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The Products & services list (Commerce > Products & services) holds what you sell as reusable line items: setup fees, deliverables, hourly work, retainers. When you build an invoice, an estimate or a recurring invoice, pick a product on a line instead of typing it out. You can still add ad-hoc lines, but a clean catalog saves time and prevents pricing drift.
Subscriptions don’t use products. A subscription bills a plan, which you create under Commerce > Subscriptions > Plans. See Plans.
Adding your first products? Follow Add Your Products and Services, a step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots.

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What lives in the catalog

  • One-time products and services: anything you bill once, such as a setup fee, a deliverable, a piece of hardware or a single consultation.
  • Work billed by the unit: hours, sessions or pages. Set the Unit label (for example hour) and enter the quantity on each invoice line.
  • Retainers and other recurring work: put the product on a recurring invoice to bill it on a schedule. To sell it as a subscription instead, create a plan with the same price.

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Product fields

1

Name

When you pick the product on an empty line, its name becomes the line’s text. Write it for the client, and keep it short.
2

Description

A note for your team. It shows in the product list and you can search by it, but it isn’t copied onto invoice lines.
3

Default price

The price of one unit. Products have no currency of their own: a line takes the currency of the invoice it’s on. Picking the product fills in this price when the line doesn’t have one yet.
4

Unit label

What one unit is: each (the default), hour, month and so on. It shows next to the price in the product list.
5

SKU

An optional internal code. It must be unique in your account, and you can search by it.
6

Default tax %

The tax rate a line gets when you pick this product and the line has no rate yet. Leave it empty and the line uses the invoice’s tax rate.

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Adding a product

1

Open the list

Go to Commerce > Products & services and click New product.
2

Fill in the fields

Enter the Name, Description, Default price, Unit label, SKU and Default tax % described above. Only the name is required.
3

Click Create

The product is now in the product picker on invoices, estimates and recurring invoices.
Use this for setup fees, single deliverables, or hardware.
  • Unit label: each
  • Default price: the price per unit; the quantity is set on the invoice line
  • Default tax %: depends on your jurisdiction and the service type
Example: “Brand audit and report: 2,500.00 / each.”

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Editing and archiving

Products can’t be deleted, only archived. An archived product drops out of the product picker, and invoices that already use it are unchanged. Turn on Show archived to see it again, and click Unarchive to bring it back. If you change a product’s price:
  • New lines pick up the new price when you choose the product.
  • Lines already on invoices, estimates and recurring invoices keep the price they were written with.
  • Subscriptions aren’t affected, because they bill plans, not products.
Editing a plan’s price does reach existing subscribers: it changes what they pay from their next renewal, unless a subscriber has a price override. See Plans.

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Using products on invoices and estimates

When you draft an invoice or estimate, the product picker on each line searches your products by name, description and SKU. Picking a product fills an empty line with its name, and fills in its default price and tax rate when the line has none yet. From there you can:
  • Adjust the quantity (defaults to 1)
  • Override the price for this client
  • Override the description (helpful for SOW-style invoices where the deliverable is custom)
To give a discount, use the Discount field under Subtotal. It takes an amount off the whole invoice or estimate, not off one line. The product itself is unaffected by line-item edits. See Invoices — line items and Estimates — line items.

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Reading products with an API key

With an API key, GET /api/olympus/accounting/products lists your products and services. Search with q (name, description or SKU), include archived products with archived=true, and page through with limit and offset. Products are added and edited on the Products & services page.

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Best practices

  • One product per billable item. Don’t create one product for “Consulting” and price it differently every invoice — make it harder to read your reports. Create separate products like “Strategy Consulting”, “Implementation Consulting”, “Audit & Review.”
  • Sell packages as subscription plans. Tiers like Starter, Pro and Enterprise are plans under Commerce > Subscriptions > Plans, not products.
  • Name products for the client. The name is what lands on the invoice line, so “Quarterly business review” reads better than “QBR.”
  • Archive aggressively. Stale products clog the line-item picker. Archive everything you don’t actively sell.

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Common catalog structures

How successful service businesses organize their catalog:
  • Tiered retainers as subscription plans: “Standard / Premium / Enterprise”, under Subscriptions > Plans
  • One-off services: “Audit”, “Workshop”, “Strategy Session”
  • Add-ons: “Extra hours”, “Rush delivery”, “Premium reporting”

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What’s next?

Create and Send an Invoice

Pick your products on an invoice and send it.

Set Up Subscriptions

Create a plan and subscribe a client to it.

Invoices Reference

Full invoice lifecycle and field reference.

Subscriptions Reference

Plans, renewals and recurring billing.