Product Catalog File

The top level in the StreamV product structure is the Product Catalog file.  The Product Catalog file defines all of the items or products that are available in StreamV.  This includes items in inventory, items available from normal suppliers, items available from special order sources, and items being brokered.  The items in the Product Catalog file may or may not exist in the other files in the system.  The Catalog file can contain items that exist in one or more of your inventory locations, and it can also contain items that do not exist in any of your inventory locations.

Product Catalog records can be loaded automatically from information such as vendor catalog information, or they can be created manually. 

Items must be created in the Product Catalog file before the item can be created in any of the Inventory (warehouse) locations on your system. 

The product catalog is the Master Catalog of the items that you use on the system.  A Product Catalog record must be created for all products that will be processed on the system.  If a product is to be purchased or sold, the product must also be set up as an Inventory Item.  Items that are in the Catalog file and that do not exist in the Inventory Master file cannot be used for processing.  For this reason, some programs (such as the Sales Order Entry program) can be configured to automatically create inventory items as needed from Catalog information during processing.  You may also use the Create Item In Inventory Option in the Catalog Manager program to quickly create Inventory records for items that you actually wish to purchase or sell.

Each Catalog record is unique based on the catalog item number field.  The Catalog file is where items are created and maintained, and the information entered into the Catalog file is used to normalize (update) the inventory or warehouse records for a given Catalog record when inventory items are created from a catalog record, or a catalog record is edited and inventory items exist for the catalog record.  The information in each Catalog record is generally not specific to a given warehouse location and it includes fields such as the item number, the item descriptions, the item product line and the product group used to classify the item.  Each Catalog record also stores the retail and other price levels and the commission cost and purchase price for the item.  Other critical information that is stored in the Catalog record includes the Stock flag, the Order Fulfillment flags, and the Serialized Inventory flags for the item. 

The product catalog is used both by in-house staff, and by customers (via eCommerce), when looking for product information.   From the product catalog additional information about the product is available using drill down displays.  Customers can check product availability, descriptive product information and images.   In-house users can check item availability,  sales, purchasing, and additional product information

The product catalog also supports “customer catalogs”.  A customer catalog is a subset of the main catalog and it is used to provide specific customers with a restricted subset of the company's product selection.  This restricted information allows the customer to control the items that can be purchased online by members of their staff.  Customer catalogs are either electronically transferred to the customer or made available using Cove Systems' Integrated eCommerce. 

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Inventory Master File