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Catalogue & classification

The Catalogue module is the store's product foundation. Before creating a single product, you need to understand how Mahtos classifies and locates a product — it drives your statistics, your checkout navigation, your supplier orders and your declarations.

Two axes structure every product: what it is (commercial classification) and where it is (spatial location).

1. Commercial classification — what the product is​

📁 Product family (the macro level)​

The top-level parent category. It groups products that share a common purpose or identical regulation: prescription handling, a specific VAT rate, storage conditions… In a pharmacy, for example, "Medicines", "Parapharmacy" and "Medical devices" are distinct families because they don't follow the same rules.

Hierarchical purpose: the family is the starting point of the whole hierarchy. Listing your families well means defining the regulatory and statistical logic of the entire catalogue.

🗂️ Group (the specialization)​

A direct sub-category of the family. It segments stock to refine sales statistics and ease POS catalogue navigation. Example: family "Drinks" → groups "Sodas", "Waters", "Juices".

🏷️ Brand (the commercial entity)​

The manufacturer or laboratory that owns the product's intellectual property. It is essential to analyze supplier performance and negotiate purchase volumes. Creating brands is optional but strongly recommended: it groups products better and lets you steer purchasing by brand.

🔖 Sub-brand (the specific range)​

A variant or product line created by the brand to target a precise need (e.g. brand "L'Oréal" → sub-brand "L'Oréal Men Expert").

2. Spatial location — where the product is​

🌍 Region (the geographic or logistics zone)​

  • In multi-store setups, the region represents the overall geographic zone.
  • In a very large store / warehouse, it can designate a major logistics section: Main Sales Zone, Back Storage, Cold Zone (cold chain)…
  • For a single store, think of the region as a grouping of aisles — the header that sits above several aisles.

🏪 Aisle / Sector (the shelf or aisle)​

The physical anchor point in the store: the aisle, shelf, gondola or counter where the product is stored to be reachable by customers or staff. It's the most concrete level of location.

For a clean, usable catalogue, create the reference data in this order before entering products:

  1. Aisles — first list your aisles (and, if useful, the regions that group them). Make sure your business has described its physical layout.
  2. Product families — list your families keeping their hierarchical role in mind (regulation, VAT, statistics), then their groups.
  3. VAT rates — configure your VAT rates (see Finance & HR). A mistaxed product distorts your declarations.
  4. Suppliers — list your suppliers (very important): every reception and purchase order relies on them.
  5. Brands (optional but recommended) — and their sub-brands, to group and analyze better.
  6. Products — you can finally create product sheets, already linked to a family, an aisle, a supplier and (ideally) a brand.

Following this order avoids fixing hundreds of sheets later: when you create a product, all the links already exist.

Creating a product in Store Manager​

Creation happens in a wide-view editor, designed to quickly enter many attributes on a single row. Every element matters:

  • Short name: what shows at the register (POS) — keep it readable.
  • Family / Group: drive regulation and statistics.
  • Aisle: the physical location (and the region if you use them).
  • Supplier: for restocking and purchase orders.
  • Brand / Sub-brand: for commercial analysis.
  • Purchase / sale price and VAT: for margins and declarations.
  • Lot tracking: enable it for products with expiry dates (essential in pharmacy / food).

Choosing the product type (its nature)​

The product type is not cosmetic: it changes system behavior. Mahtos distinguishes the natures standard, medicine, cosmetic and food.

  • Pharmacy case: marking a product as a medicine is crucial. It enables specific handling (dosage, Vidal link, prescription alerts at checkout, breakdown by nature in Finance & HR). A medicine wrongly typed as "standard" escapes these rules.
  • Cosmetic: composition / ingredients fields.
  • Food: nutritional values, expiry sensitivity.
  • Standard: everything else.

Correct typing directly feeds the Revenue analysis module (Finance & HR), which breaks down revenue by nature: every product set to "medicine" sums its revenue, "cosmetics" theirs, etc.

Creating the sheet (wide-view) is distinct from managing the product (statistics, barcodes, pricing, restocking, nature change) — see Manage the product.