Products and Catalogs
Managing price lists
How QuoteNode handles sales and purchase price lists, catalog-aware product work, and quote creation from a selected list.
Managing price lists
In QuoteNode, price lists are not just labels attached to products. They are an operational workflow that affects product maintenance, import behavior, pricing visibility, and how a quote is started.
That is why the application treats price lists as a dedicated surface rather than hiding them behind a generic catalog screen.
Price list types
QuoteNode currently supports two main price-list models:
- Sales price lists - the stored product price is already the commercial sales price.
- Purchase price lists - the stored source price represents the purchase side, and QuoteNode derives the effective sales price through markup rules.
This distinction is important because it changes what the operator is allowed to see and how the system calculates quote-ready values.
Why purchase price lists matter
Purchase-oriented price lists let a team work from supplier cost or acquisition cost while still producing a commercial sales figure for quotes.
In practice, this allows QuoteNode to preserve:
- source pricing,
- derived sales pricing,
- markup strategy,
- pricing provenance that can later be carried into the quote flow.
This is one of the strongest reasons to describe price lists separately from the general product catalog.
Default markup and sensitive pricing
Purchase price lists require a positive default markup configuration. That protects the quoting flow from silently operating on raw cost data without a commercial floor.
Depending on operator permissions, QuoteNode can also restrict visibility of sensitive purchase-side pricing. This means the same price-list system can support:
- full visibility for admins or selected operators,
- reduced exposure for users who should only work with quote-ready sales values.
Working inside a price-list context
Price lists are connected to product workflows, not isolated from them.
From a selected price list, the operator can move into:
- product review,
- product creation,
- product editing,
- import flows,
- quote creation.
That context matters because it reduces mistakes. Instead of browsing a flat product universe and hoping the right price source is implied, the user can stay anchored to the intended commercial scope.
Products in a selected price list
When products are created or edited inside a selected price list, QuoteNode can apply the relevant assumptions immediately:
- active price-list context,
- pricing model,
- markup expectations,
- permission-aware visibility.
This is especially useful for teams that maintain separate commercial views for different channels, suppliers, or acquisition models.
Importing into a price list
QuoteNode’s import workflow is price-list aware.
That means an operator can import products into a chosen list instead of treating all imports as a generic catalog upload. In practice this helps with:
- supplier-specific imports,
- staged commercial rollouts,
- controlled product updates tied to one pricing source,
- safer review before products become quote-ready in another workflow.
For recurring imports, pair this with saved column mappings from the import wizard.
Creating a quote from a price list
QuoteNode can start a quote directly from the selected price list workflow.
This is important because the system preserves context instead of forcing the salesperson to restart from a neutral offer screen. The quote flow can inherit:
- the selected price list,
- the pricing mode behind that list,
- surrounding catalog context used during product review.
Operationally, this shortens the path from “review prices” to “prepare a client-facing quote”.
Pricing provenance in offers
When a product enters the quote flow from a price list, QuoteNode can preserve enough provenance to explain where that commercial value came from.
This matters because pricing work is rarely static. A team may later update the catalog, markup, or supplier data, while still needing the historical quote to remain understandable and auditable.
Price lists therefore support not only maintenance workflows, but also pricing accountability.
When to use separate price lists
Separate price lists are especially useful when:
- sales pricing and purchase pricing must remain distinct,
- different teams should see different pricing depth,
- imports come from different upstream sources,
- operators frequently create quotes from a focused commercial subset,
- the business wants stronger traceability between source price and offered price.