Master Products vs. Vendor Catalogs

The Master Product List lists every product that your business offers for sale. These Product items are listed exactly as they will appear on work orders and invoices, so names and descriptions should be customer-friendly.  The part numbers entered on the Master Product page should be the ones you use internally for referencing a part, regardless of the vendor or supplier from which it came.

Example Master Product Entry:

• Part Number: TR304-02

• Description: Widget

• Cost: $32.00

For more on creating a Master Product, see the Product List Overview section of the Help System.

A Vendor Catalog, on the other hand, is a list of parts offered by a particular vendor (Inventory) A vendor is a company that supplies you with the inventory you sell to or use to service your customers.. Each entry in the catalog is an item that the vendor will sell to you. Each catalog item contains fields similar to the fields in a Master Product record; however, the catalog item's fields reference the vendor's name, description, price and part number for each item, as opposed to your internal values in ServiceCEO.

Example Vendor Catalog Entries:

Each catalog item is linked to a ServiceCEO Master Product, which allows ServiceCEO to support multiple vendors for every part you offer. In other words, when you order inventory for a particular master product, you will see a list of all vendors that offer that product.

In addition, when you add a master product to a job - let's say you have a job requiring 6 Widgets, all customer-facing printed material will show the internal part number and description “TR304-02 – Widget”. Internally, you can use an inventory item from any vendor on the job (the R205 or AX-0307, for example). See the Assigning Inventory Items to a Job section for details.

See also: Vendor Catalog Items

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