You Are Typing The Same Prices Into Four Different Places

Most small businesses keep their prices in four places at once. The invoice template. The website. A proposal document from last spring. And, in practice, somebody's head.

Then you raise a price, change three of them, and forget the fourth. A month later a client quotes your old figure back at you and you honour it, because arguing about twenty dollars is worse than losing it.

A catalog, not a price list

Products in ClientBranch is a single list that every other part of the platform draws on. Put an item in it once and it is available on an invoice, inside a proposal, in your online store, and on your phone when you take a payment face to face.

Change the price in one place and it changes everywhere. That sounds obvious and it is surprisingly hard to achieve by hand, which is why almost nobody manages it.

What counts as a product

Not just physical things. A sixty minute session is a product. A block of six is a product. A call-out fee, a travel charge, a deposit, a room hire: all products.

The test is simple. If you have ever typed it onto an invoice twice, it belongs in the list. If you have ever had to stop and think what you charge for it, it belongs in the list twice as much.

The In store column

This is the column worth understanding, and the one that stops people worrying.

You choose item by item what appears in your public shop. Turning the store on never publishes your whole catalog. The private rates you quote to specific clients stay private, and the things you are happy for anybody to buy sit in the shop.

So one list can hold your corporate day rate and your online gift voucher without any awkwardness.

Write the description for the buyer

A product name is for you. The description is for them.

On an invoice it removes the follow-up question. In the store it does the selling, because nobody is standing there to answer. The half a sentence you write once gets read by every client who ever sees that line, which is a decent return on thirty seconds.

Packages are where the money is hiding

A package is several products bundled under one price. You build it from the single items you already have, so nothing gets described twice, and the builder works out what the components would cost separately and shows the saving.

That matters because somebody who came to buy one session will often buy a bundle of six when the bundle is sitting there, priced and explained.

They will almost never assemble it themselves. And they will never ask you for it.

Three packages beat thirty products

If you sell time, the single highest-value thing on this screen is building two or three packages and putting them in front of people.

A first session on its own. A block of six at a small discount. A twelve week program at a better one. Suddenly you are not selling hours, you are selling an outcome with a shape, and your average sale goes up without you raising a single price.

Where the list shows up

On an invoice or a proposal there is an add from products picker, so building a document is choosing rather than typing. In the store, anything marked in store appears with its description and price. And when you take a payment in person with your phone, the same list is what you tap.

Four places to sell, one place to maintain. And because they all read the same list, a client who sees a price on your website, then gets a proposal, then gets an invoice, sees the same number three times. That consistency does quiet work for how professional you look.

Editing a price does not rewrite history

Worth knowing before you tidy anything up. Each invoice and order keeps a snapshot of what was on it.

Raise a price today and the invoice you sent in March still says what it said in March. You are changing what you sell next, never what you already sold, which is exactly what you need when somebody digs out an old document.

An hour that pays you back

If your prices currently live in four places, the job is smaller than it feels. Open your last ten invoices, list every line that appears more than once, and enter those. For most service businesses that is somewhere between eight and fifteen items.

Then build two packages out of them. That is the whole exercise, and it is the version of admin that makes you money rather than just tidying up.

Keep the list short

The instinct once you have a catalog is to put everything in it, including the thing you sold twice in 2023. Do not. A list you have to scroll is a list somebody types around.

Keep the items you sell regularly and delete the rest. You can always add one back, and a short accurate list gets used while a long complete one does not.

Review it twice a year. Prices drift out of date quietly. Put a note in the calendar for January and July, open the list, and ask one question about each line: would I be happy to sell this at this price tomorrow?

Most people find two or three items they have been undercharging for since they set them. That review is usually worth more than anything else on this page.

One list, one price, everywhere

The point is not the catalog. It is never having to remember what you charge, never quoting a stale figure, and never losing a bundle sale because the bundle only existed in your head.

One list, maintained once, selling from four places. That is the whole idea, and it is about an hour of work between you and it.

Start your free trial and get your prices into one place.