Create and Edit Products

A product is the catalog record behind everything else you do in Qoblex. Every purchase order line, sale order line, stock adjustment, transfer and manufacturing order points at a variant of a product that already exists in your catalog, so the product record is the first thing you create and the thing you come back to whenever a price, a code or a supplier changes.

This article covers creating a product, filling in the product level details, assigning suppliers, adding options and variants, working with the variants table, duplicating a product or its variants, converting a variant to a bundle or a bill of material, and linking the product to a connected sale channel with Edit Product Mappings.

Before you start

• Your user needs Inventory access. Without it the product page will not open.
• Suppliers must already exist as contacts before you can assign them to a product.
• Tax classes must be set up in your account settings before you can choose a Default Tax.
• Decide whether the item is a single product, a product with several versions such as sizes or colors, a bundle assembled from other items, or a manufactured item built from a bill of material.

Supplier SKU, and why it matters here

The variant’s Supplier SKU is the part number your supplier uses for the item. It is mainly there for purchasing: it shows on purchase order lines and is one of the values the product search matches on, so it is worth filling in while you are creating the product rather than hunting for it later.

A purchase order can only be built from a variant that already exists in Qoblex, so a product you are about to buy for the first time has to be created here first. See Create a purchase order.

Create a product

1. Open Inventory, then Products.
2. Choose Create Product. Qoblex opens an empty product page with one variant already attached and your company’s default product tax pre-selected.
3. Enter the Product name. This is the only field Qoblex insists on.
4. Fill in the product level details you need: Description, Notes, Brand, Default Tax, Tags and Product Type.
5. Fill in the variant fields shown on the page: SKU, Barcode, Weight, Min inventory, Supplier SKU, Quantity to order, Inventory tracking policy, Continue selling when out of stock and Dropship.
6. Enter your prices under Pricing, including Initial Cost if you already hold stock of this item.
7. Add images with Upload image if you want them.
8. Choose Save.

Use Save & Add new instead when you are entering several products in a row. Qoblex saves the product you are on, then opens a fresh product page so you can keep going without returning to the list.

Fill in the product level details

The top of the page holds the fields that describe the product as a whole rather than one version of it.

• Product name is the name customers and suppliers see on documents. While the product is new, Qoblex also builds the store handle from it.
• Description and Notes sit on two tabs under the name. The description is the customer facing text that syncs to your sale channels. Notes are internal, for work instructions and reminders.
• Brand, Tags and Product Type group the product for filtering, saved views and bulk actions. A tag you type here joins the list of tags Qoblex offers you next time, and the Product Type field suggests the types already in use in your catalog.
• Default Tax sets the sales tax class applied to this product on sale orders.
• Supplier is filled from the Edit Suppliers dialog rather than typed. See the next section.
• URL and Handle appears under Grouping and organization only when a Shopify integration is installed. Enter the last part of the store URL, not the whole address.
• Images accepts several files at once through Upload image. Each image can be viewed, given alt text, or deleted, and you can drag images into the order you want them shown.

On a product that has only one variant, Qoblex also shows that variant’s Inventory, Pricing and, when your account has variant custom fields configured, Custom Fields sections directly on the product page, so a simple product is one screen from end to end.

The Inventory section shows Total Stock, Allocated stock, Available stock and Incoming stock for that variant. Allocated, available and incoming are calculated by Qoblex and cannot be typed over. Total Stock always opens the variant’s Locations tab, because stock is held per location. Min inventory opens it only when your account has more than one warehouse; on a single-warehouse account it is an ordinary field you edit in place.

Assign suppliers to the product

The Supplier field on the product page opens the Edit Suppliers dialog, either by clicking the field or the pencil button next to it.

1. Tick every supplier you buy this product from. The list shows each supplier’s name and email.
2. Choose one of them under Default Supplier.
3. Choose Save.

Qoblex stores the whole ticked list against the product and writes the chosen default supplier onto the product record. The default supplier is the one Qoblex uses when it drafts a purchase order for you from a report, which is why the Save button stays greyed out until a default is chosen. Every supplier on the list counts when you filter Select Products by supplier while building a purchase order, not only the default one.

Add options and variants

Options are the axes a product varies along, such as Size or Color, and each combination of option values is one variant with its own SKU, prices and stock.

On a product that has no variants yet, the Variants section carries an Add variations button. It opens the Create variations dialog:

1. Enter an option name, for example Size.
2. Enter its values separated by commas, for example Small, Medium, Large.
3. Choose Add new option if the product varies along a second axis, and enter that option and its values too.
4. Choose Apply changes. Qoblex creates one variant for every combination of the values you entered and turns the product into a variant product.

On a product that already has variants, the toolbar above the variants table carries the rest of the option and variant actions:

• Edit options opens the Edit Options dialog, where you remove a value from an option, delete an option, or add another one. An option can only be deleted while every variant shares the same value for it, and the last remaining option cannot be deleted at all.
• Add Variant adds a single variant and opens its editor so you can set its option values, codes and prices.
• Sort variants changes the order the options and variants appear in, on the page and on your store.

Two limits are worth knowing. Add Variant needs the product to have at least one option already, and answers “Please add at least one option before adding a variant” when it has none. And when a Shopify integration is installed, Qoblex hides the Add new option button once the product has three options, because Shopify does not accept more than three.

Work with the variants table

A product with variants shows them in a table instead of the single variant sections, one row per variant, with the bundle and bill of material rows flagged by an icon.

• Select the variant name to open its editor, or its image to open the editor’s Images tab.
• Edit SKU, Barcode, Supplier SKU, Weight, Quantity to order, the prices and Moving Average Cost straight in the table, then choose Save.
• Select the In stock, Buffer or Incoming figure to open the variant’s Locations tab, where the quantities are held per warehouse.
• Use the gear menu at the end of a row for Edit, View History and Delete.

Deleting a variant is checked first. If the variant is on an open sale order or purchase order, or is used as part of a bundle, Qoblex blocks the deletion and lists where it is used. Deleting the last remaining variant does not empty the product; Qoblex clears the options and turns it back into a simple product.

Duplicate a product or its variants

Duplicate, in the dropdown next to Save, creates a second product named “Copy of” plus the original name and opens it. The copy carries over the description, tags, product type, brand, tax class, options, default supplier, and each variant’s prices, cost, weight and option values, along with the component lines of any variant that is a bundle. Stock starts at zero on the copied variants, and codes such as SKU and barcode are not copied, since they have to be unique to the new product.

To copy variants inside one product, tick the variants you want in the table, open Actions, and choose the Duplicate in a different entry for the option you want to vary. Enter the new option value and save. Qoblex creates one new variant per selected row, carrying the prices, cost, weight and minimum inventory across, and skips any combination that already exists. Nothing happens if no rows are ticked.

Convert a variant to a bundle or a bill of material

A bundle is sold as one line and picked from parts you already stock. A bill of material is built in the manufacturing module from its components. Both are a property of one variant rather than the whole product.

On a product with a single variant, use the Convert to Bundle button in the Bundles (Kits) section or Convert to Bom in the Bill of material (Kits) section. On a product with several variants, tick exactly one row and choose Convert to bundle or Convert to Bill of Material from the Actions menu. The toolbar buttons Add Bundle and Add Bill of Material add a new variant and take it straight into the same editor.

Qoblex stops the conversion when:

• no variant is ticked, or more than one is;
• the variant is already a bundle or a bill of material;
• the variant is batch tracked or serialized and you are converting it to a bundle;
• the product has not been saved yet, or a variant product has no options;
• the variant still holds stock in any location, and you are converting it to a bundle.

The stock rule is enforced when you save rather than when you choose the action, so the conversion appears to be accepted and the save then fails with Cannot change this variant to a bundle. Make sure to reset stock level to zero in all locations then convert it to bundle. Bring the variant to zero in every location first, then convert.

Adding the component lines themselves is covered in the bundles and bill of material articles.

Link the product to a sale channel

Edit Product Mappings is the answer to “I already created this product in Shopify”. It tells Qoblex that your product and its variants are the same items as a product that already exists on a connected store, so stock and orders flow to the right records instead of creating duplicates.

Open it from the Links button on a saved product, then Edit Links. The dialog shows one column for Qoblex and one for each connected sale channel, with the product on the first row and one row per variant underneath.

1. On the product row, choose Link… in the channel’s column. Qoblex opens a search box against that store.
2. Type the product name as the store knows it and pick it from the results. The store’s product name and image appear in that column.
3. On each variant row, use the dropdown to pick the matching variant from the store.
4. Choose Save & Close.

Two states are worth reading carefully. Not Linked in a greyed out, disabled variant dropdown means the product itself is not linked to that channel yet, so there is nothing to match the variants against; link the product first. Not Listed is the first choice in every variant dropdown and means this Qoblex variant has no counterpart on that store. Qoblex highlights a variant left at Not Listed so you can see at a glance which ones the store does not carry.

To break a link, choose Un-link in that channel’s column on the product row. The product row goes back to Product not linked and every variant link for that channel is removed with it.

Only connected sale channels appear as columns. Once a product is linked, the Links dropdown also offers a direct link to open that product on the store.

Save, archive or delete the product

• Save keeps you on the product. Save & Add new saves and starts another product.
• If you leave the page with unsaved edits, Qoblex warns you that pending changes will be lost and lets you stay.
• Archive and Restore from archive are in the same dropdown as Duplicate. Both take effect when you save the product afterwards. Archiving keeps the history and takes the product out of everyday lists, which is the safer choice when an item is discontinued.
• Delete checks first whether the product is in use. If it is on an open order or is part of a bundle, Qoblex refuses and names the orders. If it is free, Qoblex deletes the product and returns you to the Products list.

Troubleshooting