Product Management

Learn how to create categories and manage products in Argo Books.

Expense Side and Revenue Side

Argo Books keeps the things you buy separate from the things you sell. That is why the sidebar has two of each:

Expense categories and Expense products, under the Expenses section, for what you purchase
Revenue categories and Revenue products, under the Revenue section, for what you sell

The two pages work identically. Which one you use decides whether the item shows up when you record an expense or when you record a revenue entry. Rental items have their own category type and live under Rentals.

Why Categories Matter

Categories are the foundation of how Argo Books organizes your data. Every product belongs to a category. By grouping products into categories, you can:

Track spending by area: See how much you're spending on "Office Supplies" vs "Raw Materials" at a glance
Generate meaningful reports: Reports and analytics break down data by category, giving you actionable insights
Stay organized as you grow: As your product catalog grows, categories keep everything manageable

For example, a bakery might create expense categories like "Ingredients," "Packaging," and "Equipment" to track different types of spending separately, and revenue categories like "Bread," "Cakes," and "Catering" for what it sells.

Creating Categories

Go to "Expense categories" or "Revenue categories" in the sidebar
Click "Add Category"
Enter the category name
Optionally add a description, pick a colour and an emoji icon so it stands out in lists and charts
Optionally choose a parent category to nest it underneath an existing one
Save the category

Tip: Create your categories before adding products. This makes it easier to assign each product to the right category as you go.

Adding Products

Go to "Expense products" or "Revenue products" in the sidebar
Click "Add Product"
Enter the product name
Select a category
Fill in any other details (SKU, pricing, supplier, inventory thresholds)
Save the product

Tip: You don't have to add products here first. Type a new item and category on an expense or revenue line and Argo Books creates both when you save, with the item priced at that line's price. Come back here later to fill in the other details.

Product Fields

When adding or editing a product, you can set the following:

Name: The product or service name
SKU: Your own stock code, used for searching and shown on stock levels
Item Type: Whether this is a Product or a Service
Category: Which category the product belongs to
Supplier: The vendor you purchase this product from
Description: Additional notes about the product
Unit Price: The default price used when you add this item to a transaction or invoice
Cost Price: What the item costs you, as a reference figure
Tax Rate: The default tax rate applied when the item is used
Track Inventory: Whether stock levels are kept for this item. Turning it on doesn't add any stock by itself: add it on Stock Levels or record a purchase. See Inventory Management.
Reorder Point: Minimum stock level before a low-stock alert is triggered
Overstock Threshold: Maximum stock level before an overstock alert appears
Status: Active or inactive, so retired items stay in your history without cluttering the picker

Note: Unit price, cost price and tax rate are defaults, not fixed values. You can change any of them on an individual transaction or invoice line without editing the product.

Managing Existing Products

From either products page, you can edit or delete any product using the action buttons. Changes to a product's details (like category or description) apply going forward and do not modify past transactions.

Reporting: Argo Books reports revenue per product, not profit per product, because there is often no reliable cost for a specific item sold. How Numbers Are Calculated explains the reasoning.