Setting up
a product.

Products in nouz are an optional convenience — you can run the whole app on manual entries forever. But once you set up your top-selling items as products, the daily close-out shrinks from "type cash, type card, estimate COGS" to "pick product, type quantity" — and Statistics starts ranking your catalogue by which one is actually carrying the shop.

01 Why should I bother setting up products?

Products are worth the five-minute setup for your top sellers for three reasons. First, COGS auto-fills — sell 80 cappuccinos and nouz computes the COGS automatically, with no mental math at close-out. Second, margin ranking unlocks: Statistics can only rank products you've set up. Third, price experiments become measurable, since you can compare margin contribution before and after a price change only with product-level history. The list below explains each.

• COGS auto-fills. Sell 80 cappuccinos today, nouz computes 80 × €0,42 = €33,60 of COGS automatically. No mental math at close-out.
• Margin ranking unlocks. Statistics can't rank products you haven't set up. The product performance card only shows items with product-level data.
• Price experiments become measurable. If you bump cappuccino price by 50 cents next month, you can compare margin contribution before and after — only if you have product-level history.

02 What are the four product fields?

On Products → + Add product you fill in four fields. Name is whatever you call the item in your head. Sale price is the gross price the customer pays, VAT included. COGS per unit is what it costs you to serve one — beans, milk, cup, lid. Tax rate defaults to your business default but can be overridden for items on a different rate, like takeaway food or books. The list below details each.

• Name. What you call it in your head. "Cappuccino", "Pain au chocolat".
• Sale price. Gross — what the customer pays. VAT included.
• COGS per unit. What it costs you to serve one. Beans + milk + cup + lid.
• Tax rate. Defaults to your business default. Override if this product has a different rate (takeaway food, books).

03 Can you show a worked product example?

Take a cappuccino served at the counter: name "Cappuccino", a gross sale price of €3,80, COGS per unit of €0,42, and a 20% tax rate (Austria standard VAT). Every time you log a cappuccino sale, nouz reads the snapshot of that price and COGS. Subtract VAT (€0,63) and COGS (€0,42) and your margin per cup is €2,75 before transaction fees — so 80 cups gives €220 of gross margin. The table below lays out the fields.

Behind the scenes, every time you log a cappuccino sale, nouz reads the snapshot of that product's sale price and COGS at the moment you set it up. Subtract VAT (20% of €3,80 = €0,63), subtract COGS (€0,42), and your margin per cup is €2,75 before transaction fees. Sell 80 of them and your day's gross margin from cappuccinos alone is €220.

04 Which products should I set up first?

Start with your top five — the items you sell the most of. You don't need every SKU, because most owners get about 80% of their margin signal from those top five products. Set those up first and add the long tail later as you have time; until then, log the rest as manual revenue (no product) so the daily total stays complete. A café's top five might be cappuccino, espresso, drip coffee, pain au chocolat and a sandwich.

A typical café's top five: cappuccino, espresso, drip coffee, pain au chocolat, sandwich. A salon's top five: cut, colour, blow-dry, beard trim, gel polish. A small retail shop's top five depends entirely on what you sell, but you know what they are. Set those up first.

05 What is the snapshot rule for products?

The snapshot rule means that when you sell a product, nouz stores a copy of its price, COGS and tax rate at that moment — not a live pointer to the product row. This is deliberate: a price bump or COGS update going forward never silently rewrites your past P&L. Your March numbers always reflect March prices, even if you change everything in October. Your accountant likes it, and so does your future self cross-referencing an old VAT return.