Product Categories

Categories group your products into logical families. They work like Product Families in Salesforce or Product Types in HubSpot — simple labels that control how products are organized, filtered, and reported on across Veles. Categories serve three purposes:

1. Catalog navigation. When a rep opens the product catalog during quoting, categories appear as filters so they can quickly find the right products without scrolling through the full price book.
2. Reporting. Categories let leadership slice revenue data by product line (e.g., total ARR from “SaaS Subscriptions” vs. “Professional Services”).
3. Rule criteria. Categories can be used as conditions in Pricing Rules and Validation Rules. For example, you could create a rule that automatically adds a “Shipping” fee whenever a product from the “Hardware” category is included in a quote.

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Creating a category

1. Navigate to Admin > Price Books > Categories.
2. Click + New Category.
3. Enter a name for the category. Use clear, descriptive names that your reps will recognize (e.g., “SaaS Subscriptions”, “Professional Services”, “Hardware”, “Add-ons”).
4. Click Save.

The category is immediately available for assignment to products.

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Naming conventions

Keep category names concise and consistent. Avoid abbreviations that might confuse reps who didn’t create them. Common patterns:

• By product type: “Software”, “Hardware”, “Services”
• By business model: “Recurring”, “One-time”, “Usage-based”
• By product line: “Core Platform”, “Analytics Suite”, “Integrations”

Choose whatever structure maps to how your team thinks about your catalog. There’s no hierarchy or nesting — categories are flat labels.

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Assigning categories to products

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During product creation

When creating a new product, the Category dropdown appears in the product setup form. Select the appropriate category before saving.

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On existing products

To add or change the category on an existing product:

1. Navigate to Admin > Price Books > Products.
2. Select the product you want to update.
3. Click Edit on the Product Details page.
4. Select a category from the dropdown and Save.

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Using categories in rules

Categories become especially useful when combined with the Rules Engine. You can reference a product’s category as a condition in any rule type: Validation rules: Prevent certain product combinations. For example, “a quote cannot include products from both the ‘Enterprise’ and ‘Startup’ categories.” Pricing rules: Apply automatic adjustments based on category. For example, “apply a 5% bundle discount when a quote includes products from both ‘Core Platform’ and ‘Analytics Suite’.” Approval rules: Route quotes for review based on what’s being sold. For example, “require VP approval when total value from the ‘Professional Services’ category exceeds $50,000.”

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Editing and deleting categories

To rename a category, navigate to Admin > Price Books > Categories, select the category, and update the name. The change applies everywhere the category is referenced. To delete a category, remove it from all assigned products first. Products that lose their category assignment will appear as uncategorized in the catalog.

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What’s next