Products & Retail

Manage your retail and professional product inventory, add products with names, prices, stock levels, barcodes, brand/category details, supplier details, cost, and reorder settings so your team can sell products at checkout, create supplier orders, receive deliveries, and track products used during services.

Where to find it. Web: Sidebar → Products (under Catalogue). Mobile: More menu → Products (under Catalogue).

TL;DR

• Products lets you sell retail items at checkout alongside services, available on all plans
• Product catalogue fields include category, brand, size/measure, short description, full description, and product-level tax handling
• Barcode scanning is available from the mobile checkout product picker
• Leave Current Stock empty for unlimited availability; enter a number to enable automatic stock tracking
• Owners and Managers can adjust stock, run stocktakes, create supplier purchase orders, and receive deliveries
• Professional-use products can be attached to services for usage and profitability tracking
• Stock at 0 disables the product at checkout, team members cannot add it to orders
• Only Owners and Managers can manage products; Staff can add them to orders but not create or edit them

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Overview

Products & Retail lets you:

• Add retail or professional-use products with a name, category, brand, size/measure, descriptions, price, SKU, barcode, image, tax handling, cost, supplier, reorder settings, and optional stock tracking
• Sell products at checkout alongside services and gift cards
• Scan product barcodes from the mobile checkout product picker
• Track stock levels with automatic low-stock and out-of-stock warnings
• Adjust stock with a reason and keep an immutable stock ledger
• Create supplier purchase orders, generate email/CSV/print outputs, and receive deliveries into stock
• Run stocktakes and review variance cost impact
• Attach professional-use products to services and review service profitability
• View inventory metrics (total products, low stock count, estimated inventory value)
• Soft-delete products without affecting existing order history

Products are available on all plans, there is no PRO requirement.

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The products dashboard

The products page shows all active products in a searchable table (web) or card list (mobile).

Metrics cards

Three summary cards appear at the top of the dashboard:

Card	What it shows
Total Products	Count of all active products
Low Stock Warnings	Count of products below their configured low-stock threshold
Estimated Inventory Value	Total value of all tracked stock (products with unlimited stock are excluded)

On mobile, a fourth card , Out of Stock: shows products with zero stock. The Low Stock and Out of Stock cards are tappable to filter the product list.

Toolbar

Action	What it does
Search	Filter products by name, SKU, barcode, brand, category, size, or description (placeholder: "Search products...")
+ Add Product	Open the create product form

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Adding a product

Step 1: Open the create form

1. Go to Products in the sidebar (web) or More → Products (mobile).
2. Click + Add Product (web) or tap the add button (mobile).

Step 2: Fill in the product details

Field	Required	Notes
Product Image	No	Square image, cropped to 1:1, saved as 512×512 WebP. Web only.
Product Name	Yes	What customers see on receipts (e.g. "Cleansing Shampoo 250ml")
Price	Yes	In your local currency. Tax label varies: "Excluding GST" (AU/NZ) or "Excluding VAT" (UK)
Category	No	Managed category such as Colour, Backbar, Retail, or Disposables. Matching names are linked together across web and mobile.
Measure / unit	No	Structured size such as 250 ml, 12.5 g, or 1 unit. Product names display the size only when it is not already in the name.
Short description	No	Short internal/import description used for product search and future retail surfaces.
Description	No	Longer client-facing product description for future retail surfaces.
Product tax	No	Venue default, no tax, or custom product tax rate. Venue default keeps existing checkout behaviour.
Product type	No	Retail, Professional use only, or Retail and professional use
Current Stock	No	Leave empty for unlimited stock. Enter a number to enable stock tracking.
SKU (Optional)	No	Stock keeping unit code (e.g. "SHAM-250")
Barcode	No	Used by the mobile scanner at checkout and during stocktake counting
Cost	No	Used for inventory value, variance cost, and service profitability
Brand	No	Brand name used for faster product search and supplier ordering
Supplier	No	Supplier name and email used by supplier orders and reorder lists
Reorder settings	No	Per-product low-stock threshold and reorder quantity

On mobile, stock tracking is controlled by a Track Stock toggle. When enabled, a Current Stock Quantity field appears.

Managed categories preserve existing stock-category labels for stocktake and supplier-order compatibility. If a product only has an older stock-category value, OpenChair keeps it readable while linking future edits to the managed category.

Step 3: Save

Click Add Product (web) or tap Add Product (mobile). The product appears in your product list immediately.

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Editing a product

On web

1. Find the product in the products table.
2. Click the Actions menu (three-dot icon) on the product row.
3. Click Edit details.
4. Update any field in the product sheet.
5. Click Save Changes.

On mobile

1. Tap the product in the product list.
2. Update any field in the edit form.
3. Tap Save Changes.

On iPad, the products page uses a master-detail layout, tap a product on the left to edit its details in a side panel without navigating away.

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Stock tracking

Stock levels are tracked automatically when you set a stock value on a product.

How stock works

Event	What happens
Order completed	Stock is decremented by the quantity sold (atomically)
Order voided	Stock is refunded (incremented back)
Stock reaches 0	Product shows as "Out of stock", disabled in the checkout product picker
Stock is null (empty)	Product is treated as unlimited, always available, no warnings

Stock badges

Products display a stock badge based on their current level:

Stock level	Badge	Colour
Unlimited (no value set)	"Unlimited" / "∞"	Neutral
Above threshold	"{count} in stock"	Default
Low stock	"{count} in stock, low"	Warning (yellow)
0 (out of stock)	"Out of stock"	Destructive (red)

Stock validation at checkout

When a team member adds a product to an order, the system checks that enough stock is available. If the requested quantity exceeds the available stock, the add is rejected with an error message: "Not enough stock, reduce quantity."

Stock adjustments

Owners and Managers can change tracked stock with a reason such as received, damaged, lost, recount, return, professional use, or manual. Every adjustment records before/after quantities in the stock ledger.

Low stock and reorder levels

Each product can use its own reorder threshold. If no product threshold is set, OpenChair uses the venue's low-stock threshold. Reorder quantities use the explicit product reorder quantity when present, otherwise OpenChair suggests enough units to return above the threshold.

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Supplier orders and receiving

Supplier orders are the stock operations loop for buying and receiving products without running a fresh stocktake.

Create a supplier order

1. Go to Products -> Supplier orders.
2. Click New supplier order.
3. Enter the supplier name and email.
4. Start from low-stock products for that supplier, or create a blank order.
5. Search by product name, SKU, barcode, supplier, brand, stock category, or product type.
6. Add products, adjust quantities and cost snapshots, then save the draft.
7. Generate the supplier email, CSV, or print view, then mark the order as Ordered.

Receive a delivery

1. Open an ordered or partially received supplier order.
2. Click Receive delivery.
3. OpenChair pre-fills every remaining line as fully received.
4. Change only exceptions: missing quantity, backordered items, closed-short items, or over-delivered lines.
5. Add a receipt note for delivery references or over-delivery reasons.
6. Commit the receipt.

When the receipt is committed, stock updates immediately and the stock ledger records a linked received adjustment for every received line. The supplier order keeps the full audit trail, receipt lines, missing/backordered quantities, closed-short decisions, and export history.

Staff can view product information but cannot create, order, cancel, or receive supplier orders.

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Selling products at checkout

Products can be added to any order during checkout, whether it originated from a booking or is a walk-in sale.

Adding a product to an order

1. Open or create an order at checkout.
2. Click + Add Item and select a product (web), or tap the product picker (mobile).
3. Choose the product and set the quantity.
4. The product is added as a line item on the order.

On mobile, the Product Picker sheet shows all active products with a search bar and quantity stepper. Products are sorted with in-stock items first, followed by out-of-stock items (which are greyed out and disabled).

The product's price is captured at the time it is added to the order. If you later change the product's price, existing order items are unaffected.

Barcode scanning

On mobile checkout, tap the scan action in the product picker and point the camera at the product barcode.

Scan result	What happens
One match	The product is added to the cart with quantity 1
Multiple matches	A picker shows matching products with name, price, stock, and image when available
No match	The barcode is saved for Owner/Manager review and checkout remains usable
Camera blocked	Use the manual search fallback

Professional-only products do not appear in the normal checkout picker or checkout barcode scan results.

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Reorder lists

Go to Products -> Reorder to review tracked products at or below their reorder levels.

The reorder view groups selected products by supplier. You can export a CSV for all selected rows, copy an email draft, or open a mail draft when the supplier email is present. Generated rows include supplier, product, SKU, barcode, current stock, reorder quantity, and unit cost when known. Creating a reorder export records an audit event; it does not mean an order has been placed with the supplier.

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Stocktakes

Go to Products -> Stocktakes to start a count of tracked products.

Only Owners and Managers can start, review, and commit a stocktake. A venue can have one active draft/review stocktake at a time. When a stocktake is committed, OpenChair writes recount adjustments for every variance and updates product stock. The variance report shows expected count, counted quantity, delta, and cost impact when cost is known.

The mobile Products area includes a stocktake helper for active stocktakes. Scanning a barcode finds the product and increments its counted quantity by one. Final review and commit stay on web.

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Professional product usage

Products can be marked as:

Type	Behaviour
Retail	Visible in normal checkout product pickers
Professional use only	Hidden from checkout product pickers; available for service usage
Retail and professional	Can be sold at checkout and used by service usage templates

Owners and Managers can attach professional-use products to services from Products -> Service usage. When a checkout containing that service is completed, OpenChair records the product usage. If the product has tracked stock and enough units are available, stock is decremented and a professional-use stock ledger row is written.

Service profitability uses only rows with known product cost for margin calculations. Unknown-cost usage is counted separately so missing cost data is visible.

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Deleting a product

Deleting a product is a soft delete, the product is deactivated and hidden from the product list and checkout, but existing orders that include the product are unaffected.

On web

1. Open the product for editing.
2. Click Delete product at the bottom of the form.
3. Confirm in the "Delete product?" dialog.

On mobile

1. Open the product for editing.
2. Tap Delete Product.
3. Confirm in the "Delete product?" sheet. The confirmation shows: "{Product name} will no longer appear at the checkout. Existing orders are unaffected."

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Role access

Role	Access
Owner / Manager	Full access, create, edit, delete products, view dashboard
Staff	View-only, can see products and add them to orders during checkout, but cannot create, edit, or delete products

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Platform differences

Feature	Web	Mobile
Navigation	Sidebar → Products (under Catalogue)	More menu → Products (under Catalogue)
Product list display	Table with columns (name, SKU, price, stock, actions)	Card list with badges
Product form	Side sheet	Full-screen form
Product image upload	Drag-and-drop with crop dialog	Not available
Master-detail (iPad)	Not applicable	Master-detail layout, tap product on left, edit on right
Metrics cards	3 cards (Total, Low Stock, Inventory Value)	4 cards (Total, Low Stock, Out of Stock, Inventory Value)
Stock filter	Search only	Tappable Low Stock / Out of Stock cards to filter
Checkout product picker	Quick-add menu with search	Bottom sheet with search and quantity stepper
Keyboard shortcuts	-	Cmd+N (new), Cmd+R (refresh), Escape (close detail pane)
Delete confirmation	Dialog: "This action cannot be undone."	Sheet: "{name} will no longer appear at the checkout. Existing orders are unaffected."

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Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Product not showing at checkout	Check that the product is not deleted (soft-deleted products are hidden). Go to Products and verify the product appears in the list.
"Not enough stock" error when adding to order	The product's stock level is lower than the quantity you are trying to add. Reduce the quantity, or go to Products and increase the stock level on the product.
Cannot add or edit products on mobile	Only owners and managers can manage products. If you are a team member (staff role), ask the venue owner to make changes.
Product price is wrong on an order	The product price is captured when it is added to the order. Changing the product's price afterwards does not update existing order items. To correct the price, remove the item from the order and re-add it, or use the price override on the line item.
Low stock warning but stock seems fine	Low stock warnings trigger when a product is below its venue-level or per-product threshold. If your product typically has low inventory, adjust the threshold to match how you reorder.
Product image not uploading	Product images are only supported on web. Images must be JPEG, PNG, or WebP format. The image is cropped to a square and saved at 512×512 pixels.
Deleted product still appears on old orders	Deleting a product is a soft delete, it hides the product from the product list and checkout but does not remove it from existing orders. This is by design to preserve order history.

FAQ

What is Products & Retail?

Products & Retail lets you add retail items with names, prices, and stock levels so your team can sell them at checkout alongside services. It is available on all plans with no PRO requirement.

How does stock tracking work?

Enter a stock quantity on a product to enable tracking. Stock decrements automatically when items are sold and refunds when orders are voided. Leave the stock field empty to treat a product as unlimited.

What happens when a product runs out of stock?

When stock reaches 0, the product shows as "Out of stock" and is disabled in the checkout product picker. Team members cannot add it to new orders until stock is replenished.

Who can create or edit products?

Only Owners and Managers can create, edit, or delete products. Staff can view products and add them to orders at checkout.

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