Selling Services and Changing Price at the Till
Two requests that often arrive together from repair shop owners, even though they have nothing to do with each other.
The first: “I sell services too, not just parts.” Screen protector fitting, installation, delivery, an inspection fee. Until now all of it was forced in as an oddly named product with stock figures that never made sense — or more often, never recorded at all and simply missing from the reports.
The second: “my cashier needs to be able to negotiate.” A regular asks for a discount, there is a competitor across the road, and the list price is not the final price.
Each has its own switch in sales settings, and they are deliberately separate because the risks are nothing alike.
Selling services carries almost no risk: services have their own catalogue, touch no stock, and can sit on the same invoice as goods. You only have to decide which ones may be sold.
Changing price is a different story — and here something deserves saying plainly. The ability to send any price has actually existed for a long time; what did not exist was the fence. This switch does not add freedom, it finally sets a floor: a price may not fall below that product Floor Price, and the thing refusing it is the server — not a button hidden on screen.
Which is why the order of work matters, and is often reversed: fill in Floor Price on the products that get haggled over, then turn the switch on.
Before you start
- The catalogue of sellable services is filled. Repair services and sellable services are managed in two separate menus.
- Each product has a Floor Price if you intend to enable manual pricing — that is the guard rail.
Steps
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Turn the switches on under Settings then Sales
There are two separate switches: one opens service selling, the other opens price editing. They do not depend on each other — you may enable just one.
Two switches, two separate capabilities. -
Fill the catalogue under Inventory then Sellable Services
Services sold on sales invoices are managed separately from repair services. One service can serve both if you mark it for both uses — a fitting service, say, that is sometimes part of a repair and sometimes sold alone.
Services you sell have their own catalogue. -
Understand why a service is not a product
Services carry no stock, take no part in stock counts, are never loaded onto a canvasser van, and are never counted as inventory on the balance sheet. That is why they are stored as their own kind of line, not as a product with zero stock.
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Add a service line during sales entry or at the POS
You pick one the same way you pick a product, and it lands on the same invoice. A single invoice may mix them: three products and one fitting service, with one total and one payment.
One invoice, two kinds of line. -
Watch how the service discount is calculated
Discount on a service line applies per unit, while discount on a product line applies to the line. That difference matters as soon as quantity is above one — check the total, not just the discount figure.
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Change the selling price on the line while negotiating
With the price switch on, the price cell on the line can be retyped. It is meant for negotiating in front of the customer, and it works both in the sales form and on the POS screen.
Price can be changed, but it has a floor. -
Know the limit is enforced on the server, not on screen
A price may not fall below that product Floor Price. Break it and the transaction is rejected with a clear message — not quietly adjusted to some other figure. Hiding the field would never have been a real guard.
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Fill Floor Price before turning the switch on
A product with an empty floor has no guard at all. Set the floor on the products that get haggled over most, then enable the switch — doing it the other way round leaves a fence that guards nothing.
What you end up with
A cashier can finish one transaction containing both goods and services, and may negotiate price in front of the customer without any risk of selling below the limit you set yourself.
If something goes wrong
Services do not appear when I search on the sales form
Check two things: the sell-services switch is on in sales settings, and that service is marked as sellable in the Sellable Services catalogue. Services marked for repairs only genuinely do not show here.
The invoice is rejected saying the price is below the limit
One line is being sold below that product Floor Price. Raise the price, or change the floor in the product record if the limit itself needs revising. The transaction is refused on purpose, not silently corrected.
I cannot type in the price field
The price switch is still off, or your account uses a pricing policy that does not allow it. Ask the shop owner — the guard sits on the server, so it cannot be worked around from the browser.
Service profit does not show in stock reports
It never will. Services carry no inventory, so they have no stock card. Their value reads in sales analytics through the By Service angle, and in the profit and loss report.