WindoorERP Documentation 19.0

Guided journey

4- Setup Your Product Catalogue and Designs

Everything a quotation and a work order are built from: categories, attributes, units, the products themselves, and the first window designed on top of them.

11 steps about 16 min Intermediate Technical or product manager building the catalogue
Start the journey

A catalogue is not a list of products. It is the set of decisions every quotation, every work order and every stock figure will inherit: what a product is measured in, how it is costed, and which of its differences are worth tracking as attributes rather than as separate products.

Make those decisions before you load anything, because they are the expensive ones to change afterwards. The path ends by designing a real window on the catalogue you have just built — the fastest way to find out whether an attribute is missing.

By the end you will be able to

  • Turn on the catalogue features — variants, units of measure, packaging and barcodes — before you need them
  • Set product categories so costing, valuation and removal strategy are decided once, not per product
  • Define the attributes your business really varies by: profile series, colour, glass thickness, finish
  • Work in the units your suppliers and your factory actually use, including packaging
  • Load the product and materials catalogue, with technical cut-sheets attached where they belong
  • Give the factory a barcode scheme it can scan without ambiguity
  • Design a window end to end: profile series, frame and sashes, decoration bars, and the hardware chosen for you

Before you start

  • Administrator rights, and the Inventory and Sales apps installed
  • Your warehouse already set up — this is the journey after "2- Setup Your Warehouse"
  • Supplier cut-sheets and profile catalogues to hand, in PDF if you have them
  • Agreement on what you actually vary: adding an attribute later means revisiting every product that should have had it

The path

01

Turn the features on

  1. 01 Switch on what the catalogue needs Variants, units of measure, packaging and barcodes are all switches before they are screens — none of the next four steps has a menu until they are on. 1 min Configure essential inventory and warehouse settings
02

Shape the catalogue

  1. 02 Decide costing once, per category A product category carries the costing method, the valuation accounts and the removal strategy. Set them here and every product in the category inherits them — set them per product and you will be reconciling for years. 2 min Configure product categories for valuation, costing, and removal strategies
  2. 03 Define what your products vary by Profile series, colour, glass thickness, surface finish — these are attributes, not separate products. Getting the list right now is the difference between forty catalogue entries and four thousand. 1 min Set up product attributes for profiles, colours, and glass
  3. 04 Work in the units everyone actually uses Profile arrives in six-metre lengths, glass in square metres, sealant in cartons. Configure the units and the packaging now so nobody converts in their head at the receiving door. 1 min Configure units of measure and material packaging
03

Load the products

  1. 05 Load the products and materials Now the catalogue itself: profiles, glass, hardware, consumables. With the categories, attributes and units already decided, each entry is a short form rather than a series of small decisions. 2 min Browse and manage the product and materials catalogue
  2. 06 Attach the cut-sheets and specifications The technical PDF a consultant asks for should live on the product, not in somebody's inbox. Attach the cut-sheets and fill the specifications while the catalogue is fresh in your hands. 1 min Manage product catalog, attach technical PDF cut-sheets, and configure specifications
04

Make it scannable on the floor

  1. 07 Give the factory a barcode scheme A scanner is only as good as the numbering behind it. A nomenclature tells WindoorERP how to read a scanned code — which part is the product, which the quantity, which the lot. 1 min Configure barcode nomenclatures for factory scanning
05

Design your first window

  1. 08 Choose the profile series Design starts with the series, because the series decides the cut lengths, the hardware that will fit and the prices that follow. Everything after this step is constrained by it. 2 min Choose a profile series
  2. 09 Set the frame and the sashes Dimensions and sash layout are the design. Type a width and a height, split the opening, and watch the drawing and the cut list follow. 2 min Set frame dimensions and sashes
  3. 10 Add the decoration bars Grilles and lattice are drawn on the glass panel itself, not bolted on afterwards. This is where a design starts looking like the thing the customer asked for. 1 min Add decoration bars to glass
  4. 11 See the hardware chosen for you The last thing to understand rather than configure: given the series, the sash type, the size and the weight, WindoorERP picks the handles, hinges and locks itself. Knowing the rule is how you trust the result. 2 min Understand automatic hardware selection

Running a window or door factory?

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