Product Catalog

Accessing the Catalog

Your product catalog is the central list of everything you bill for, subscriptions, hardware, labour, telecom services, and more. Each entry in the catalog is called an article.

Navigate to Configuration → Catalog → Items to view and manage your articles. By default, a new BlueRockTEL instance includes a set of example articles to help you get started. Delete any that are not relevant to your business by clicking the trash icon next to the article.

Creating Articles Efficiently

You will build up your catalog over time. Rather than creating every article from scratch, BlueRockTEL offers a few shortcuts:

Duplicate an existing article

This is the fastest approach. Find an article similar to the one you need, duplicate it, and then modify the designation, price, or billing method as required. This ensures all configuration options carry over correctly.

Use template articles

Create one or more articles prefixed with "template" (or "modele") for each common article type. When you need a new article, duplicate the appropriate template and adjust the details. This saves time and reduces configuration errors.

Search and sort

Use the Search field at the top of the catalog to find articles quickly. Click any column header to sort the list, useful when you have hundreds of articles and need to find one by name, family, or price.

Mandatory Parameters

Every article requires at least three fields before it can be saved:

1. Designation: the article name as it will appear on quotes and invoices
2. Tax rate: the applicable VAT rate
3. Family / subfamily: the category the article belongs to (see below)

Families and Subfamilies

Families group your articles into logical categories (e.g. "Telephony", "Internet", "Hardware", "Labour"). Subfamilies provide a second level of organisation within each family.

To configure families, navigate to Configuration → Catalog → Families.

Tip: Consult your accountant about how to structure families and subfamilies. They often map directly to your chart of accounts, so getting this right early saves effort at accounting export time.

• Click the hamburger button (three horizontal lines) next to a family to create subfamilies within it
• Click "+" to add additional families at the top level
• To move an article to a different family, open the article's edit page and change the family assignment there

Activation

Every article has an Activation checkbox. An article must be activated before it can be used in folders, quotes, or invoices. Deactivated articles remain in the catalog for reference but cannot be added to new folders.

Billing Type

Each article must be assigned a billing type:

• Initial (one-time), billed once when the service is set up or the product is delivered. Used for setup fees, hardware purchases, one-off labour charges, etc.
• Recurring: billed every billing cycle for as long as the service is active. Used for subscriptions, monthly licences, and telecom services that include CDR-based consumption.

Important: Setting the correct billing type at creation time prevents errors when adding articles to folders later. An article configured as "Initial" will only be billed once, even if it sits in a recurring billing section.

Rules to Keep in Mind

Following a few simple rules will save you from billing mistakes:

• Never change an article's designation after it has been used in a folder. Changing the name retroactively affects the text displayed on all existing quotes and invoices that reference that article. If you need a different name, create a new article instead.
• Price changes do not propagate to existing folders. Updating an article's price in the catalog only affects future uses. Articles already placed in folders retain the price that was set at the time they were added.
• Do not change the billing method on CDR-related articles without guidance from BlueRockTEL support. CDR articles have specific rating configurations that can break if the billing method is altered.

Internal Reference

The Internal reference field lets you add a keyword or code that does not appear on any customer-facing document (quotes, invoices, etc.) but is searchable in the catalog. Use it to tag articles with an internal product code, a supplier reference, or any keyword that helps your team find the article quickly.

The "Refact" Billing Method

For telecom resellers, the Refact billing method is particularly useful. It reprises the supplier's billing formula and adds a defined margin on top. The margin percentage is configured in the folder parameters, so the same catalog article can produce different prices depending on the folder it is placed in.

Multilingual Descriptions

Each article can store descriptions in both French and English. Two translatable fields are available on the article form:

• Display description (short) — a brief label used in certain listing views
• Long description — a detailed description for documentation or portal display

Both fields have FR / EN tabs directly in the form. Switch tabs to enter each language variant. The main Designation field (used on quotes and invoices) is not translated — it is a single shared value.

Families and subfamilies also support a translatable display name, editable from Configuration → Catalog → Families.

Selling Prices by Currency

In addition to the article's default price, you can define selling prices in multiple currencies. This is useful when you bill some customers in a currency other than your default (for example EUR and CHF).

On the article's edit page, the Selling prices section shows all configured currency prices. Click Add to set a price for a new currency — one price per currency is allowed. These per-currency prices are used automatically when a folder or quote is denominated in that currency.

Buying Prices by Supplier

The Supplier prices section on the article edit page lets you record one buying price per supplier–currency combination. Each entry has:

• Supplier — the vendor this price applies to
• Buying price — the net cost without tax
• Currency — the currency of the supplier's invoice
• Default — mark one entry as the default buying price used in margin calculations

Maintaining supplier prices per article gives you an accurate cost base for each sourcing option and makes it easy to switch suppliers without losing historical pricing data.

Next Steps

Once your catalog is set up, see Bundles to group articles into reusable templates, Warehouses to manage physical stock, and Folders & Configuration to start building client folders.