Catalog Wizard

Requires Enterprise or Corporate Edition

The Catalog Wizard allows you to easily create product catalogs and price lists for printing, saving to disk as PDF files, transfer to Excel, and for emailing and faxing to your customers. To access the Catalog Wizard, select from the main menu Section|Stock Control and then from the Stock Control menu Tools|Catalog Wizard.

Step 1 - Select Your Customer or Stock Groups

Include Stock Groups

If you only wish to include selected stock groups in your price list or product catalog, tick Include Stock Groups and press the Stock Groups button. This will present you with a list of stock groups to choose from. Tick the clipboard symbol of those groups you wish to include and then press the Leave button.

If you do not tick Include Stock Groups CAPITAL will include all eligible items in the product price list or catalog, regardless of their stock group.

To learn more about stock groups consult the topic Stock Groups.

Include Supplier Groups

If you only wish to include selected supplier groups in your price list or product catalog, tick Include Supplier Groups and press the Supplier Groups button. This will present you with a list of supplier groups to choose from. Tick the clipboard symbol of those groups you wish to include and then press the Leave button.

If you do not tick Include Supplier Groups CAPITAL will include all eligible items in the product price list or catalog, regardless of their supplier group.

To learn more about supplier groups consult the topic Stock & Supplier Group Lists.

Step 2 - Select Product To Include

Location of Catalog Stock

This question is visible if you manage stock at more than one stock locations. If this is the case, you must specify a stock location from which the product price list or catalog is generated. Keep in mind that leaving this field blank means that stock for your price list or catalog will be taken from the location 'blank'. That is to say, taken from stock records which do not have an assigned stock location code. You may not include stock from different locations in your catalog.

To learn more about stock at more than one location consult the topic Multi-Location Stock Control.

Minimum Quantity

Enter the minimum quantity that must be available as free stock for the item to be included in the catalog. If the quantity specified is zero, the quantity free is ignored.

Include Tagged Items

If you have tagged stock items before opening the Catalog Wizard, this option will be enabled. Tick this option to include the stock items you have tagged in the catalog.

If a stock item is tagged, it is always included in your price list or catalog, regardless of any other settings you may have specified that might otherwise exclude it. For example, by default the Catalog Wizard skips stock that has been placed on hold. However, if you tag a stock item that is on hold, it will be included in the Catalog Wizard's output.

To learn more about how to tag stock consult the topic Stock Tagging.

Include Special Items

If you have marked the stock item as Special, and this option is ticked , then the stock item will be included in your price list or product catalog. However, it is important to note that if you have not ticked Include Out of Stock Items and the item marked as 'special' is out of stock, it will not be included in the Catalog's output.

New Stock Items Since

Tick this option to only include new stock in your price list or product catalog. When this setting is ticked, you should also specify a date indicating how new the item should be. The Catalog Wizard looks at the creation date of the stock item to determine if it should be included. It checks the date on the field Created Date and if the date you specify is equal to or later than this date, then it will be included.

The creation date of a stock record is the date at which the stock record was added to the system. If you have imported your data from another source, however, such as a spreadsheet or another application, the creation date of your stock records may not be accurate. CAPITAL maintains creation dates for stock records that are added through the CAPITAL program.

Include Out of Stock Items

If this option is ticked then stock items will be included in the catalog even when there is no free stock available for that stock item. Free stock is calculated as physical stock (Stock In) minus reserved stock (Allocated).

Reserved stock is the quantity of stock that has already been reserved for customers. For example if you have a sales order for 50 units of stock item ABC and you have allocated this stock to the customer, and you have 60 units of stock physically in stock, then you have 10 units of stock available or 'free' for additional sales.

Step 3 - Specify Output

If this option is ticked then your product price list or catalog will be sent to your printer, or you may select to send it to a 'fax printer' for faxing to a customer.

In order to be able to email PDF files to customers you must have the CAPITAL Electronic Document Exchange Component installed.

PDF

Tick this option if you wish to create a PDF file of your price list or product catalog. PDF files can be saved to your network hard disk or emailed to customers.

OfficeLink

Tick this option if you wish to transfer your product price list or product catalog to Excel as a spreadsheet. If you select this option you should also press the Export button and choose which stock fields to include in your spreadsheet.

ASCII Text

If this option is ticked you will be able to create an ASCII comma delimited text file which you can either save to your network hard disk or email to your customers. If you select this option you should also press the Export button and choose which stock fields to include in your ASCII file.

DBF

If this option is ticked then you will be able to create a DBF (dBase III compatible) database file which you can save to your network hard disk or email to your customers.

Export

Press the Export button to indicate which fields to include in either your Excel spreadsheet output or your ASCII comma delimited or DBF file output. A pop-up menu will appear and you may choose from the menu the most common/popular fields or select 'Complete Column List' to view a more comprehensive selection of fields.

The Catalog's Destination

Save Locally

Select this option to save your price list or product catalog locally to your network hard disk. Catalogs will normally be placed in your \CAPITAL\CATALOG folder.

Email Catalog

Select this option to have your price list or product catalog emailed to one or more of your customers.

Fax Catalog

Select this option to have your price list or product catalog faxed to one or more of your customers. If you do not fax server software installed and configured to work with CAPITAL, you will only be able to fax to a single customer at a time.

In order to be able to use this feature with a fax server you must have the CAPITAL Electronic Document Exchange Component installed.

Step 4 - Select Customers & Catalog Style (Conditional)

If you will only be presented with these options if you have chosen to email or fax your price list or product catalog.

Customer Account

Enter the customer account code of the customer you wish to send your catalog to, or press F12 or the look-up button to select from a customer list.

Customer Category

Enter the customer category you wish to send your catalog to. You may choose to send your catalog to a specific customer or a group of customers, but not both. If you do not specify either, your price list or product catalog will be sent to all your customers.

Catalog Style

Choose the type of catalog layout you wish to create and then email, print or fax. You may create your own catalog styles using Visual Builder. For more information on this subject consult the topic: Catalog Wizard Templates.

Step 5 - Select Catalog Style & Name (Conditional)

If you have not chosen to send your price list or product catalog to your customers directly through the Wizard, you will be presented with these options.

Catalog Style

Catalog Name

Specify a file name for your price list or product catalog here. Your catalog will normally be placed inside the \CAPITAL\CATALOG folder.

Step 6 - Fill In Email Details

If you will be emailing your price list or product catalog you will be presented with the following entries to fill.

Subject Heading

Enter the subject heading of your email here.

Body of the Email

Enter any comments, remarks, or instructions relating to the email here. What you type here will be placed inside the body of the email.

Email Address

Enter the email address of your customer here or change the presented email address if you need to. You will not be presented with an option to specify an email address if you will be emailing more than one customer.

Guide To Catalog Templates

2 x 2 Product Items with Pictures & Prices

If this template is selected CAPITAL will format your products in 'picture blocks' 2 across and 2 down the page. A4 sized paper is assumed. It is also assumed that pictures that match your product codes will be found in the \CAPITAL\Pictures directory as JPEG files.

For example, if a product code happens to be ABC123 then CAPITAL looks for the image ABC123.JPG stored inside the folder \CAPITAL\Pictures. If a matching image is not found, white space is displayed instead.

If you will be emailing the catalog to your customers, and any customer special pricing applies, then the customer's special price is used. The price list is sorted and displayed in product code sequence.

2 x 2 Product Items with Pictures & Prices & Bar Codes

The bar code format used in this template is Code 128. The template checks for the existence of a user field called Barcode. If it exists, this is used as the barcode. Otherwise the product name is used.

3 x 4 Product Items with Pictures

If this template is selected CAPITAL will format your products in 'picture blocks' 3 across and 4 down the page. A4 sized paper is assumed. It is also assumed that pictures that match your product codes will be found in the \CAPITAL\Pictures directory as JPEG files.

Price List

The price list catalog template displays the product code, product description and price. If you will be emailing the catalog to your customers, and any customer special pricing applies, then the customer's special price is used. The price list is sorted and displayed in product code sequence.

Price List by Stock Groups

This price list catalog template displays the product code, product description and price, sub-grouped by stock group. If you will be emailing the catalog to your customers, and any customer special pricing applies, then the customer's special price is used.

Hints & Tips

To include all stock items in your price list or product catalog, tick New Stock Items Since and blank the contents of the date field next to this option.
For technical information on creating your own catalog styles consult the topic Catalog Wizard Templates.
Stock items that have been placed on Hold are not included in the Catalog Wizard's output unless the item has specifically been tagged.
Stock items that have their Pricelist field unticked will always be excluded from the Catalog Wizard's output, unless the item has specifically been tagged.
If you will emailing or faxing more than one customer and any of these customers do not have email or fax numbers in their records, then they will automatically be skipped over during the send process.
When fax printing you may only send a price list or product catalog to one customer at a time, unless you have suitable Fax Server software installed. For more information on this subject consult the topic: Faxing.
The Folder button next to the Catalog Name field will be disabled if the CAPITAL program has Print From This Computer unticked under Form Printing Personal Preferences.
You may control which stock items are added to your price list or product catalog by utilizing the Catalog Wizard Stock Hook.

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