Category records are used to group item records or other category records. For instance, within a Level 1 Category named “Cards,” you may have (Level 2) sub-categories such as “Birthday,” “Get Well,” etc.
Using category records allows you to group items for summary totals, to control sales tax levels and discounts, and to apply bulk cost or price changes for all the items in a category. When you change the price formula or chart in a category that has items that are using this category for pricing, all the applicable item’s prices will be updated. Many category settings can be set to inherit from the next level.
Each Category record must have a unique Category Code, and a Category Description. You also specify the next higher (parent) Category under which this Category falls, if any, by putting it in the “Which Category is this Category a subcategory of?” field. The remaining fields are all optional.
To create the Category record, you can select the Categories button at the top of the screen or the Inventory button from the main screen, then select the Category Records button. Go to the new record screen by pressing “Add A New Record” button or function the F3 key.
Enter the category information. Select the “Save” button to save the record. If you have left a required field blank, you will be prompted and returned to the field in question.
Category Code – Enter a unique code that will identify this category. Category Codes may contain letters, numbers, spaces, and most punctuation. The Category Code may be automatically generated by the system if you have told it to do so. In this case, a numerical Category code will be suggested for you. You can change this field as you wish or use the suggested number. See Section Numbering Schemes for more information about automatic numbering. When you attempt to save a record with an existing code, a message box will open indicating that the number is already assigned and cannot be used.
Category Description – Enter a text Description of the Category. Examples include “Cards,” “Jewelry,” “Candles,” and “Hats.” This field is required.
Which Category is this Category a subcategory of? – Select the code from the pulldown menu for the Category to be designated as the next higher-level, or “parent,” Category. Putting a value in this field will cause this category’s level number to increase to indicate its position in your category hierarchy (indicated to the right of the Category Code field box).
Inventory Classification – Select the inventory classification for the products in this category from the pulldown menu. Most categories will be Products (Finished Goods), but you may offer Services like Repairs or Non-Sales like Shipping
Sales Tax Type – If you have different tax rates for different items or if certain categories are non-taxable then you can set the Sales Tax Type here. You can find the configuration settings for Tax Types in Configuration Settings.
Special Handling – For most of your Categories, you’ll leave this set to “No Special Handling”, but you do have some other choices for special handling of items in this Category. If you do select a special-handling option, it will apply only to Items directly in this Category, not to subcategories. The following special-handling options are available:
- Customization or Other Finishing – If you select this Special-Handling option, Items in this Category will be treated as customization or finishing services for Custom Orders or Special Orders. This means that the order is not considered complete (ready to pick up) until you manually mark it finished; Special Orders w/o customization items are automatically marked finished once all the merchandise has been received. Putting a customization item on a sale automatically makes it a Custom Order (unless it’s a Special Order, which is really the same thing except that all merchandise is ordered new instead of being taken from stock). Customization items should usually have inventory tracking turned off.
- Set Customer Type When Sold – Permanent – This can be used to offer discounts to customers who sign up for a Loyalty Club or other type of membership. Customer Types can also be used to group customers by the types of items they purchase.
- Set Customer Type for Current Sale – This option can be used for a special discount coupon or promotion when they purchase a specific product. See Customer Types for more information.
- Escalate Customer Type for Current Sale – This is a temporary adjustment for this sale only.
- Back Compute Qty from Amount (e.g., for Gasoline) – Items in this Category will have their quantities computed from the total money amount (for a particular item), rather than the other way around, when sold in the Cash Register. The clerk will be prompted to enter the total amount immediately upon entering the item code. This is typically used for gasoline, where the pump tells you the total money amount.
- Add a Surcharge Amount – This would be used to add a specific charge that is required in your area if you sell a certain item. This can be set a specific dollar amount or percentage of the sale.
Add Customer Keyword(s) When Sold – If you enter one or more keywords here (separated by commas), then these keywords will automatically be added to a Customer’s Record (if not already present) whenever items in this category (but not sub-categories) are sold.
Default Product Variant Template – If items in this category are generally associated to a variant template, then you can add the template name from the pull-down list. For example, if you sell clothing and this category is T-Shirts you will have a variant template for the different sizes that you use for these items. If you set any item in this category to be a variant, then this will be used as the default template.