Creating a Product
A product is anything you sell. Adding one to your product catalog gives it a SKU, a price, and a place in stock tracking. This article covers creating one and the two money fields people most often mix up.
You'll find New Product on the Products page.
Reading the products list
On a wide enough screen, the list appears as a table with each field in its own column. On a narrow screen (or the fulfillment tablets), it stacks into cards instead — same information, just laid out for the space available. Either way, each product shows more than just the name:
Thumbnail — the product's image, or a placeholder if none is set.
Brand, category, and unit cost, shown alongside the SKU and unit of measure.
Stock badge — total quantity on hand, summed across every warehouse:
- 🟢 green with a quantity = in stock
- 🟡 yellow with a quantity and the reorder point = at or below that point (e.g. "3 left — low (reorder at 10)")
- 🔴 red "Out of stock" with the reorder point = zero on hand
If a product has no reorder point set, Iraca uses 5 as the default threshold for the yellow badge — the same rule the Low Stock dashboard widget uses, so a product reads the same way in both places.
Type badges — always shows the product's type (Finished Good / Raw Ingredient / Both), plus a recipe badge ("Recipe (N ingredients)") or bundle badge ("Bundle (kit)" / "Bundle (prepackaged)") when the product has one. Useful for confirming a CSV import set things up the way you expected.
Above the list, two filter groups narrow it down: one for product type (All / Finished Goods / Raw Materials), and one for bundles (All / Bundles Only / Not Bundles) — pick Bundles Only to see just your kits and prepackaged bundles, or Not Bundles to hide them and see everything else.
The essentials
- SKU — a unique code for the product within your workspace. Iraca suggests the next one in your existing sequence (e.g.
DNG-003if your catalog already hasDNG-001andDNG-002); change it if you have your own scheme. UPC/EAN barcodes stored as SKUs are ignored when generating the suggestion — enter those in the UPC / Barcode field instead. - Name — what the product is called.
- Unit of measure — how you count it (
unit,lb,kg,l,bag). Its stock, unit cost and reorder point are all in this unit. See Units of measure. - Preferred Supplier — the contact you usually buy this from. Optional, and changeable any time by editing the product. It's what groups the reorder suggestions on the Purchasing page, so filling it in is what turns a list of things you're short on into a set of ready-to-send purchase orders.
SKU and name are required; everything else can be filled in now or later by editing the product.
Unit Cost vs. Unit Price
The product has two separate money fields, and the difference matters:
- Unit Cost — the cost you type for one unit: what it costs you to buy or make. Iraca uses it to value your stock and to work out margin. For a product you buy in, type what you pay for it. For a product with a recipe, leave it blank: Iraca works the cost out from the recipe's ingredients, labour and overhead, with no production run needed. Typing a cost here replaces the recipe's figure, which is what you want only for a fixed standard cost. A completed production run replaces both, and its cost per unit is used from then on. See How Iraca decides what a unit costs.
- Unit Price — what you charge the customer. This is your selling price.
You don't have to remember that rule: the screen states it. Under the Unit Cost field, a helper line tells you what Iraca will actually use for this product — costed from the recipe, replacing the recipe's figure, or taken from the latest completed production run — and points you to any ingredient that still has no cost. The product page and the products list show the cost Iraca uses, with a small tag saying where it came from (from recipe, typed, from run 12 Oct, no cost); on the product page you can expand the recipe's breakdown (ingredients, labour, overhead, per unit) to see why the number is what it is. Sorting the list by Cost sorts by that figure.
They're independent — neither is calculated from the other — so a product can have a cost without a price, or a price without a cost, while you're still filling things in.
Both fields are optional. You can add or change them any time by editing the product.
Other details
- Brand — the brand name that appears on labels (e.g. "Acme Foods"). Separate from the product name, so a single brand can cover many products.
- Category / subcategory — for grouping and filtering your catalog. Category is picked from a list rather than typed, so it can't drift into near-duplicates like "Snacks" and "Snaks". See Managing categories below.
- Product type — finished good, raw ingredient, or both.
- Image, weight, and dimensions — used on labels and to quote shipping rates.
- Lot tracking — turn on if you need to trace this product by batch.
- Reorder point — the amount at which Iraca treats this product as low on stock, in its unit of measure. Set it when you create the product, or change it later by editing the product. On create it goes to your default warehouse; on edit it applies to every warehouse that holds the product (to set a different amount per warehouse, use Bulk Edit). Leave it blank or 0 for no threshold.
- Shelf life and storage instructions — for products you make fresh. The shelf life sets the lot's use-by date when a production run finishes, and both print on container labels. See Container Labels for a Production Plan.
Packaging and raw materials are managed separately under Purchasing → Supplies, not as products.
Managing categories
Click Categories on the Products page to add, rename, or delete categories. A category exists once and every product picks from that same list — nobody types "Bakery" on one product and "bakery" on another.
Need a category that doesn't exist yet while you're filling in a product? Open the Category dropdown and choose Create new category… at the bottom — it's added to the list and selected immediately, no need to leave the form.
Deleting a category doesn't delete the products in it; they just become uncategorised.
Bin locations
On a product's detail page, the Stock Levels card shows one row per warehouse. Each row has a bin location field below the quantity stats — click it (or the pencil icon that appears on hover) to type in a shelf or bin code (e.g. A3-S2). Press Enter or click away to save. This is stored per product per warehouse so you can have different bin locations across warehouses.
Duplicating a product
To create a new product based on an existing one, click the Duplicate icon (two overlapping squares) in the product row on the Products page. Iraca copies all fields — name, unit, cost, type, dimensions, lot tracking — and appends " (Copy)" to the name. The SKU is left blank so you can assign a unique one. Stock levels are not copied.