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What is a product?

Learn what defines a product in Katana and how it integrates with inventory and production workflows.

Dayvid Lorbiecke avatar
Written by Dayvid Lorbiecke
Updated over 2 weeks ago

In Katana, a product is any finished good that you manufacture or purchase for resale. Products are central to your manufacturing workflows and sales operations, and understanding how to manage them effectively is key to successful inventory and production planning.


Overview of products

Products in Katana often represent the finished outputs of your manufacturing process. These can be sold directly to customers or used as components in other products (as subassemblies).

Products can be:

  • Manufactured using a product recipe (bill of materials and production operations).

  • Purchased from suppliers and stocked for resale.

  • Assembled into kits or bundles.

Each product has a product card, which stores key data such as cost, stock levels, recipe, and supplier details.

Key attributes

The key fields and options available when managing products in Katana are:

  • Name: The product’s title or label.

  • SKU: A unique identifier for inventory tracking.

  • Variants: Different versions of the product (e.g., color or size).

  • Category: Optional grouping for organizational purposes.

  • Sales price: Default selling price per unit.

  • Default supplier: Preferred vendor for purchasing the product.

  • Product recipe: Bill of Materials and Production Operations used in manufacturing.

  • Stock levels: Quantities available, committed, and expected.

  • Barcode: Optional field for quick scanning.

  • Custom fields: Add your own attributes for better categorization and filtering.

Tip: Define product variants by adding different options (like size or color), allowing you to track and sell them individually.


Managing products

To manage your products:

  1. Navigate to the Items screen.

    Highlights the Items selection from the top menu

  2. Select the Products tab.

    Points to the Products tab within the Items screen

  3. Click on an existing product to open its product card or create a new one.

    Points to a specific product in the Products table

  4. Add details, set up variants, and define recipes or purchase info.

    Shows an example of a product card

Subassemblies (products used in other products)

In Katana, subassemblies are intermediate products that are used as components in the manufacturing of other products.

  • Subassemblies are created and tracked just like regular products.

  • You can manufacture or purchase them independently.

  • They support recipes, stock tracking, and production operations.

Note: Subassemblies are treated as products in Katana. Even though they act as components, this classification ensures full traceability and efficient production planning.

Products for resale (buy and sell)

You can also manage resale products, items you buy from suppliers, and sell directly to customers without manufacturing.

To configure a product for resale:

  • Make sure Sell and Buy are checked

A product card setup to only be for release - Sell and Buy are checked, and Make is not

Ideal for:

  • Dropshipping

  • Trading goods

  • Supplementary stock

Contract manufactured products

If a product is manufactured by an external partner, it can still be treated as a product in Katana.

  • Use outsourced purchase orders (OPOs) to reflect the cost and inbound stock.

  • Track inventory and sales as usual.

If you need to track ingredients, enable both Buy and Make. Then you can add the product to the OPO and track the required ingredients.

You can choose where a product can be used from the Usability section. Choose if it can be sold (SOs), bought (POs), and made (MOs). This section is also used to define if the product is part of a kit/bundle

Kits or bundled products

Katana also supports product bundles, where one sellable item includes multiple components.

  • Each component in a bundle must exist as a separate product or material.

  • Use recipes to define bundle composition.

  • Inventory is managed at the component level.


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