Creating Products User Manual

CONTENTS

Introduction

Creating your first product

Creating a Product Option

Creating products that come in different colours

Creating a Style

Creating the product

Creating products that come in colours and sizes

Creating a Size Style

What should I do if I use shoe sizes, shirt sizes, ladies sizes etc?

Listing your sizes in a specific order

Creating the Product

Editing product details

Editing information against the Product

Change history – Page 1

Editing information against the Product Option

Change history – Page 2

Products vs Items

Deleting products and items

Conditions for deleting products and items

Deleting a product’s items

Can I delete more than one item at a time?

Deleting a product

Moving products between categories

Creating Miscellaneous products

How do I sell my miscellaneous product?

Can I have more than one type of miscellaneous product?

Introduction

This manual will talk you through how to add details of all your products to the Cybertill system. It presumes you’ve already worked through the previous six ‘Getting Started’ manuals and have all the prerequisites in place. 

Users who have purchased Data Import Manager and intend to import product data from a spreadsheet themselves are strongly advised to read through this manual and create a few products manually first. This will help you to understand how Cybertill stores product data, and consequently you’ll better understand how to complete your import spreadsheet. 

Creating your first product

Firstly, we’d recommend you enter details of a simple, straightforward product into your system – i.e. a product that does not come in different sizes or colours; a product that doesn’t come in different varieties. 

Note: We’ll deal with sizes, colours etc. further in the manual. 

• Start by logging into RetailStore/ CharityStore with your Username* & Password*. 

• Select the Admin menu

From within the Products and Categories section,

• select Products and Categories. 

Your list of Primary categories will appear if you have previously created some. Think of these Categories as your ‘Departments’.  

• Now, click into the appropriate Category where you wish to put your product. 

Example: if you wanted to add a new DVD product to the system depicted above, select ‘DVDs’. 

If you have sub-categories set up, you will be listed similar to the screenshot below: 

If you have a sub-category,  

• click into the appropriate one, until you reach where you would like to add your product. 

Note that there may be sub-categories within sub-categories. You can tell when you are in the highest level of sub-category as it will state ‘Displaying 0 to 0 of 0’. 

• Locate to the bottom of the page and select Add a new product into this category. 

The New Product page will open, containing a long list of fields. 

To add a new Product to the system, you must complete the mandatory fields on this page. These fields are displayed with an asterisk* next to them. 

The table below will list what each of the fields (both mandatory and non-mandatory) are, and what they represent. 

Note: not all these fields have to be completed in order to add a product. The fields marked *** Important field *** are those that do. 

Section	Field Name	Explanation
Info	Name	*** Important field ***  Enter the name of the product.   Usually, what you enter in this field is what will appear on barcode labels, on customer receipts when they purchase this product, on your sales reports etc.
	Copy name to all options	Copies the above name over to all product options. This field auto selects when a Name is entered.
	Product Type*	*** Important field ***  Click the dropdown box and select the appropriate Product Type.  The options are;  Voucher Flight Hire Info (Private) Info (Public) Measured Music Non-Stock Personalised Service SOR Stock Item Voucher (Stock) Carriage Tariff Ticket Money Donation Gift Card Exchange For Cash Lottery Insurance
	Man. Year	The manufacturers year can be entered here.  By default, the current year will be displayed.
	Category*	*** Important field ***  States the category you chose to add the item to. This is a dropdown list that can be changed at this level.
	VAT Code	*** Important field ***  Select the appropriate VAT code from the drop-down list.
	Weight band	You only need to choose from this drop-down if:  you intend to deliver to customers you are using the ‘by order weigh’ method of calculating delivery charges  If applicable, choose the appropriate “weight band” from this box.
	Item weight*	You only need to type the product’s weight here if:  you intend to deliver to customers you are using the ‘by order weight’ method of calculating delivery charges  If applicable, enter the weight in kg of this product here.  (Do not enter “kg” at the end of it; just type a number, e.g. “1.75” instead of “1.75kg”.) You can enter up to four decimal places.
	Available to sell	*** Important field ***  If the Product is currently available to sell, ensure this field is ticked.
	Allow discount	If you wish to allow discount being applied to this Product, ensure this field is ticked.
	Deliverable	If the Product is available to deliver, ensure this field is ticked.
	Descr short	If you wish to enter a short description about the Product, type it here. Should you enter such a description, it will appear on the till screen and may appear on any Cybertill websites you set up (depending on other settings).
	Descr long	If you wish to enter a long description about the Product, type it here.   This description will appear on any Cybertill websites you set up – hence the word-processor-style formatting options, allowing you to write an attractive description. It will also appear on the till screen.
Properties	Major/Minor*	If you wish to record the serial number of each unit of this product that you buy and/or sell, you’ll need to consider this setting.  There are four options:  Minor – No Track: Serial numbers will not be recorded for this product. Minor/SN – Track: Whenever you sell this product, you will be prompted to enter that unit’s serial number at the point of sale. Major – Track: Whenever you sell this product, you will be prompted to enter that unit’s serial number at the point of sale.  Also, this product will be classed as a “major” product, which will impact certain sales reports. Major – Track 2: Same as above, only you will also be prompted to record each unit’s serial number when you  receive it into stock as well.  Note: retailers are advised not to worry too much about whether to mark products as “major” or “minor”, because this only affects a very small number of quite specialised reports, so there’s a very good chance that it won’t make any difference to you.
	Validation Rule	This option will be covered in a future revision of this manual.
	Brand	Choose the appropriate brand from the drop-down list (if there is one).
	Season	If relevant to you, choose the appropriate season from the dropdown list if it’s not already appearing here.
	Stock ref	Choose the appropriate stock ref from the drop-down list if there is one. (For more info about these, see the previous Getting Started manual – “Prerequisites for Products”.)
	Country of origin	You can record the country this product is manufactured in here.  This field is of relatively little importance, and very rarely appears anywhere other than this screen.
Supplier	Default Supplier	*** Important field ***  Choose the supplier of this product from the drop-down list.  (If you can source this product from more than one supplier, choose your primary supplier.  Alternate suppliers can be added afterwards.)
Nominals	Nominal purchase	Please note, we no longer support a Sage Link.
	Nominal sales	Please note, we no longer support a Sage Link.
	Department purchase	Please note, we no longer support a Sage Link.
	Department sales	Please note, we no longer support a Sage Link.
Personalised Product	Personalised – No. chars	This option will be covered in a future revision of this manual.
	Personalised Group	This option will be covered in a future revision of this manual.
	Personalised price (Inclusive of VAT)	*** This option is only relevant to retailers with an integrated Cybertill website. *** If you give customers the option to ‘personalise’ a product (e.g. to have their name or initials engraved or embroidered onto it), you can use this option to charge them slightly more for that privilege. This will be covered in more detail in a future revision of this manual.
Other	Parts guarantee (months)	This option will be covered in a future revision of this manual.
	Labour guarantee (months)	This option will be covered in a future revision of this manual.
	Product labels	If you think you might ever need to print barcode labels for this product, tick this box. This field will be ticked by default.
	Shelf labels (qty)*	If (for example) you enter a 3 into this field, then were you ever to try and print barcode labels for this product, Cybertill would prevent you from printing out more than 3 labels in any one go.   This might be useful for small, high-quantity products that you order in hundreds but sell in single units. For example, if you sell a lot of pencils from a jar on your counter, you could use this setting to ensure you never accidentally print out a label for every single pencil you receive in a delivery.
	Exclusive of carriage	If this product is exclusive of carriage, ensure this is box is ticked.
	Material	You can record the material(s) this product is comprised of here.  (This field is of relatively little importance, and very rarely appears anywhere other than this screen.)
	Intrastat	You can record this product’s Intrastat code here (if appropriate).
	Volume cbm	You can record the product’s volume in cubic metres here if you wish.  (This field is of relatively little importance, and very rarely appears anywhere other than this screen.)
	Prod ref	Here you can enter an extra reference field for a product. Note: this does not appear anywhere else in the system.
	Period start	*** No longer used – Please ignore. ***
	Period end	*** No longer used – Please ignore. ***
	Descr. on receipt?*	You can choose here whether you’d like the product’s short and/or long description to appear on till receipts, as well as the product name.
	Always collect customer details	When the product is added to the basket, the customer details must always be taken if this box is selected.
	Master Product Option	*** Customer Specific ***   Can be used as a template for creating the same product.
	Symbols	This option will be covered in a future revision of this manual.
	Promotion Code	*** No longer used – Please ignore. ***
	Auto-generate all product options	If selected, once the Product page is saved, a Product Option is automatically created. This is useful if you are using Product Styles. See further in the manual for more information on this.

Once you have completed the necessary fields, 

• click Save at the bottom of the page. 

You should now receive a message advising that the data entered onto this page has been saved. 

Creating a Product Option

The next step is to add a Product Option(s). 

Note: if you selected ‘Auto-generate all product options’, these will have already been created. In this case, select View Product Options and skip this section of the document. 

To add a Product Option for the Product you have just created, 

• select Add New Product Option, located at the bottom of the Product page. 

 Again, a page containing several different options will be displayed: 

• Complete the necessary fields, including all that are mandatory. 

The table below explains what each of the fields are and what they represent. 

Note: not all these fields have to be completed to create a Product Option. The fields marked *** Important field *** are those that do. 

Section	Field Name	Explanation
General product option settings	Name*	*** Important field ***  The name is copied over from what is entered when creating the Product. This can be amended if necessary.
	Ref*	*** Important field ***  An item reference is auto generated. This can be amended if necessary.  Every item must have a unique item reference code assigned to it.  (Think of this as being your code number for this item, for your business’s own purposes.) If you already have a reference code system for your items in place, enter the appropriate code here. If not, leave the autogenerated one.  Note that all item refs must be unique. You won’t be able to have several items (e.g. different sizes or colours of the same product) with the same item ref; they all must have different item refs.
	Barcode*	*** Important field ***  A barcode for that item is auto generated. This can be amended if necessary, but if the item does not come with a barcode already printed on it, do not change.  Every barcode must be unique. You can’t have two different items with the same barcode.
	Manufacturers No.	Here you can enter in the manufacturers number. This will be used within the POP module.
	Short name	If you were to enter a shortened version of the item’s name here, then that shortened version will be what appears on customers’ till receipts when they purchase that item.  (If you leave this box blank, the standard item name will appear on receipts instead.)
	Is zero price (dump code)*	*** Important field ***  Is your item zero price? The default option is set to ‘No, fixed price’. This option can be changed to: ‘Yes’ & ‘Yes, suggested price’.  If you’re creating a ‘miscellaneous’ product (i.e. a product for which you can specify a different price at the point of sale every time you sell one), set this box to ‘Yes’.  You also have the option to create a ‘miscellaneous’ product with a suggested price, i.e. a product which all your staff could sell at any price they choose at the point of sale if they wanted, but they’ll be presented with a suggested price first. (Choose ‘Yes, suggested price’ for this.)  On the other hand, if you’re creating a regular product with fixed selling prices, choose ‘No, fixed price’.
	Bin location	Enter your bin location, if necessary.  Note: this field has a maximum character limit of 300.
	Commission Band	If appropriate to you, choose the relevant commission band this item belongs to.  If you do not do commission, miss out this field.
	Commission*	If appropriate to you, enter the appropriate commission rate you give for sales of this item.  If you do not do commission, miss out this field.
	Supplier commission percentage	Enter in a % value to pay the supplier of the goods upon sale. Changing this will modify the cost from the default supplier.
	Available to sell	*** Important field ***  If you want to make sure this item is available to sell, ensure it is ticked.
	Discontinued	If the item is now discontinued, ensure you tick the box.
	Web visible	If you untick this box, then that particular item will not be available to sell on any of your Cybertill websites.
	VAT Code	*** Important field ***  Choose the appropriate VAT rate for this item from the drop-down list. (Yes, you did already do this on the previous page, but you’ll need to do it here as well.  The reasons why will become apparent later.)
	Coverage area	*** No longer used – Please ignore. ***
	Sell in whole numbers	If selected, an item cannot be sold in decimal quantities.
	Purchase box qty	Can you only get these items from your suppliers in boxes of 12 (for example)?  If so, enter a 12 in this box. Later, when you go to raise a purchase order in Cybertill, it will force you to order this item in multiples of 12 (12, 24, 36 etc).
	Stock sales level*	Set as ‘1’ by default. This is the value of how many of that item you sell at once. Related to the Event Management module.
	Instrat code	You can record this product’s Intrastat code here (if appropriate).
	Instrat material	You can record this product’s Intrastat material here (if appropriate).
	Purchase Order Band	If appropriate for you, choose the Purchase Order Band which this item belongs to.
	Icons	This option will be covered in a future revision of this manual.
	Website Item Coupon  List	*** Website customers only ***  Select the coupon you can apply to this product.
General product option settings	Box Height (mm)	Relate to the Warehousing Module.
	Box Width (mm)	Relate to the Warehousing Module.
	Box Depth (mm)	Relate to the Warehousing Module.
Costs		*** Important field ***  Enter the cost price of your item here (i.e. how much it costs you to buy this item from your supplier).  This figure should be entered exclusive of VAT.
Prices	RRP	In the “New” column, type in the recommended retail price of this item (if you know it).
	Store	*** Important field ***  In the “New” column, type in your store price for this item (i.e. how much you sell it for in your shop to the average customer).
	Trade	Do you do trade sales (i.e. sell items on to other companies)?  If so, in the “New” column, type in your trade price for this item.   (Unlike the other selling prices, this price should be entered exclusive of VAT.) If not, don’t bother entering anything here.
	Staff	Do you have an alternative price list for your staff? If so, enter this item’s staff price here.  If your staff get X% discount off everything, don’t bother entering anything here.  (It would probably take a very long time to work out the exact staff-discounted price for every item and enter it here.  Better to simply apply that discount at the point of sale when required.) If you don’t do staff discounts, don’t bother entering anything here.
	Web	Do you plan to build a website in your Cybertill system, or to link your Cybertill system to an existing website?  If so, enter your web price for this item here.
	Tick to update prices of all items to these values	Tick this box to auto update all Product Options with the same prices.

Once you’ve entered in the necessary fields, 

• Select Save. 

You should receive a message box asking if you wish to save the changes. 

• Select OK. 

You should receive confirmation that this has saved. 

 

You have now created a product! 

To view the product you have created; 

• Click back into Admin > Products and Categories
• Browse through the Category/ Subcategory that you were previously in. 

Your product should appear in the list (along with other Products created): 

The next section of this document will take you through the process of creating products that come in different colours. 

Creating products that come in different colours

Before you can create a product that comes in different colours, you need to put together a list of colours first. This is referred to a ‘product style’. 

Creating a Style

• Click into the Admin menu. 

Within the Products and Categories section, (just below the Products and Categories option, ▪ click Product Styles. 

Note: a ‘product style’ is just Cybertill’s term for any kind of variety that a product comes in – e.g. size, colour, flavour etc.  So, for example, if you want to create a product that comes in different colours, you’ll need to create a style called ‘Colour’. 

The Product Style List will open, listing all your styles already added to the system: 

• select New, located at the bottom of the page. 

The New Product Style page will be displayed:

You only need to complete the mandatory fields that contain an asterisk. 

To begin, in the Name field, 

• type the name for this style. 

Note: in our scenario we are going to type ‘Colour’. 

 In the Type field, 

• click the dropdown list and select the appropriate option that best describes the style you are creating. In our scenario we are going to select ‘Colour’. 

 

In the Ref field, 

• enter an abbreviated reference code for this style.  

Note: It can be whatever you like. Don’t worry too much about what to enter here - it’ll only ever appear in certain very specialised parts of the system which you may never even use. 

 Next is the List Order field.  

• For now, leave this blank. 

 In the Associated Categories section,  

• tick all the categories in which you might want to use this style.  

Example: If you’re creating a style called ‘Clothing sizes’, you should select all the categories in which you will be keeping products that come in different clothing sizes. 

If there are any categories for which clothing sizes wouldn’t be applicable, leave them unselected. 

At the bottom of the screen, in the Style Value section,

• click on the link labelled Add new. 

When selected, two new fields will appear, labelled Style value and List order

In the Style Value field, 

• type in the names of one of the colours you wish to include in the style. (e.g. “Red). 

 For now, leave the List order field. 

To create your next style, repeat the process by selecting Add new again. 

• Repeat this process until you’ve added all the necessary colours. 

It should look something like the below: 

Once finished, 

• select Save at the bottom of the page

Creating the product

• Click back into your Admin menu, then into Products & Categories again.
• As before, browse through your Category tree until you come to the appropriate Subcategory. 

• Select Add a new product into this category, located at the bottom of the page

The New Product page will open again and will look exactly as it did when we created our first product. 

• Ensure that mandatory fields are completed. 

  Note: do you refer to the products colour when entering a ‘Name’. This is chosen further in the process.

• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and refer to the Style Values field.

Here you will find the colour styles that you previously created.  

Note: if you don’t see any colours here, chances are you haven’t made those colours available to your current category. Go back to Admin > Product Styles and check). 

• Tick the colour that the product comes in.

Next,  

• select the Auto-generate all product options box. 

  Note: Selecting this option will automatically generate all your product options, so that you don’t have to select Add New Product Option button to manually add them. 

• Select Save

Because we have auto-generated our product options, we do not need to manually do it, and therefore can just select View Product Options. 

 You should see all 4 product options have been created, one for each of your styles. 

• Select one of the Product Options created to edit it. (At this point it doesn’t matter which one you choose). 

• Fill in the necessary fields, including those ‘important’ ones.
  • VAT rate
  • Cost
  • RRP (if appropriate)
  • Store
  • Trade (if appropriate)
  • Web (if appropriate)
  • Staff (if appropriate) 

When entering in your prices, notice the tick box labelled Tick to update prices of all items to these values. If all your items are the same price in each colour, tick this box. 

• Select Save and OK to save the changes

•  Click Back to list. 

Although your prices have been saved for each product option because you selected the Tick to update prices of all items to these values, the Costs set against each supplier have not copied over to all product options. Therefore, you must go into each of these individually and set them. 

Note: rather than auto-generating all product options at the point of creating the product, you can manually create one instead and then once you’ve set all your costs and prices for one style, select Auto Product Option Generator displayed at the top of the Product Options page.  

Creating products that come in colours and sizes

Hopefully you’ll guess by now that if you want to create a product that comes in sizes and colours, you’ll need to first have both a list of sizes and a list of colours written into the system. 

If you’ve been following this manual all the way through, you should already have a list of colours in your system, so you won’t need to create them again. But, you won’t yet have a list of sizes. 

Creating a Size Style

Firstly, you’ll need to return to Admin > Product Styles > New 

▪ Follow the same process as colours but giving it a relevant Name and selecting ‘Size’ from the Type field. 

Add each of your size’s as previously shown when adding colours. 

What should I do if I use shoe sizes, shirt sizes, ladies sizes etc?

Instead of creating one style called ‘size’ and cramming every single size type you can think of into it, we’d recommend that you create different styles for each type of size you use. 

For example, instead of creating a single huge ‘size’ style which contains everything, like this: 

 

… we’d suggest it would be better to split it down into several different styles, something like this: 

                   

Either way will work, so don’t panic if you’ve already done it the first way. However, we’d suggest that it’ll be a little easier in the long run to manage several smaller lists than it would for one huge list. 

Listing your sizes in a specific order

You might find that as you enter new sizes into the system, Cybertill appears to mix up the order of them. It does this because unless you tell it otherwise, it will sort your list of sizes alphabetically. 

For example, if you enter the following list of sizes… 

  XS, S, M, L, XL 

…then unless you tell it otherwise, Cybertill will sort them from A to Z.  They’d end up in this order: 

  L, M, S, XL, XS 

To stop it from doing this, you’ll need to start filling in the List order fields. You should see one of those fields just underneath each size: 

To sort those sizes into order, you should enter a number into each of those List order boxes.  If you do that, then when you Save the page, you’ll find that those styles are sorted into the appropriate order, like in this screenshot: 

Once you select Save, the style you placed ‘1’ next to will appear first, ‘2’ second… and so on.  

You don’t necessarily have to go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc either.  You could enter list order numbers of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 etc instead, and Cybertill will still sort them from lowest to highest. 

In fact, this is better practice. If you order your style values in “tens” like that, then should you suddenly need to add a new style value (i.e. a new size) somewhere in the middle, it’d be easy to do. You could simply give it a list order of 35, to slot it in between 30 and 40. 

Consider it the other way a moment. If you had just ordered your styles “1,2,3,4,5” and so on, and you needed to put something new in between 3 and 4, it’d take a lot more work to do it. You’d need to put the new style value in at 4, then change the “old” fourth style to 5, then the “old” fifth style to 6, and so on for the rest of them. (And if you had lots of different sizes in there, it could take quite a while.) 

Now we’ve got the list of sizes sorted out, let’s try creating the product. 

Creating the Product

Once you’ve got your list(s) of sizes in there, you should head back into Admin > Products and Categories and browse into the relevant category/ subcategory. 

• Click Add a new product into this category, as before. 

Up comes the first of the two pages.  As before,  

• fill in the relevant field, including those that are mandatory. 

Note: Don’t make any reference to the product’s various sizes or colours in the Name field. 

• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and refer to the Style Values field. 

Here you will find both the size and colour styles that you previously created.  

Note: if you don’t see any styles here, chances are you haven’t made those size or colours available to your current category. Go back to Admin > Product Styles and check.

• Tick the size and colours that the product comes in.

Next,  

• select the Auto-generate all product options box. 

  Note: Selecting this option will automatically generate all your product options, so that you don’t have to select Add New Product Option button to manually add them. 

• Select Save

Because we have auto-generated our product options, we do not need to manually do it, and therefore can just select View Product Options. 

 You should see all 4 product options have been created, one for each of your styles. 

• Select one of the Product Options created to edit it. (At this point it doesn’t matter which one you choose). 

• Fill in the necessary fields, including those ‘important’ ones.
  • VAT rate
  • Cost
  • RRP (if appropriate)
  • Store
  • Trade (if appropriate)
  • Web (if appropriate)
  • Staff (if appropriate) 

When entering in your prices, notice the tick box labelled Tick to update prices of all items to these values. If all your items are the same price for each size and colour, tick this box. 

• Select Save and OK to save the changes

•  Click Back to list. 

Although your prices have been saved for each product option because you selected the Tick to update prices of all items to these values, the Costs set against each supplier have not copied over to all product options. Therefore, you must go into each of these individually and set them. 

Note: rather than auto-generating all product options at the point of creating the product, you can manually create one instead and then once you’ve set all your costs and prices for one style, select Auto Product Option Generator displayed at the top of the Product Options page.  

Editing product details

At some point, there is a good chance that you will make a mistake and enter some of a product’s details incorrectly. 

This section of the document will advise on how to correct those mistakes. 

Editing information against the Product

First of all, let’s show you how to alter the information on the first of the two product creating pages. By way of example, let’s walk you through how to change the Supplier of a product. 

• Start by going into Admin > Products and Categories and browse through your category/subcategory tree until you see the name of the product in question on screen. 

• Select the products name to open ‘page 1’ of the product.
• Make the relevant changes and select Save. 

If it’s worked, you should see one of the usual ‘success’ messages appear at the top of the screen. 

That’s the basic idea for changing anything on this first screen. 

Change history – Page 1

It’s worth mentioning at this point that the system keeps a log of any changes you make on this page. 

Next time you save a change here, look near the bottom of the page, and you’ll see the Change history section. 

This will tell you all the changes that have ever been made on this page for this product.  It’ll also tell you the IP address of the computer from which the change was made. 

Editing information against the Product Option

If you wanted to make any amendments to the Product Option, (for example; you wanted to change the selling prices of an item), here’s how it’s done: 

• Start by going into Admin > Products and Categories
• Browse through your category/subcategory tree until you see the product in question on screen. 

This time, though, instead of clicking on the product’s name,  

• click that product option edit all link at the right of the screen. 

You’ll be taken to a page listing all your Product Options in every size and/or colour combination of that product. 

Note: if your product doesn’t come in different sizes or colour, you’ll only see a single row here. 

Next,  

• click the ItemRef number of the item whose price you wish to change. 

  Note: If you have numerous sizes/colours and you wish to change the price of them all, click any of the ItemRefs. 

You should now be taken into ‘page 2’ of the Product, otherwise known as the Product Option. 

• Scroll down to the part that you’d like to change.

  Note: in this example we are going to change the price. 

• Make the necessary change.  

In the price change example, enter the correct price(s) into the New column (shown below). 

If this product comes in numerous sizes/colours and you wish to change the price of them all, not just the selected one, tick the box labelled Tick to update prices of all items to these values: 

• Click the Save button (at the bottom left).  

You should see the usual Save OK message at the top of the screen to indicate that the change has been made successfully. 

 

Change history – Page 2

Within the Product Option (second page),  

▪ scroll down to the bottom and you’ll see there is a Change history section here too. 

As on the previous page, Cybertill keeps a log of all changes made on this screen, recording dates, times, users and the IP address the change was made from. 

Products vs Items

In Cybertill, there is a difference between a ‘product’ and an ‘item’. Many people use those terms interchangeably, but strictly speaking, they don’t quite mean the same thing. If you understand this distinction, it will prove to be helpful throughout the system – particularly when you’re running sales and stock reports. 

An example of a Product would be an ‘Adidas Trainer’. 

An example of an Item would be an ‘Adidas Trainer, size 9, black’. 

You know how on ‘page 1’ (the Product page), you must enter the Product Name, Brand, Supplier etc? That’s where you enter product details; basic details that apply across every size and colour variation of this thing (if there are any such variations). 

Compare this to ‘page 2’ (the Product Option page), where you can enter prices, barcodes, ItemRefs etc. That page is where you enter details of each item, i.e. the specific details about each size/colour (if there are any such variations). 

Later, you’ll have the choice of (for example) reporting on sales by product, which might look something like this: 

---	QTY	GROSS
Funky Shoes - Suede	3	162
Clogs	2	34.06
Funky Shoes - Leather	2	120
Funky Shoes - Patent	1	60
Big chunky boots	1	9.99

… or reporting all the way down to sales by item level, which might look like this: 

---                                                                                                            QTY | GROSS 

XTV7710: Funky Shoes - Suede Style: Colour: Blue / Size: 10 /                 2  108 

CLOGS: Clogs Style: Colour: Claret / Size: 7 /                                            2  34.06 

XTV7708: Funky Shoes - Suede Style: Colour: Blue / Size: 8 /                  1  54 

XTV7696: Funky Shoes - Patent Style: Colour: Pink / Size: 9 /                 1  60 

XTV7685: Funky Shoes - Leather Style: Colour: Blue / Size: 9 /               1  60 

XTV7683: Funky Shoes - Leather Style: Colour: Blue / Size: 7 /               1  60 

VZY6552: Big chunky boots Style: Colour: Aubergine / Size: 10 /           1  9.99 

XTV7709: Funky Shoes - Suede Style: Colour: Blue / Size: 9 /                 0  0 

XTV7701: Funky Shoes - Patent Style: Colour: Mauve / Size: 8 /             0  0 

The chances are that sooner or later you’ll want to delete a product that you’ve just created and wish to start from scratch. The next section of the document will take you through how to remove unwanted products off Cybertill. 

Deleting products and items

First of all, you should be aware that there’s a restriction here: 

Conditions for deleting products and items

You will not be able to delete a product or item if it has any sales, inter-branch transfer or purchase order history. So, once you have sold a product at the point of sale, for example, it’s in your system to stay. You won’t be able to get rid of it. You can however rename it to something like “Do not use” and move it to some out-of-the-way category, but you won’t be able to delete it off completely, i.e. leaving no trace. 

There’s good reason for this. If you were to delete all trace of a product which had sales history, for example, there’d be records in Cybertill of sales being performed, but no longer any record of exactly what was sold. These kind of ‘holes’ in your data might  

1. cause your Cybertill system to become unstable, and;
2. look very suspicious to any auditors or VAT inspectors examining your records. 

For these reasons, we’d strongly advise you to delete any ‘erroneous’ products as soon as possible. The longer you leave such products on the system for, the greater the chances become of one of your staff accidentally selling one at the till, thereby preventing you from ever deleting it off. 

Deleting a product’s items

If you want to delete a product, first you will need to delete its items. 

• Go to Admin > Products and Categories
• Browse through your category/ subcategory tree until you see the product on screen
• Click the appropriate edit all link at the right. 

You’ll see all that product’s items on screen, like so:

Note that for each of the items pictured above, there is a Delete link to the right. 

• Click Delete for the first item on the list. 

The item should disappear, and you’ll see a ‘success’ message at the top of the screen: 

 

• Repeat this process for all the items on screen. 

Note: should you attempt this for an item which has a history of some kind, it won’t be deleted, and you’ll see an error message at the top that looks something like the one below. 

 

If you ever see this, then that item has history and you cannot delete it, unfortunately. 

Can I delete more than one item at a time?

Unfortunately, not. You’ll need to click the Delete link for each of them in turn. Once you’ve done this, you can go on to delete the product. 

Deleting a product

When all the items are deleted, to get rid of the product,  

• click the Product link at the top left

Back on the Product Editing page, you should immediately see a Delete link at the bottom left. 

• Click Delete. 

The system will then check to see if there’s any reason it cannot delete this product (i.e. does it have any history?) If it finds any such problems, it’ll tell you about it. 

If there aren’t any problems, you’ll come to a ‘confirmation’ screen. 

• Select Delete Product(s). 

You should receive a DELETE OK message.

To come out of this screen,  

• click Admin at the top left. 

Moving products between categories

If you ever need to move a product from one category to another, here’s how it’s done: 

• Start by going into Admin > Products and Categories. 

Browse through your category/subcategory tree until you see the name of the product on screen. 

• Tick this box for each of the products you want to move. 

 

• Go to the bottom of the page (if you’re not already there).  

You should see a button there marked Move products to another EPOS category. 

• select this button. 

• Select Submit

Next, using the various category links at the top of the screen,

• choose the category where you wish to move your product(s) to. 

• Select Save.

You will receive confirmation that the product has been moved successfully. 

 

Creating Miscellaneous products

A lot of retailers who purchase Cybertill feel that it’s not worth the effort of entering certain products onto their system.  For example, you might be down to the last couple of units of a discontinued item which, once sold, you’ll never see again.  Consequently, you wouldn’t gain much by recording all its cost, brand, season, supplier details etc. in Cybertill. 

For these kinds of circumstances, a ‘miscellaneous’ product is ideal. 

Note: these are sometimes referred to as ‘dump codes’, ‘open price products’ or ‘zero price products’. 

Whenever you go to sell a miscellaneous product at the point of sale, you will be prompted to type in the product’s price right there and then. (Should you wish it, you’ll be able to type in a description of the item you’re selling at the point of sale too. 

Such products are created in a very similar way as normal products.  

• You’ll need to go into Admin > Products & Categories, browse into an appropriate category/ subcategory (perhaps even create a ‘Misc’ category to keep it in).
• Click Add a new product into this category, set a supplier, brand, season etc. against it and so on. 

The only thing you need to do differently when creating a miscellaneous product is that when you get to page 2 (the Product Options/items screen), there is an option just a short way down from the top of the screen marked ‘Is zero price’.

• Set this box to ‘Yes’.

Don’t worry about entering any prices against this product.  

• Simply scroll down to the bottom of the page and Save. 

That’s job done; you now have a miscellaneous product. 

How do I sell my miscellaneous product?

Any number of ways! You’ll have all the same options for selling a miscellaneous product that you do for selling a standard product. So, you’ll be able to print off a barcode for it then scan it, you could search for it by name, and you could type in its item reference code, to name but three. 

Can I have more than one type of miscellaneous product?

Yes, you can, and in some cases, it might be a good idea to do so. 

For example, several retailers using Cybertill have found it beneficial to create a separate miscellaneous product for every department – e.g. “Misc Accessories”, “Misc Clothing”, “Misc Jewellery” etc. 

If you do this, you’ll be able to get a little more detail in your sales reports later down the line. 

For example, if you had just a single product called “Misc”, your “miscellaneous sales” reports might look something like this: 

Product name	Units sold	Gross
Misc	10	£50.00

…whereas if you have a number of such items, your reports might look more like this: 

Product name	Units sold	Gross
Misc Accessories	4	£15.00
Misc Clothing	2	£10.00
Misc Jewellery	4	£25.00