How to Create a Product with Colours, Sizes, SKUs, Images, HSN and GST

Inventory Manager lets a clothing or footwear wholesaler create one recognisable product with separate sellable SKUs for its colours and sizes. The owner enters the common name, item code, HSN, GST, category and visibility once, then gives each variant its own colour, size, quantity, cost, selling price, system-generated SKU and image.

This avoids two bad inventory structures: showing every size as an unrelated product, or storing one combined quantity that cannot tell the owner which colour and size is actually available.

Product and SKU: the essential difference

A product is the design or item a buyer recognises. A SKU is one exact sellable type inside it.

For example:

• Product: Mickey Mouse Printed T-shirt
• Item code: 6120
• SKU 1: Red / Small
• SKU 2: Red / Medium
• SKU 3: Red / Large
• SKU 4: Blue / Small
• SKU 5: Blue / Medium
• SKU 6: Blue / Large

Inventory Manager can show this as one product with six variants in the catalogue. Opening it reveals the six separate SKU records and their actual stock.

Shared by the complete product	Can differ for each SKU
Product name	Colour
Category	Size
HSN code	System SKU/stock code
GST rate	Quantity
Supplier item code	Cost per piece
Brand	Selling price
Description	Product image
MLS listing decision	Stock availability
MLS price-visibility decision	Low-stock state

The stock location selected during one new-product entry applies to the variants being created in that session. Stock can later be transferred between shops and godowns.

When should a product be added manually?

Use Add Product Manually when there is no connected Trade Manager purchase record behind the stock. Examples include:

• opening inventory being entered for the first time;
• goods bought locally without recording a trade;
• products manufactured or assembled by the business;
• samples converted into sellable stock; or
• another legitimate stock source that was not tracked through Trade Manager.

If the purchase, shipment, receiving and landed cost already exist in Trade Manager, use the connected handoff instead. That preserves the supplier, shipment and calculated-cost link automatically.

Read how to move received goods from Trade Manager into Inventory Manager for that route.

Manual creation is not a replacement for Trade Manager purchase tracking. The optional supplier field is only a useful note; it does not create the supplier-payment, shipment, claim or landed-cost history of a trade.

Starting the manual product flow

In Inventory Manager:

1. open Home;
2. tap Add Product;
3. choose the manual route; and
4. open Add Product Manually.

The form is organised into Basic Info, Tax & Classification, More Details, Location & Visibility, and Variants.

Plan the product before saving. For a multi-variant garment or shoe, count the received quantity of every colour-size combination and keep the actual cost and intended selling price ready.

Step 1: Enter the product name

Use the name buyers and staff will recognise, such as:

• Mickey Mouse Printed T-shirt;
• Women's Block Heel Sandal;
• Boys Denim Jogger; or
• Cotton School Shirt.

Do not place colour, size, stock quantity or shop name in the common product name when those facts belong to variants or locations.

Good:

Mickey Mouse Printed T-shirt

Avoid:

Mickey Mouse Red M 3 Pieces Shop 1

The clean shared name improves the product list, Order Manager search, Staff Bill product selection and the public My Local Shops catalogue.

Step 2: Select the category

Category is required when creating a new product. It helps organise the catalogue and supports category-based browsing and filtering.

Choose the factual category for the complete design, such as the configured men's clothing, women's clothing, children's clothing or footwear category. All variants created under that product receive the same category.

Inventory Manager can suggest a category when the entered HSN chapter matches category metadata. Treat the suggestion as assistance, not a legal classification decision.

Step 3: Enter HSN and GST

HSN code and GST rate are required for a new product in the current flow.

They are shared because Red / M and Blue / L of the same shirt design normally use the same classification and rate. The owner does not need to type the tax fields nine times for nine variants.

The GST selector supports the configured tax slabs:

• 0%;
• 5%;
• 12%;
• 18%; and
• 28%.

Inventory Manager can suggest a GST rate from available HSN and price context, but the seller must confirm the correct value. HSN and GST determine how the item is treated when Order Manager or Staff Bill creates a GST invoice.

If the factual classification is uncertain, confirm it with the business's CA. Software can preserve and apply the chosen rate; it cannot decide the legal classification of an unknown item on the owner's behalf.

Even when the business often creates non-GST bills, completing HSN and GST at product creation prevents staff from facing missing tax information when a GST invoice is later required.

Step 4: Add the supplier item code

The optional Item code is the common code used by the supplier or the owner's catalogue for the design.

For example:

• Item code: 6120
• Product: Mickey Mouse Printed T-shirt
• Variants: nine colour-size SKUs

The same item code can help the owner and billing staff search for the grouped product without remembering every SKU. Inventory Manager normalises the saved code for consistent use.

Item code is not the SKU:

• item code identifies the common design; and
• SKU identifies one exact sellable variant.

Enter it carefully. The product-editing experience protects identity fields such as the system SKU and supplier item code from casual changes after stock history has started using them.

Step 5: Add optional product details

The form also accepts:

• Brand — when buyers use the brand to identify the item;
• Description — useful material, style or packing information; and
• Supplier / where you got it — a free-text note for a manually added product.

These fields should improve recognition rather than become a second notebook. Do not paste payment history, private negotiation or transport details into a product description.

If complete purchase traceability is required, record the purchase in Trade Manager instead of relying on the optional supplier note.

Step 6: Choose the stock location

Select the shop or godown where the pieces physically exist now.

If all 48 shirts are currently in the Bhiwandi godown, create them there. Do not split the form conceptually by future destination. After the goods move, use a stock transfer to place the correct quantities into Shop 1 or Shop 2.

The selected location affects:

• available quantity at that location;
• total inventory units;
• location stock worth;
• product availability in location-filtered screens; and
• which shop can use that stock for billing.

A quantity should never be assigned to a shop merely to make the product appear on its public page. Inventory must reflect the physical business first.

Step 7: Control My Local Shops visibility

Manual creation shows two separate controls:

List on MyLocalShop

This decides whether the product is eligible for the buyer-facing digital shop.

Turn it off when the item must remain private—for example, internal material, a restricted product or stock not intended for public enquiry.

Show price on MyLocalShop

This decides whether the saved selling price may appear publicly. The choice applies across the product's variants.

The current default behaviour is:

• listed on My Local Shops: on; and
• show public price: off.

That default suits wholesalers who want customers to discover and enquire about a design while the final deal price remains negotiable.

These settings never publish private cost, exact stock quantity, supplier notes or owner profit. Public appearance still depends on the subscribed shop, active product state and stock availability.

Step 8: Add the first variant

Every row represents one SKU. For a new row, enter the applicable:

• colour;
• size;
• cost per piece;
• selling price; and
• quantity.

The selling price and quantity must be greater than zero before saving. Cost should be the truthful acquisition or production cost for that SKU.

Because a manual product has no Trade Manager costing behind it, Inventory Manager cannot calculate that cost from supplier payments and shipping charges. The value entered here becomes the stock-cost basis used by inventory valuation and later invoice-profit reporting.

A missing or zero cost will cause stock worth and future profit calculations to treat the cost accordingly. If the true cost is available, enter it instead of using zero merely to finish the form.

Colour and size are optional at the field level so products without conventional variants can still be stored. For a garment or shoe with real types, enter them. A one-type product may use a factual value such as Free Size, Standard or the relevant pack/type when that is how the business sells it.

Step 9: Let the system generate the SKU

The SKU field is read-only and marked as generated automatically.

Inventory Manager creates one base identity for the product-entry session and appends the entered colour and size. A simplified example may look like:

MLS-ABC234-RED-M

The exact generated base can differ, but the principle remains:

• all new variants from that product entry share one base;
• the colour-size suffix distinguishes each SKU; and
• the user cannot manually replace the SKU.

This protects several connected behaviours:

• SKU search;
• barcode generation;
• barcode scanning;
• stock transfers;
• invoice deduction;
• product-listing membership; and
• multi-device stock updates.

Two rows cannot resolve to the same SKU. If Red / M appears twice, combine the quantities rather than trying to create duplicate identities.

Step 10: Add all remaining variants

Tap Add Variant for each additional sellable type.

For a shirt available in three colours and three sizes, create nine rows:

Colour	Size	Quantity	Cost each	Selling price each
Red	S	3	₹200	₹290
Red	M	3	₹200	₹295
Red	L	3	₹205	₹305
Blue	S	3	₹200	₹290
Blue	M	3	₹200	₹295
Blue	L	3	₹205	₹305
Green	S	3	₹198	₹290
Green	M	3	₹198	₹295
Green	L	3	₹203	₹305
Total		27

This becomes one product with nine SKUs and 27 total pieces—not nine unrelated catalogue cards and not one stock number hiding which type is available.

Cost and selling price can differ by SKU. This supports cases where larger sizes cost more, a specific colour is priced differently or the supplier charged different rates.

Step 11: Save the product

Before saving, Inventory Manager validates the required shared fields and each row's quantity, selling price and identity.

For a new multi-variant product, the save creates:

• one private product document per SKU;
• a shared variant-group/listing identity;
• location stock for every SKU;
• the opening stock movement;
• inventory dashboard unit and value updates;
• location unit and value updates; and
• a grouped buyer-safe product listing for catalogue and billing search.

The main Inventory Manager catalogue can therefore display the design once with a variant count. Order Manager and Staff Bill can search the grouped product and open all available SKUs together.

The source remains recorded as manual rather than pretending it came from a Trade Manager purchase.

Step 12: Add images after saving

After new SKU records are created, Inventory Manager opens the photo step.

For each new variant, the owner can:

• take a camera photo;
• choose an image from the gallery;
• reuse a photo already saved for another variant in the same session; or
• skip and add photos later from Product Detail.

Reusing a suitable image reference is useful when sizes look identical. It avoids storing and downloading duplicate files. If Red and Blue look different, give them separate photos so staff and customers can identify the correct type.

The image workflow creates an optimised thumbnail for compact lists and retains the larger image for deliberate viewing. The grouped product listing is updated so Inventory Manager, Order Manager, Staff Bill and the public digital shop can use the current image reference.

Photos are SKU-specific. A later change to Blue / M does not require replacing the Red / M image.

What happens when Restock is selected?

Each row also provides a Restock option. Use it only when the exact SKU already exists.

For a manual restock:

1. select Restock on that row;
2. search and choose the existing product/SKU;
3. verify its current last cost and selling price;
4. enter the new batch cost, quantity and intended selling price; and
5. save it into the selected location.

The existing SKU stays unchanged. The stock addition uses a concurrency-safe transaction and updates cost information from the current committed inventory state.

When cost has meaningfully changed, Protect your profit can suggest pricing approaches using old leftover quantity, old cost, new cost and current selling price. It does not silently force a result.

For clarity, create a genuinely new grouped product in one clean entry and handle unrelated existing-SKU restocks separately. Do not combine products merely because they arrived on the same day.

The next operational guide explains restocking, transfers, adjustments and write-offs in detail.

What can be edited later?

Product Detail allows deliberate updates to merchandising and classification fields, but stock identity deserves stronger protection.

Shared information such as name, brand, description, HSN, GST and category can be updated for the grouped item. SKU-specific images and selling prices can be changed for the applicable type.

System SKU is not manually editable. Colour, size, supplier item code and cost history are not casual text edits because changing them after invoices, labels and movements exist would damage traceability. Use the appropriate stock or product workflow rather than renaming history.

How the product appears across the platform

Once saved:

• Inventory Manager shows one catalogue item with its variants and stock;
• Order Manager lets the owner search by product name or item code and add several SKUs together;
• Staff Bill gives authorised staff the same billing-friendly grouped selection without showing owner cost or profit;
• My Local Shops website can display the buyer-safe product when listing and availability conditions are satisfied; and
• barcode labels and SKU scanning can identify one exact variant.

The common product record removes repeated searching, while separate SKU records protect operational truth.

Common mistakes to avoid

Creating one product for every size

Use one grouped product with variant rows. Otherwise the catalogue becomes repetitive and customers or staff must search the same design repeatedly.

Combining all stock into one quantity

If the business sells by colour and size, each type needs its own SKU and quantity.

Typing colour and size into the product name only

Use the variant fields so scanning, availability and invoice selection understand the type.

Confusing item code with SKU

The item code identifies the common design. The generated SKU identifies an exact variant.

Entering zero cost despite knowing the purchase cost

That understates stock worth and overstates later profit. Enter the factual per-piece cost for manual stock.

Choosing the future sales shop instead of the current location

Record where the stock physically exists, then transfer it when it moves.

Publishing a price by accident

Review both MLS toggles. Listing and price visibility are separate decisions.

Creating a duplicate instead of restocking

Search the existing catalogue first when the design or SKU may already exist.

Using manual creation for a fully tracked trade

Use the Trade Manager handoff to retain connected landed cost and shipment traceability.

Frequently asked questions

Can one product have different prices for different sizes?

Yes. Cost and selling price are entered per SKU, so a larger size can have a different price.

Is colour or size compulsory for every possible product?

The manual fields support a single product without conventional variants. For garments and footwear with real types, enter the factual colour and size so stock remains usable.

Can users type their own SKU?

No. The SKU is generated and locked to protect connected search, barcode, stock and invoice behaviour.

Can all variants share one image?

Yes. Reuse one image when the variants genuinely look the same. Use different images when colour or appearance changes.

Are HSN and GST required for a new product?

Yes. The current new-product flow requires HSN, GST rate and category.

Does adding HSN make the product a GST invoice automatically?

No. It prepares the product's tax classification. The billing app still follows the invoice's GST or non-GST choice and eligibility.

Will customers see my cost or exact quantity?

No. The buyer-safe listing does not publish owner cost or exact private inventory quantity.

Can I create the same product at two locations in one entry?

One location is selected for the variants in that manual entry. Add the opening stock where it physically exists, then use stock transfer or a later restock for another location.

Can I change the SKU later?

No. The system protects the SKU as the stable identity used by labels, scanning, stock history and invoices.

Should old stock be recreated as a new product when more pieces arrive?

No. Select the exact existing SKU and restock it so history, quantity and cost remain connected.

Continue learning Inventory Manager

• Read the complete Inventory Manager guide
• Manage colours, sizes, SKUs, barcodes and multiple locations
• Move received Trade Manager goods into inventory
• Create a real-time digital wholesale shop
• View Inventory Manager

A well-created product becomes the common language of the connected platform. The owner sees truthful cost and stock, staff find the correct variant quickly, invoices deduct the right SKU, and customers see one clean product instead of a confusing list of duplicate sizes.