Catalogue and customer-specific pricing

A B2B catalogue answers two questions: what does this buyer see, and what does this buyer pay. In xMatix the first is a merchandising layer — store catalogues presented through the Product Catalogue surface — and the second is the Sales pricing machinery: price lists and discount groups scoped down to the individual account. This page covers both halves and how they meet.

The item master and the store catalogue

Items are the commercial records: units of measure, SKUs, lot types, package flags and classifications live on the item, and every document line ultimately references one. Merchandising sits in a separate layer so the same item can be presented differently per audience. A Store (Commerce app → Stores) carries a name, currency and an optional partner account or partner account group; its Related tab holds the browse tree. How to create and maintain one is in Stores. Partner Store links, which also decide who resolves to the store, are kept in their own list (see Partner Store links).

• Store categories nest under a parent and carry Show in Catalog. A category's Product Catalogue field is not read; the store's filter settings (which groupings and price bands the catalogue offers) are a separate record found through the store, described in Catalogue filter settings. Once any category in a store has it switched on, only those categories are offered in the catalogue's category filter. Products in the other categories still appear under All.
• Store category items are the catalogue entries: each wraps an item with its selling content — a marketing name and description, highlights, images, a storefront price and MRP, and an optional component hierarchy for composite products, with an assembly image whose regions map to components. Catalogue cards are always priced from price lists. How to create entries, and which fields each surface uses, is in Catalogue entries.
• Partner Store links tie a partner account (the selling company, typically a dealer or distributor, and optionally one of its branches) to the store it sells from; a store can also name a partner account or partner account group directly. Resolution is most-specific-first: the store naming the partner, then a partner-store link, then the account group. The next section explains the links in full.

Keeping merchandising separate from the item master means the catalogue can be reworked — renamed, reorganized, re-imaged — without touching the records that drive pricing, stock and accounting. The public storefront adds one more layer on top: a published snapshot of the store's range, described in Direct-to-consumer selling.

Partner Store links: which store a partner sells from

A Partner Store record says "this partner account sells from this store", optionally for one branch of that partner. The partner account is the selling company on a document, typically a dealer or distributor in your network. The link decides which store's range that partner sees in the Product Catalogue, which range its sales executives may sell, which store its microsite sells from, and, through pincode coverage, which brand-storefront orders are routed to it.

Use a Partner Store link when:

• several partners share one store but don't belong to one account group;
• one partner sells from different stores at different branches;
• a distributor with no microsite should still receive brand-storefront orders for the pincodes it delivers to.

If a whole tier of partners sells the same range, naming their account group on the store is simpler. If a store belongs to one partner outright, name the partner on the store itself.

How xMatix chooses a partner's store

xMatix tries three links in order and stops at the first that gives a store:

1. A store whose Partner Account is the partner. This always wins, and the partner's Partner Store links are then not consulted.
2. The partner's Partner Store links that name a store. A link with no Store is ignored.
3. A store whose Partner Account Group is a group the partner belongs to. Memberships switched off explicitly don't count.

Within step 2 the branch is a preference, not a fence:

• In the Product Catalogue on a document, and when a microsite is created, a link for the document's branch is used first, then a link with no branch, then any other link of the partner, including one for a different branch.
• In the selling scope that narrows a sales executive's range (web and mobile), the links for the selling branch and the links with no branch are candidates together; if there are none, all of the partner's links are. The newest of the candidate stores is used.

When nothing resolves, the Product Catalogue shows the whole item master with the warning "Showing all products, not this account's range", the selling scope does not narrow the range, and creating a microsite for the partner is refused.

Prerequisites

• The organisation is set up for more than one company. With We run multiple companies off (Setup → Feature Hub → Administration → Org Settings), Partner Store records are hidden.
• The partner exists as an active account flagged as a partner account. The Partner Account picker offers only those.
• The store exists and has its categories and items (Commerce app → Stores).
• Your security profile can create Partner Store records (see Permissions).

Step 1 — Open the Partner Store list

Partner Store has no menu entry in the shipped apps, and the shipped Store record page does not list its links. Open the list directly by adding /PartnerStore to your xMatix address. Two views are provided, Partner Store and All Partner Store. To give users a menu entry, an administrator can add the record to an app (see Create an entity, which covers adding a record to an app's items).

Step 2 — Create a link

1. Select New. If your user has a default company and branch, the form can open with them already in Partner Account and Branch. Replace them with the partner's values, and clear Branch if the link is for every branch.
2. Fill in the form:
   • Name — your own name for the link, such as the partner and store names. There is no automatic numbering.
   • Partner Account — the partner company.
   • Branch — leave empty for "every branch", or pick one branch of the partner. The field is hidden when your organisation works from one location.
   • Store — the store whose range the partner sells.
   • Currency ISO Code — optional and for reference only.
3. Save.

The link takes effect the next time a store is resolved for that partner. A catalogue that is already open remembers the previous answer until the page is reloaded.

Step 3 — Review or change a link

Open the link from the list. The record page shows Partner Account and Branch in its header, a Related card with the link's Partner Service Areas, and a Details card with Key Information (Currency ISO Code, State, City, Owner) and System Information. The header buttons are Clone, Edit and Delete.

The Store is not shown on the record page. Select Edit to see or change it, together with the other fields of the create form. City and State are reference fields that you edit in place on the record page; they play no part in choosing a store.

Step 4 — Give the partner pincode coverage (optional)

Coverage lets brand-storefront orders be routed to a partner that has no microsite of its own.

1. On the link's record page, under Related → Partner Service Areas, select New.
2. Enter a Name (for example the pincode), set Area Type to Pincode, enter the Postal Code, set a Priority (lower wins) and switch Is Active on. Leave Microsite empty: an area belongs either to a microsite or to a Partner Store link.
3. Save, and repeat for each pincode.

Routing reads only active areas, matches the shipping pincode exactly, and needs Route By Pincode switched on for the storefront channel. When a microsite and a Partner Store link cover the same pincode, the better priority wins, and a tie goes to the microsite. The link must have a Partner Account: an area on a link without one is never used. The shopper's "who delivers to my pincode" check answers from microsite areas only, so a link's coverage routes orders but is not shown to shoppers. Routing itself is described in Partner microsites and order routing.

An administrator endpoint can also replace a link's whole pincode list in one call. It refuses a link with no partner account with the message "Set the partner account on this Partner Store before giving it coverage."

Step 5 — Check which store a partner gets

Open a new order for the partner (with the branch you want to test) and select Product Catalogue. If the catalogue shows the store's categories, the partner resolves to a store. If it shows the warning "Showing all products, not this account's range", nothing resolved: check the three links above. Remember that a store naming the partner directly beats every Partner Store link.

Step 6 — Remove a link

Select Delete on the record page or in the list. The partner's next resolution falls through to its other links or to its account group. Pincode areas created under the link are not deleted with it, but they stop routing because their link is gone.

Fields

Field-by-field technical detail is in the Partner Store field reference, which still lists the record under its earlier name, Store Dealer.

Business rules

• The store naming the partner directly always beats a Partner Store link, and a link always beats the account-group path.
• Nothing stops you creating two links for the same partner and branch. Which one the catalogue uses is then not defined, and the selling scope uses the newer store, so keep one link per partner and branch.
• Nothing checks that the chosen Branch belongs to the chosen Partner Account. A branch of another company never matches a document's branch, so the link then behaves like a link for some other branch of the partner.
• Clone copies the link's own fields only; its pincode areas are not copied.
• No validation, business rule or numbering setting is shipped for Partner Store.

Permissions for Partner Store links

The shipped System Admin, Sales Manager, Sales Executive and Standard User profiles have full access to Partner Store records, so they can create, edit and delete links. Clone is a server action and needs its own grant: System Admin, Sales Executive and Standard User have it, Sales Manager does not. Pincode areas need access to Partner Service Area records as well. Adjust these under security profiles.

Example

A brand runs two stores: Urban Range and Rural Range. Its distributor, Riverside Distributors, sells the urban range from its City Depot branch and the rural range from its Hill Depot branch.

1. The administrator opens /PartnerStore and creates Riverside – City Depot (Partner Account Riverside Distributors, Branch City Depot, Store Urban Range).
2. They create Riverside – Hill Depot (same partner, Branch Hill Depot, Store Rural Range).
3. A sales executive raises an order for Riverside Distributors at City Depot and opens Product Catalogue. The catalogue shows the Urban Range categories.
4. On an order at Hill Depot, the catalogue shows the Rural Range.
5. Riverside later opens a third branch with no link. Orders there still get a store from one of the two links, so the administrator adds Riverside – default with no branch and Store Urban Range. The new branch now gets the urban range.
6. Riverside also delivers to pincode 560001. On the City Depot link, the administrator adds a Partner Service Area for 560001 with Priority 50. With Route By Pincode on for the brand storefront's channel, storefront orders shipped to 560001 are stamped with Riverside Distributors and City Depot as the selling company and branch.

Practice exercise

In a sandbox with at least two companies, pick a partner account that no store names directly and that belongs to no account group linked to a store.

1. Open a new order for that partner and open Product Catalogue. Expected: the warning "Showing all products, not this account's range".
2. Create a Partner Store link from that partner to any store with items, leaving Branch empty.
3. Reload the order page and open Product Catalogue again. Expected: the store's categories, and no warning.
4. Delete the link and reload. Expected: the warning comes back.

Quick reference

• Partner Store = "this partner sells from this store", optionally per branch.
• Open it at /PartnerStore; it is in no menu and not on the store page.
• A store naming the partner directly beats every link; links beat account groups.
• A link without Store or Partner Account is ignored.
• Empty Branch = every branch; a branch link is a preference, not a fence.
• One link per partner and branch.
• The Store field shows only under Edit.
• Pincode coverage: Related → Partner Service Areas, Area Type Pincode, lower Priority wins.
• Reload the page after changing a link; an open catalogue keeps its answer.

Troubleshooting for these links is under Common problems.

Browsing: the Product Catalogue surface

The Product Catalogue action — in the record header of orders, purchase orders and service orders, and on the order-line and purchase-order-line toolbars — opens the store's catalogue against the open document. The store is resolved from the document's partner account through the links above. The surface presents entries as a card grid with search, sorting, collection tabs (Focused, Frequently Ordered, New Items, Schemes, All), a barcode path and a filter rail whose facets come from the data and the store's catalogue filter settings, and enriches each card from the item's own records:

• Units — quantities are entered per unit of measure from the item's unit ladder (case, box, piece), not as a bare number.
• Prices — card prices come from price list rules, the same rules that price order lines.
• Offers — trade scheme hints appear on qualifying items, as prompts rather than applied discounts.
• Stock — availability and reorder levels are shown from live stock.
• History — the buyer's frequently ordered items and likely reorders, from their past orders.

Each enrichment is independent, so a missing facet degrades that facet rather than blocking the catalogue; only the item read itself gates the screen. A rep's selling scope is applied on top, so the catalogue is never a way around entitlements. Two empty states differ: a store that curates nothing shows "No products in this catalogue" (or "No products match the current search and filters"), while a document whose partner account resolves to no store at all falls back to the whole item master with a visible warning — "Showing all products, not this account's range" — so a plausible full range is never mistaken for the account's. Fix the second by linking a store to the partner account.

Add to document writes the chosen lines to the open document immediately, and each line then runs the normal line handlers for price, discount and derived values. What happens next is covered in Dealer ordering.

Kits: assembly pictures and part regions

A kit is a catalogue entry whose parts are ordered one by one. It lets a rep pick spare parts off a picture of the assembly instead of searching a list. You build it from records you already have:

• the kit is a store category item;
• each part is another store category item whose Parent Store Category Item is the kit;
• the assembly picture is an image file uploaded to the kit entry, and the newest image file is the one shown;
• each region is an area drawn on that picture and linked to one part. Regions are saved as Store Item Image records, one per region (field reference).

Ordering parts from a kit

In the Product Catalogue, a kit's card shows a strip such as 4 components — pick individually instead of a quantity of its own, because the kit itself is not what you order. Select the strip to open the kit. The assembly picture is on the left. Each region has a numbered marker (01, 02, …), and selecting a region or its marker opens that part's details. On the right is the list of parts, each with its unit cost, stock and a Quantity control.

• The list shows only the parts that have a region, in marker order. If no regions are drawn yet, it shows every part, so an unconfigured kit can still be ordered.
• Select Add components (or Add parts in a visit's order task) to take the picks back to the catalogue. The card then reads 2 of 4 components selected. The parts become lines on the document together with the rest of your cart when you add the cart to the document.
• Opening the kit again lets you change those picks. A part set back to 0 is removed.

On the mobile app, the catalogue shows the same picture, numbered markers and part list, with a quantity stepper on each part. The mobile catalogue has no region editor.

Set up a kit's regions

Regions are drawn in the region editor. On the web you can open it from two places: the Polygon Partition card on the kit's catalogue entry record (Step 3 below), or the gear button on a kit's assembly picture in the Product Catalogue ("Configure image regions"). Both save the same records.

#### Step 1 — Open the kit's catalogue entry

Open Commerce → Stores and then the store. On its Related tab open the store category, and on the category's Related tab open the kit entry. The record page shows the entry's files panel and the Polygon Partition card.

#### Step 2 — Add the picture and the parts

Upload the assembly picture as an image file in the entry's files panel. Then create one catalogue entry for each part and set its Parent Store Category Item to the kit. On the catalogue card, the "N components" strip counts only the parts that have a Store Category, so a kit whose parts have none shows no strip. Until both exist, the card shows No image uploaded… or No child items. Add sub-parts to enable polygon mapping. The first message tells you to upload to the Store Item Image record, but the picture actually belongs on the kit entry itself.

#### Step 3 — Open the editor

On the Polygon Partition card, select Configure. The Configure Regions editor opens over the picture. The first time, a short tip explains the two drawing tools. Select Got it — Start Drawing to close it.

#### Step 4 — Draw a region

Select Draw and choose a tool:

• Rect: click and drag a box around the part. This is the fastest way.
• Polygon: click each corner of the outline, then click the first point again or double-click to close it. This tool is for parts with irregular shapes.

Shortcuts: R and P switch tools, Ctrl+Z undoes, Esc abandons the outline in progress, and the zoom buttons or Ctrl+scroll zoom the picture.

#### Step 5 — Link the region to its part

A new region opens in the side panel straight away. If only one part is still unlinked, the editor links it for you. Otherwise, pick the part from the list under AI Recommendation. Despite the name, this is simply the list of parts that no other region uses yet, so each part can have only one region on a picture. Select Add to confirm and move to the next region that has no part.

To change a region later, select Edit, click the region and drag its corners. To remove it, use the delete icon in its row in the side panel, or press Delete. Markers are renumbered 01, 02, … in drawing order whenever a region is removed.

#### Step 6 — Save

Select Save. If any region has no part, the editor warns Some regions have no part: choose Save anyway to drop those regions, or Keep editing. After saving, you see Polygon regions saved and the markers appear on the picture. Cancel with unsaved changes asks Discard changes? first.

How regions behave

• Each saved region is one Store Item Image record, linked to the kit and to its part. Saving updates the regions you kept, creates the new ones and deletes the ones you removed.
• Region outlines are stored as fractions of the picture's width and height, so they scale with the picture on any screen size. If you replace the picture with one cropped or framed differently, the regions do not move, so redraw them.
• The same regions are used in check-in inspections. There, a region opens the inspection section it is linked to, and the editor shows an extra INSPECTION SECTION picker. Regions belong to the catalogue entry, so a change made from either screen appears in both.

Who can change regions

The screen decides whether the editor is offered at all:

Saving creates, changes and deletes Store Item Image records, so the user also needs those rights on the entity. The shipped Sales, Sales Executive, Sales Manager, Service, Standard User and System Admin profiles have full access. Without it, the save is refused and the editor shows the error. Store Item Image records are not listed in any app menu, so manage them through the editor rather than as records.

Per-account price lists

A price list is scoped, and the scoping is what makes pricing customer-specific. A list can be pinned to any combination of:

One list can be marked default, and every list carries a sequence number. Two resolvers read these scopes, and they differ:

• On documents (orders, invoices, the Product Catalogue cart), the resolver first keeps active lists whose selling company, branch, partner group and — on sales documents — customer group match the document, then sorts by descending sequence before the scoped fields and the default flag. Treat sequence as the primary precedence control; do not assume a narrower list automatically beats a broader one with a higher sequence. The document resolver does not select a list from the direct customer-account scope.
• In storefront carts, the cart pricer ranks lists strictly by entitlement: a list naming this customer first, then one for a customer group they belong to, then a general list with neither, and it never prices from a list scoped to someone else. Sequence is not used; ties go to the newest effective date. A price already snapshotted on the cart line from the published catalogue wins over all of this.

Within the selected list, an eligible rule must match the item, effective date and any SKU, lot-type or service-type scope. Service-type-specific rules are considered first, followed by the newest effective date and then the remaining dimensions, so a newer generic rule can beat an older specific one — test overlapping rules explicitly. The Reprice action and the handling of manually entered prices are documented in Pricing, discounts and taxes.

So "dealer-specific pricing" is modelled, not typed: put the dealer (or its tier group) on a price list, and every order for that dealer prices from it automatically.

Discount groups: contract terms per account

Contract discounts resolve separately from prices. A discount group has a Discount Type of Sale Price or Purchase Price, carries dated discount rules — each targeting an item, a SKU, an item group or every item with a discount percent or a fixed amount — and is scoped by customer account group, selling company, partner account group and branch. A new sales document gets the best-matching active Sale Price group, tested against the customer's and selling company's account groups of type Discount, the selling company and the branch; the matching rule fills the contract discount of each line as it is added, and an item no rule covers simply gets none. The group's Claimable and Claimable Percentage fields are not read, so a contract discount is not recoverable through trade claims. Setup and matching are covered in Discount groups. Trade schemes stack their own scheme discounts and free lines on top of contract discounts — the two are independent, which is what lets a negotiated margin and a promotional offer coexist on one line.

Common problems

The catalogue still shows "Showing all products, not this account's range"

The document's partner account resolved to no store. Check that the partner's Partner Store link names a Store and the right Partner Account, and that the document's partner account is the one on the link. Then reload the page, because an open catalogue keeps its earlier answer.

A partner sees a different store from the one on its link

A store whose Partner Account is that partner wins over every Partner Store link. Check whether any store names the partner in its Partner Account field, and clear it there if the link should apply. If the partner has several links, the branch preference and the newest-store rule described under How xMatix chooses a partner's store decide.

A branch sees the store meant for another branch

A link for one branch is still used for the partner's other branches when there is no link for them and no link without a branch. Add a link for the other branch, or a link with no branch for the default store.

Orders for a pincode are not routed to the distributor

Check that Route By Pincode is on for the storefront channel, the service area's Is Active is on, its Postal Code matches the shipping pincode exactly, the Partner Store link has a Partner Account, and no live microsite covers the pincode with a better or equal priority.

I can't find Partner Store anywhere

It is in no app menu and not on the store's record page. Open /PartnerStore directly. If it still doesn't appear, your organisation is set up as a single company (We run multiple companies is off), which hides Partner Store records.

Common questions

Should I link a partner through its store, a Partner Store link or an account group?

Use the store's own Partner Account when the store belongs to that one partner, because it always wins. Use an account group on the store when a whole tier of partners sells the same range: one store, one group, and membership decides who gets it. Use a Partner Store link for the cases in between, such as a partner that sells from different stores at different branches, a few partners that share a store without forming a group, or a distributor that needs pincode coverage for storefront orders without having a microsite. Keep one link per partner and branch so the choice is never ambiguous.

Does a Partner Store link restrict which items a sales executive can sell?

Only by deciding the store. The store's categories and their items become the executive's full range, and the executive's own allow and block mappings then narrow it further, as described in Selling scope. The link itself has no item, price or discount settings: prices still come from price lists and discounts from discount groups. If the partner resolves to no store at all, the store no longer narrows the range, so a missing link widens what the executive sees rather than emptying it.

Can two dealers pay different prices for the same item?

Yes. Put dealers into distinct Price-type customer account groups and scope price lists to those groups, or separate them through the selling-company and branch scopes. Set sequence deliberately when more than one active list can match a document. The same account-group pattern applies independently to contract discounts through Discount-type groups.

Where should a negotiated price live?

As a dated price-list rule on the list selected for that customer's group, selling company and branch — not as an informal hand-typed unit price. A manually owned rate can be preserved by the line's manual-rate behaviour, while an explicit Reprice uses the matching rule again. Test the exact document context and overlapping effective dates before relying on the result.

Why does a catalogue card show an offer the order didn't get?

Card offers are hints: they signal that a scheme covers the item. Whether it actually applies is decided by the scheme engine when the document is saved — conditions, slabs, account scoping and budgets all weigh in then. See Schemes and credit.

How does the Frequently Ordered tab choose its items, and can that be changed?

It ranks the items on the buyer's own orders by document date: by default the last 180 days, ranked by how many order lines carry each item, top 25. It reads orders, not invoices, and counts orders of every status. On the mobile app an administrator can change the rule per layout, on the Take Order widget (or as Take Order: Frequently Ordered … on Visit Tasks and Outlet Tasks):

With SOQ off, cards show no SOQ figure. The web catalogue always uses the default rule.

Why does the storefront show one price when the dealer's price list says another?

The published catalogue shows one displayed price per listing, snapshotted at publish time. The dealer's own terms are applied when the cart is priced — the cart pricer prefers a list named for the signed-in customer or their group — and the checkout freeze uses that priced total. Republish the store when displayed prices should change.

How do I put a product picture on a catalogue card?

Upload the image file to the store category item record. Open it and add the file in its files panel. The Product Catalogue on the web and on mobile shows that entry's newest image file that is not archived. Other files, such as a PDF spec sheet, are never used as the picture. An entry with no image file shows no picture, and it never borrows one from another store's entry for the same item. To change a picture, upload the new file. The newest image wins, so the old file can stay or be deleted. The public storefront takes each entry's files when the store is published, so republish the store before a new picture appears there. Product Catalogue Image records are not read by any catalogue screen. Filling one in, including its Image URL, does not change what buyers see (field reference).

Why does a kit list only some of its parts?

Once a kit has regions, the parts list shows only the parts linked to a region, in marker order. That keeps parts that were added under the kit by mistake out of the rep's way. To offer another part, open the region editor, draw a region for it and link it. The kit shows every part only when none of its parts has a region. Regions belong to the entry they were drawn on, so if the same assembly is listed in two stores, draw its regions on each entry.

Can a region open a web page or show extra text?

No. Store Item Image records have Link Url, Detail and Item fields, but the region editor never fills them and no screen reads them. Selecting a region always opens the part it is linked to, or in check-in inspections the linked inspection section.

Related topics

• Check-in inspections
• Partner microsites and order routing
• Selling scope
• Partner Store field reference
• Store Item Image field reference
• Pricing, discounts and taxes
• Dealer ordering
• Schemes and credit
• Portal storefronts
• Commerce screens and records