Shipping one takes the components down. Shipping two gift sets writes a stock movement for each component (six candles, two boxes), each pointing at the kit's order line. Voiding the shipment puts them all back.

The Kit contents tab adds up what the components cost and shows the kit's margin. The kit's own Base cost, which document lines and reports use, isn't set from them: set it yourself on the Cost tab. A kit can't contain itself or another kit.

Images

The Images tab holds the item's photos: PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, up to 10 MB each. The first one is the main photo. Move another to the front, or use its star, to change it. Photos show on this tab and through the API.

Personalization

Tick Offer a personalization box on document lines and every quote, order and invoice line for the item gets a box for what the buyer asked for, such as the engraved name or the message on the card. It's stored on the line, shown on the document and printed on the packing slip and the pick list.

Making it yourself

For things you make (see Production), two settings matter, both on the item's Stock tab:

• Made to order, in Stock settings: this is never kept on the shelf. Confirming an order for it opens a planned production run for that order line. That happens only when the item tracks stock and has an active bill of materials.
• Making this: for a tracked product with no variants and an active bill of materials, this card shows Buildable now, how many whole units your materials allow and which material limits it, with a Make button that starts a run.

Applies to clients (per-client pricing)

Applies to clients is on the item's Pricing tab, under the calculator. Link the item to any number of clients, each with an optional client price that replaces the base price for them. A client's page counts the items priced for them, and its Items tile opens the items list filtered to that client.

Price lists

A client price covers one client and one item. To sell at a different price to a kind of buyer, such as every shop that stocks you, use a price list instead of fifty client prices.

The item's Prices card, first on its Pricing tab, shows what it sells for on each list and the margin each leaves, and you edit the prices there: change a row and it says not saved yet until you press Save prices. The default list's row is the item's own price, so it can be 0 but not empty. Clearing another list's price takes the item off that list. A list's quantity breaks show under its row, such as from 100: $0.95. A client price still beats every list.

Categories

Every item and material can sit in one category, in a two-level list you keep in Company Settings → Item categories: Candles → Jar, Candles → Tin, Materials → Wax.

Categories do three things tags can't:

• Reports group by them: revenue, stock value and materials usage by category. Tags you retype each time split into "Candles", "candles" and "Candle".
• They can give new items a default unit and tax group. The unit applies when you leave it at Each (default). The New item form always sends its own tax choice, so the category's tax group applies only to items created through the API or an import.
• A rename moves everything. Rename the category and every item in it follows.

Only two levels. A third is refused.

Each category says whether it holds things you sell, things you use up, or both. That decides which categories the Category picker offers on the new item, new material and Details forms.

Merge folds one category into another: its items move and it's deleted. Deleting a category that still holds items is refused and points you to merge.

Filtering the items list by a category includes its subcategories. Uncategorized is a filter of its own.

Tags are still there, for labels that cut across categories ("seasonal", "discontinued"). An item can have several. The workspace's tag list, with colors, counts, rename and merge, is in Company Settings → Tags.

Company Settings, where categories, tags and pricing rules live, is open to owners and admins.

Types and units

An item is a product (something you make or resell), a service (work you charge for), a kit (several items sold as one) or a material (something you buy and use up; see Materials). Materials have their own page and never appear under Items; they aren't offered on quotes, orders or invoices, and they go on purchases and in bills of materials.

Type on the item's Details can change any of these, material included; the form says when the change moves the item between Items and Materials. Turning an item with stock on the shelf into a kit writes that stock off as an adjustment in its stock history, since a kit holds none of its own.

Every item has a unit, such as each, hour, kg or meter, from your unit list. It prints beside the quantity on documents, and bills of materials convert through it: buy wax by the kilo, use it by the gram.

Once stock has moved, the unit is fixed: the stock history counts in it, and changing it would turn 500 g into 500 kg. Make a new item for a different unit.

Where the cost comes from

Cost follows, on the Cost tab, says what keeps the base cost up to date:

• What I type: a figure you own. Nothing overwrites it. The average from purchases shows beside it.
• The bill of materials: the cost follows the item's bill of materials. It updates when the bill of materials is saved or a material's cost or a variable changes, not when you pick this option. Use bill of materials cost as unit cost takes the bill of materials's figure right away. While a material in the bill of materials has no cost, or the bill of materials takes labor and the labor rate is 0, the item's cost stays unknown rather than taking a figure that's too low, and orders count it as uncosted.
• What I pay (average cost): the cost follows the average of what you've paid for it.

Whichever you pick, a document line keeps the cost from when it was written, so past margins don't change.

Pricing guidance

The Pricing calculator, under Prices on the Pricing tab, shows what the item costs, what your rules say to charge, and what a price leaves you once the goods and the postage are paid for. Under every price it works out there is Add to price list: pick a list and the price is saved onto it for this item (on the default list, as the item's own price), and the calculator says so in place, such as "Saved to Wholesale: $12.50". The item's history records the list and where the number came from.

What your rules say

Suggested retail and Suggested wholesale come from Company Settings → Pricing rules: multiply the cost, optionally add a flat amount, and round. Workspaces start at 2× cost rounded up to the nearest .99 for retail, and 1.5× rounded up to the nearest .50 for wholesale. Rounding is always up: to the nearest .05, .25, .50, .99 or whole, or not at all.

What a price leaves you

Under the suggestions, for a price, the panel shows what the buyer pays, what you keep, the margin (marked on target, below target or at a loss), and the price that would reach your target. Try a price lets you type a price or drag the slider and see the same figures for it, and put that price on a list too.

Your target is a margin, set in Company Settings → Pricing rules, not a markup. Doubling a cost is a 100% markup and a 50% margin, and once postage comes out it's neither.

Postage changes the answer. What the buyer pays for postage is revenue and what the label costs is a cost. Type them in Postage you charge and Label cost and press Recalculate.

The items list has a Below target margin filter and a Margin column: each item's margin at its own price against its own cost, such as 40%, in amber when it's below the item's target (its own, else your workspace's). Hover it to see the target. An item with no cost or no price shows a dash. Both show only to members allowed to see costs and margins.

Your own formulas

The last part of the Pricing calculator is Your own formulas: formulas over named variables (such as material_oz and labor_min), each working out a price, with Add to price list under the result. Add a formula, give it a name, type it, and save with the bar at the bottom of the page. The variables themselves are on the Cost tab, because the bill of materials reads them too; removing one a formula still uses is refused.

A formula can use the item's own variables, your workspace variables (the item's wins when both have a name), and figures OrderDen supplies: recipe_materials, recipe_labour, recipe_machine, recipe_overhead, recipe_unit_cost, average_cost, sell_price. A supplied figure can't be overridden. So (recipe_unit_cost + packaging_per_unit) * 1.2 works. A name nothing defines is refused, and the message says which.

A formula that uses a name nothing defines shows Invalid formula under the box, and saving refuses it.

Items on documents

The line picker on a quote, order or invoice lists your catalog by item number, and ends with ＋ Quick add item… to create a catalog item without leaving the form. A document line copies the description, price and quantity when it's added, so later catalog changes never rewrite old documents.

Each item records when it was last used, and the items list can sort by it.

Importing a catalog

Import on the items list loads your catalog from a CSV, such as your own price list or a webstore's products export, whose columns are recognized automatically. You map the columns, check the rows before anything is written, choose what happens to items you already have, and can undo the whole import. See Importing your spreadsheet.