Categories, brands and units

Before you add products or menu items, set up the three lists they are built from: categories (how items are grouped on the till and in reports), brands (who makes them) and units of measure (how you count, buy and sell them). All three live under Inventory Management › Product Settings.

Every one of these pages works the same way: a list with Import and Export buttons, an Add button, and a pop-up form. To change or delete an entry, click its row.

Categories

Open Product Settings › Categories and choose Add category.

Categories have two levels: main categories and their sub categories. For example, a café might have:

• Drinks (main) with sub categories Hot drinks and Cold drinks
• Food (main) with sub categories Sandwiches and Pastries

A main category that already has sub categories stays a main category: you can't move it under another one.

How categories are used:

• Products need a main category. The sub category is optional.
• Menu items (restaurants) need both a main category and a sub category. Add at least one sub category before you create menu items.
• Modifier groups can be linked to a category, so every menu item in it offers the group. See Modifier groups.
• The POS shows items by category, and reports such as Sales by category group sales by it. See Reports.

Import categories takes the columns name, name_ar and parent_category. To put a sub category under its main category, give the main category's name in parent_category.

Brands

Open Product Settings › Brands and choose Add brand. A brand has a Title, a Title (Arabic) and an optional Image.

Every standard or service product must have a brand, so create at least one before adding products. If you sell unbranded goods, a brand such as "House" or "Generic" works well. Menu items don't use brands.

Import brands takes the columns title and title_ar.

Units of measure

Units decide how you stock, buy and sell a product. Open Product Settings › Units of Measure and choose Add unit.

While you type, the form shows the conversion, for example 1 Box = 12 Piece. The list shows the same rule in its Conversion column.

Example: units for a supermarket

With these units you can stock cola in Piece, buy it from your supplier by the Box, and sell it by the piece or by the box. On the product form a unit and every unit that converts to it form a "family", and you choose from that family for the sale, purchase and ingredient units. See Products.

Restaurants use the same families in recipes: a recipe can say 18 g of coffee beans even if the beans are stocked in kilograms. See Menu items and recipes.

Note: Once other units convert to a unit, that unit is locked. The form shows "Other units convert to this unit, so it cannot be changed or deleted." Set up your base units carefully before you add the units that depend on them.

Import units takes the columns code, name, base_unit, operator and operation_value.

Who can change these lists

Each list has its own create, update and delete permissions in Role & permission. Without them, the Add button is hidden and the form opens read-only. See Users and permissions.

Next steps

• Products
• Menu items and recipes (restaurants)
• Import and export products