Product-related codes are the basis for all material entered into CATS. This page provides a description of how to enter these codes into CATS and any special features associated with each type of code. These codes are found under Codes & Terms > Product Codes > Product Codes.

Accessing the Product Codes Area

Product codes allow you to distinguish between several types of material that you may buy or sell.

You should create a new product code if you want to be able to separate out material by product type. For example, if you deal with both Coffee and Tea products, you may wish to create two products, COF and TEA.

Select Add from the product code scan to create a new product code.

Add a New Product Code from the Scan

Enter details about this product to be used when describing this material. Enter a default basis for the product. Select Apply to continue.

Edit Product Details

Category codes are used to create classifications for types of material within products. Examples are creating categories with product COF (coffee) for ROB (robusta), ARA (arabica), or DEC (decaffeinated). If you have a product MTS (meats), you can create categories POR (pork) or BF (beef).

Pick Add from the category scan to add a new category code.

Add a code from the Product Category Scan

Enter the new code and pick Apply to continue.

Enter New Product Category Name

Fill in the details for this product category.

Product Category Details

Description - Enter a long description to be displayed when viewing this category.
Marine FOB Insurance Rate - Marine insurance rate to be used for this category when material is for shipment terms FOB.
Marine CIF Insurance Rate - Marine insurance rate to be used for this category when material is for shipment terms CIF.
Inland Insurance Rate - Inland insurance rate to be used for this category.
Warehouse Insurance Rate - Warehouse insurance rate to be used for this category.
Measure, e.g. Bags Ctn Boxes - Default measure for this category. You can override this on the grade or the contract.
Exchange - Default exchange for this category. You can override this on the grade or the contract item. The exchange can be used for Net Physical and Overall Position report purposes.
Weighing Factor - Ratio to use for calculating the weight of material in this category.
Purchase G/L - Default Purchase G/L number to use on invoices for this category, instead of the invoice default.
Sale G/L - Default Sale G/L number to use on invoices for this category, instead of the invoice default.

If you enter insurance rates for this category, CATS will use this insurance rate for marine FOB, marine CIF, inland, and warehouse insurance rates instead of the system-wide default rate.

Filling in the Purchase G/L or Sale G/L fields will cause invoices that reference material in this category to use this G/L instead of the system's default G/L numbers for invoices.

Subcategories come between categories and grade codes in the hierarchy of product codes. They are simply another way to group grade codes together.

Select Add from the subcategory scan to create a new subcategory code.