Organizing Your Price List Categories
Price list categories do quiet but important work. They decide:
- what your team sees when searching for an item on an estimate, and how quickly they find it;
- how your reports group sales: "how much did we sell in filters last quarter?" only has an answer if filters live together;
- which items a guided workflow offers. Auto Glass, for example, only searches the categories you choose, so a technician looking for a gel pad doesn't wade through 3,000 flat-glass items.
Categories can nest. Auto Glass can hold NAGS Glass, NAGS Hardware & Kits and Glass Labor & Services. Anything that asks for "this category" includes everything underneath it.
Where to find it
- The Manage categories link next to Category on the price list;
- Workflows → Price List Categories in the admin menu;
- the Manage categories button on the Auto Glass settings page.
You'll need the Manage Price List permission.
Designing a tree that works
Two or three levels, not six. Every level is another click for whoever is quoting. A good test: can a new hire find "1-inch pleated filter, 16×25" in under ten seconds?
Organize by how you sell, not by how the vendor catalogs. Your distributor's catalog has 40 top-level categories because it sells everything. You probably need eight.
Keep labor and parts apart. Put labor, service fees and trip charges in their own branch. Reports that separate parts revenue from labor revenue get much simpler.
A worked example for a shop doing HVAC and auto glass:
- HVAC
- Equipment
- Filters
- Refrigerant
- Labor & Service Calls
- Auto Glass
- NAGS Glass
- NAGS Hardware & Kits
- Glass Labor & Services
- Adhesives & Supplies
- Fees: trip charges, disposal, after-hours.
Everyday tasks
Add a category. Use Add category for a top-level one, or Add subcategory from the … menu on the category it belongs in.
Move a category. Drag it where it belongs, or use Move from its … menu and Pick the category it should go inside. Its subcategories and items come with it. A category can't go inside itself or one of its own subcategories.
Reorder. Drag, or use Move up / Move down. Sort subcategories A to Z tidies a whole branch at once.
Rename. Renaming changes the name everywhere at once, including on items already sold. Nothing on old invoices breaks, because invoices keep their own copy of each line.
Move items between categories. Select a category on the left to see its items. Tick the ones to move, or Select every item on this page, then Move the selected items to a category. Include subcategories shows items from the whole branch. Moves can be undone from the message that appears.
Retiring and merging
Retire a category you no longer use. If it still has items, you're asked where they should go first (Move items and retire), so no item is left without a category. Retired categories disappear from lists and searches but stay on record. Turn on Show retired to see them and Restore one.
Merge two categories that mean the same thing ("Filters" and "Air Filters"). Pick the one to keep, and the other's items and subcategories move into it.
Retire, move and merge all offer Undo for a few seconds afterwards. Use it; that's what it's for.
Names must be unique
Two categories that are both in use can't share a name, not even in different branches. That sounds strict, but price list imports match categories by name. With two "Filters" categories, a vendor price list import can't tell which one you meant. So you'll need "HVAC Filters" and "Pool Filters", not two "Filters".
Retired categories don't count, so you can retire "Filters" and create a new "Filters" elsewhere.
Common mistakes
Building the tree to match a vendor catalog. You'll end up with categories nobody uses and quoting will slow down. Start small and add a category only when someone actually asks "where do I put this?"
Deleting instead of retiring. There's no delete, on purpose. Items sold under a category are part of your sales history. Retire it and move its items.
Putting labor inside every product branch. "Labor" under HVAC, again under Plumbing, and again under Glass means three labor categories to maintain and reports that can't add them up. One Labor & Service branch, with subcategories if you need them, works better.
Forgetting the workflow search settings. If Auto Glass should offer a new category's items on the estimate, add it under Your own parts and services that show in the estimate search in Auto Glass settings. Anything you add under a category that's already chosen is included automatically.