Products, Catalog & Orders

Before you start

Choose the organization you intend to manage, then open Products. Check its configured currency before creating local products. An imported product keeps its source currency; changing the organization currency does not convert existing prices or saved orders.

Use the source store to manage imported prices and stock. Local notes and sharing preferences in ChatAman do not change the source store.

Create a product or service

1. Choose the product type, enter its name and SKU, and select a pricing mode.
2. A fixed price is a known amount. Free means an explicitly free product. A quote means the price needs confirmation; a missing price is not a free price.
3. Upload images to the product gallery and choose the main image. A variant image must come from that product’s gallery.
4. Add the required variants and review whether each variant has its own price or inherits the product price.
5. Save, then review the product and its currency before sharing it or publishing it in the public catalog.

Keep internal instructions in the staff-only field. Do not put private instructions in the public name or description.

Regular price, sale price and tax

For a locally managed product with a fixed price, an optional sale price must be greater than zero and lower than its regular price. The sale period uses UTC. A future sale starts at its specified start time; at the end time the regular price applies again. Clear the sale fields to remove the sale.

A variant with its own price keeps that price. A variant without its own price inherits the product’s currently effective price, including an active sale. Review the chosen variant in the preview.

Tax inclusion can be included, excluded or unknown. This setting describes the price; it does not invent a tax rate or confirm the final shipping and tax charges. Existing saved orders retain their snapshots when product prices or sale periods change.

Import a CSV and recover an interrupted import

1. Download the template from Products and use UTF-8 CSV. The default limits are 2 MB and 500 rows, with 50 preview rows per page.
2. Keep the required sku and name columns. Use the organization’s current currency. A file with a different currency is rejected; the importer does not perform currency conversion.
3. Review the preview and every page before confirming. Preview does not save products. Resolve invalid rows and repeated SKUs, and explicitly confirm any zero-price rows intended to be free.
4. Confirm the import and inspect the created, updated, skipped and error counts. One row’s error does not mean the entire file was rejected.
5. If the connection fails, retry the same import attempt. Progress is saved in 25-row checkpoints. The first confirmation fixes the free-price choices for that attempt; do not change them while resuming it.
6. Repeating a completed attempt returns its stored result. For an intentional new import, preview a new file: a matching local SKU updates the existing local product rather than creating another copy. Imported source products cannot be overwritten through CSV.

A preview expires after one day. If the organization currency changes, make a new preview before continuing. CSV imports keep new products private. Updating an existing local product preserves its public visibility, variants and local sharing preferences. CSV does not create variants, and an image URL in the file remains a reference rather than an uploaded gallery image.

Allow product sharing

Open the product editor and review Allow product sharing under Status & Options. When disabled, it blocks new ChatAman product shares, access through the public catalog and future Meta catalog exports for that product. CRM-backed automated checkout also rechecks old cards, selections and draft cart lines before a new share or a new order.

The setting does not cancel saved orders or rewrite their prices, addresses or payment history. Staff can still process saved orders internally. A product already copied to an external catalog must also be managed in that external service; changing this setting does not delete that remote copy.

Keep Active, Eligible for catalog and Allow product sharing distinct. Publishing a product requires the appropriate catalog settings and product visibility; enabling sharing alone does not publish it.

Public catalog and customer fields

Open Catalog settings, review the public URL and WhatsApp destination, and enable only the products you want customers to see. Check the public view before distributing its link.

Phone and city can each be required from Catalog settings. New order submissions must provide the enabled fields. Changing these options does not rewrite a saved order or invalidate retrieval of its completed attempt. A phone number entered by a buyer does not verify the buyer’s messaging identity.

Customers must choose a required variant. The server checks the cart again and accepts one inventory source and one currency per order. Separate the choices if their source or currency differs.

Save the order before WhatsApp

The public catalog saves a preliminary order before offering the WhatsApp handoff. Opening WhatsApp does not prove that a message arrived, that the customer approved an agreement or that payment was received.

If saving times out, retry the same attempt with the same cart. Do not assume that a timeout means nothing was saved, and do not change the cart while reusing its attempt identifier.

Review local orders in Catalog orders. Check the buyer’s identity before linking an order to a contact or conversation. Review shipping, discounts, taxes and the financial agreement, and obtain fresh approval if the agreed amount changes. Order, payment and fulfillment statuses are separate. Confirming the same tracked local order again must not deduct stock twice.

External stores and unresolved outcomes

Reading a source product or receiving a webhook does not prove that a new order was created in the source store. This local catalog workflow does not activate external order creation or provider payment collection.

Use only an available, verified source checkout link. The source store may require login or verification and may recalculate price, shipping and stock. If an external operation has an unknown outcome, ask the responsible operator to reconcile it before trying another creation or payment. Never treat a network timeout as proof that the source performed no action.