Product & Inventory Feature Management page:

The Product and Inventory Features Management page is used to configure universal options and settings for the Product and Inventory feature.

 

Feature Options section:

 

 

• Initial Inventory Entry – used to allow direct setup of initial inventory quantities.  This should be set to “Off” once the initial inventory setup has been completed.  Default setting is “Off”.  Changing the values causes a warning prompt to be displayed.
• On – allows inventory quantities to be entered directly into Item/Product Management and does not create GL Journal Transaction entries.
• Off – requires inventory quantities to be entered and adjusted via either: Inventory Entry, Fulfillment, or Inventory Adjustment pages, which create GL Journal Transaction entries.
• Default Costing Method – used to set a default value when a new Item record is created.  You can leave it set to blank or chose one of the following:
• Average Cost – used to value inventory of the Item at the average cost of the Item.
• Specified Cost – used to value inventory of the Item at the cost entered in the Cost field for the Item record in Item Management.
• Display Out of Stock Items – default setting is “Yes”.
• Yes – causes inventoried Items with Quantity on Hand of zero to not be displayed in Product Catalog.
• No – causes inventoried Items with Quantity on Hand of zero to be displayed in Product Catalog.  When a customer orders an Item that is not in stock, PORTALPRODIGY will prompt customer with notification that item is not in stock and provides option to accept backorder or to remove from their shopping cart.
• Prompt Customer for Partial Shipment – used to turn option on/off.  Default setting is “No”.
• Yes – causes prompt to be displayed during Shopping Checkout process that asks Customer if they will accept partial shipment.  If the customer selects “No”, PORTALPRODIGY will require complete fulfillment of all of the Order’s Items before the order can be shipped.
• No – turns prompt off and allows Orders to be partially shipped, creating a backorder for the unshipped Items.

Note that for each Item, you can Limit Orders to Qty on Hand using setting in Items Management.

• Display List Price on Product Detail Page? – if you want customers to see the List Price in addition to your Sales Price, set this to “Yes”; otherwise leave it set to “No”.
• Enable Advanced Product Catalog – set this to “No” only if you have a really simple product line and you do not care to control how your product catalog is displayed; otherwise set to “Yes”.  Setting to “Yes” enables the Product Catalog option on the Site Administration Menu. The Product Catalog gives you the ability to define your product categories and how your products are displayed.
• Enable Place a Bid Pricing Method – set to “Yes” to turn on the Bid Pricing feature.  When Bid Pricing is enabled “Place a Bid” is included as one of the Pricing Method selections in Item Management.  Bid Pricing allows customer to submit bids for items in your Product Catalog.  Leave set to “No” to disable Bid Pricing.
• Enable Request a Quote Pricing Method – set to “Yes” to turn on the Request for Quote (RFQ) feature.  When Request a Quote Pricing is enabled “Request Quote” is included as one of the Pricing Method selections in Item Management.  Request a Quote Pricing allows customer to submit a RFQ for items in your Product Catalog.  Leave set to “No” to disable Request a Quote Pricing.
• Display Related Item Section – use to specify where Related Items are displayed on the Product Detail page.  Related Items are used to generate add-on-sales, cross selling, and up-selling.  The following choices are available:
• Below Product Detail – displays the related items in the location shown below:

• Right Sidebar – displays the related items in the location shown below:

• Default Products Image – you may load an image here that will be displayed in the Product Catalog and Product Detail pages when no image has been loaded in Item Management for the Item.  Click  to load an image file from your computer.  Once an image has been loaded it can be deleted by clicking  Remove Image option.
• Manage – click on any of the following links to display the management page for that data type:
• Product Classifications - create list of available Classifications that can be assigned to Items using Item Management.  Example values: Clothing, Gifts, Books, & Stationary.
• Product Types - create list of available Types that can be assigned to Items using Item Management.  Example values: T-Shirts, Sweat Shits, Hats, & Sports Shirts.
• Unit Types - create list of available Unit Types that can be assigned to Items using Item Management.  Example values: Each, Box, Dozen, & Hour.
• Price Groups – create Price Groups that can be assigned to customers.  Price Groups are used to assign special pricing, including volume pricing.  Examples values: Reseller Tier 1, Reseller Tier 2,& Preferred Retail Customer.
• Brands – create list of available Brands that can be assigned to Items using Item Management.  Example values: Nike, Ralph Lauren, & DK&Y.  Also used to create Comparable Brands. 
• Related Document Types – create a list of Types that can be used to categorize related documents.  Example values: Brochures, Warranty Information, & White Pagers.
• Related Item Types – create a list of Types that can be used to categorize related products.  Example values: Accessories, Customers that bought this also bought, & You may also want to consider.

 

Item Comparison section:

 

This section is used to set up a special page for searching and displaying comparable products. E.g. the customer could use this page to enter a competitor’s product code (part#) to find your comparable product; or the customer could use it to locate an alternative product when the one they are looking for is not available; or the customer could use it to compare pricing of comparable products from different vendors.  This section also configures how the standard Product Search  is used for finding Comparable Products.  You should create your Comparable Brands after configuring this section.

 

• Comparison Products Section Title – enter the label that you want displayed on the Product Detail page when listing Comparable Products.
• Comparable Product Search Page Title – enter the page heading that you want displayed on the Comparable Product Search page. This is a page that customers can use to enter competitors product codes and manufacturers product codes to find your equivalent products.
• Search Label – enter the label you want displayed for the search criteria text box on the Comparable Product Search page.
• Comparable Product Search Page Instructions – enter instructions or any other information that you want displayed on the Comparable Product Search page.  You may enter them as text directly into the memo field or you may click  to create them using the HTML editor.
• Naming Method for ‘Product Code’ Search Category – this is used for controlling Product Search.  It allows you to control how Product Detail Categories for the Product Code of Comparable Products get listed in your Product Search.  Product Search is comprised of a Product Detail Category list box and a text box.  The Product Detail Category list box allows the customer to limit their search to a selected category such as “Brands”, “Product Code” and “Product Name”.  E.g. for Comparable Products you may want customer to search for them listed under the category “Product Code” which is the same category used by your other products; or you may want to specify a category such as “Comparable Product Code”; or you may want to create unique categories for each of your competitors brand’s such as “IBM Product Code”, “Microsoft Product Code”, “Oracle Product Code, etc.  The naming choices are:
• Use Existing Product Code Category – choose this setting to use the category “Product Code” for searching for Comparable Product Codes. 

• Create Category using Search Category Name – choose this setting to use the category entered in the Product Code Search Category Name field as shown below.

• Create Category by Appending Brand Name to Search Category Name – choose this setting to have the system automatically create a category for each new Comparable Brand that you create.  E.g. for the comparable brands “Apple”, “IBM”, Microsoft”, and “Oracle” it will create the following categories: “Apple Part #”, “IBM Part #”, “Microsoft Part #”, “Oracle Part#”, etc.

If you plan to use this setting select it prior to creating your Comparable Brands.  When you save a new Comparable Brand the system automatically creates a Product Detail Category for the Comparable Product Code based on the settings in this section.  When you change the settings, previously created Product Detail Categories will need to be manually changed.  This can be done by clicking on the Detail Categories option located in the Product Detail Options section of this page.

• Comparable options for Brand, Product Code and Price:
• Label – enter the label that you want the customer to see.
• Product Detail Page – check if you want to display on the Product Detail page.
• Standard Product Search – check if you want to include in the standard Product Search.  If checked the customer will have the option of searching on this value using the standard product search.
• Search Category Name – enter the name that you want listed in standard Product Search available to customers.
• Comparable Product Search – check if you want to include in search option displayed on the special Comparable Products page.

 

Product Detail Options section:

 

Product Detail Categories are equivalent to custom fields.  You can define as many of these custom fields (referred to in PortalProdigy as a Product Detail Categories) as you need. Product Details Categories can be individually defined as searchable by customers.  When a Product Detail Category is defined as searchable, it is listed in the Product Search list box that customers use to search your product catalog.  PortalProdigy also allows you to specify whether the pre-defined fields Product Type, Brand, and Classification should be added as Product Detail Categories so your customers can search on them. 

 

The following fields which entered in Item Management are automatically added to Product Search: Product Name, Short Description, Description 1, and Description 2.  Thus PortalProdigy will automatically index these fields (including HTML Descriptions) and the field names will be listed in the Product Search list box.

 

 

• Add to Product Detail Categories:
• Product Type – set to “Yes” to allow customers to search on the Product Type field.
• Brand – set to “Yes” to allow customers to search on the Brand field.
• Classification – set to “Yes” to allow customers to search on the Classification field.
• Manage:
• Detail Categories - create list of available Detail Categories that can be assigned to Items using Item Management.  Detail Categories are used by the Product Keyword Search feature.  Example values: Author, Subject, ISBN, & Publisher.

 

Product Downloads section:

 

Use to configure downloading of digital products such as music, video, images, documents, etc.

• Enable – set to “Yes” to turn on the Product Catalog feature.
• Broadcast Template – used to select a Broadcast Template that will format the automated email sent to the customer. The automated email is used to send the customer a download code and link to the download page of your website.  It gets sent upon payment approval.  Broadcast Templates are created using Broadcaster.  The Broadcast Template list box only lists Templates that have Object Type set to “Downloads”.  Object Type is a selection in the Broadcaster as shown below.  The “Downloads” Object Type includes object tags to insert various fields including the <%DOWNLOADS:DownloadID%> tag used to insert the customers download key and the <%DOWNLOADS:DownloadLink%> tag used to insert a link to the website to download their product.

• Days Active – enter the number of days, as an integer, that the customer’s download key shall remain active.  E.g. set to “30” to allow them to use their download key for 30 days from the date of their order before it expires.
• Download Limit – enter a number of times, as an integer, that the customer may use their download key.  E.g. set to “3” to allow them to download their product 3 times. 
• Download Instructions – enter instructions to be displayed on the download page.

GL Accounts section:

Used to specify the default GL accounts when adding new products in Item Management.  For each Item you may specify the GL Accounts to be posted when the Item is sold, received or adjusted.  The Enable GL Entries option must be turned on in GL Features Management in order for PORTALPRODIGY to record GL Transaction Entries.

• Cost of Goods Sold – used to select a default account value for Items.  This is the GL expense account that is debited when an Item is sold.
• Inventory – used to select a default account value for Items.  This is the GL asset account that is debited when an Item is received in inventory and credited when an Item is shipped or adjusted for loss.
• Inventory Adjustments – used to select a default account value for Items.  This is the GL expense account that is debited when an Item is adjusted for loss.
• Purchases – used to select a default account value for Items.  This is the GL liability account that is credited when an Item is purchased.
• Revenue – used to select a default account value for Items.  This is the GL revenue account that is credited when an Item is fulfilled.
• Unfulfilled Revenue – used to select a default account value for Items.  This is the GL revenue account that is credited when an Item is ordered but not fulfilled. When an Item is fulfilled and invoiced this account is debited and the specified Revenue is credited.
• Sales Returns & Allowances – used to select a default account value for Items.  This is the GL revenue account that is debited when an Item is returned or an allowance is made to the customer.