Software for a Business That Sells Services and Products
A business that sells both services and products needs bookings, invoices, a catalog, stock and customers to share one record. When they live in separate tools, the same customer exists twice, stock is not tied to what you sold, and nobody can see what one customer spends in total. Pacten puts them in one system.
What breaks when they live in different tools
Picture a salon that also sells haircare, a studio that sells prints, or a florist who takes event bookings and everyday orders. Most start with a booking tool for the appointments and a separate shop for the goods. Each works. The trouble is in the gaps between them.
- The customer is split. A client who books a colour and buys a shampoo is two records in two systems, with two email addresses if they were not careful. Nobody can say what they spend in a year.
- Stock does not know about sales. The shop counts what it sold online, but not what you sold at the desk or put on an invoice. You find out you are out of something when a customer is already waiting.
- Money arrives in two places. Deposits for appointments land in one tool and shop payments in another, and you reconcile both by hand.
- Reports disagree. "How did we do this month?" needs a spreadsheet to combine two exports, and the answer is only as good as the person who combined them.
- Follow-up falls between tools. A reminder to rebook is easy. A reminder that a client bought something that needs replacing in ten weeks is not, because the purchase is somewhere else.
The cost is small each time and constant. Our guide to one place to see everything in your business describes the same pattern across the whole business.
What one system has to do
| What you need | What goes wrong when it is separate | What it should do |
|---|---|---|
| Bookings | Slots and deposits live apart from your money | Take the booking, hold the deposit, attach it to the customer |
| Invoicing | You retype a visit and a purchase into two invoices | One invoice that can carry service lines and product lines |
| A catalog | Prices exist in the shop, the till and your head | One list of services and products, priced once |
| Stock | Counts drift from reality | Reserve stock when you sell, reduce it when goods leave |
| Customers | Duplicates, no history | One record with bookings, orders and conversations |
| Shop | A separate website to run | A shop on the same page clients already use to book |
How it works in Pacten
One booking page, with a shop beside it. Your services are bookable on your public booking page. Products you publish from your catalog appear in a shop on the same page, with a bag and a checkout. Products can have options such as size, and you drag them into the order they should show.
A service can require a deposit. The booking is created and held as pending against a deposit invoice until you confirm payment, which suits clients who pay by bank transfer or cash and cannot be charged on the spot. The booking and invoicing article goes through that flow in detail.
A shop order becomes a record you already work. When someone buys online, Pacten works out shipping and tax from the zones and rates you configured, creates the order as a delivery request in the same queue your team already uses, raises the invoice, and sends the buyer to a payment link. If you have set a deposit or payment plan on the product, the buyer can use it. The price comes from your catalog, never from the browser.
The buyer is matched to a customer. The shop looks the buyer up by email and creates a customer record when there is none, so an online order lands on the same contact as the bookings.
One invoice can mix both. When you invoice a client in person, the line picker draws on a merged list of your services and products, with availability shown, so a cut and a bottle of shampoo go on one invoice.
Where stock comes in
Stock is part of Supply, the app for products, stock, suppliers and orders, and it is switched on per workspace rather than by default. Use it only if you hold goods you need to count.
With Supply on, you hold stock at one or more locations, with reorder points, transfers between locations, stock counts and purchase orders from suppliers. Selling reserves stock: a shop order or an invoice with product lines reserves the quantity, and when someone confirms the goods have gone out, the on-hand count drops. A credit note returns the quantity. The reserve step means two people cannot sell the last item twice.
Reservation is allowed to go negative, so an oversell shows as a shortfall rather than blocking the sale.
What is not built
- No till or card reader. There is no point-of-sale screen for the counter and no barcode scanning. A counter sale is an invoice.
- No gift cards.
- Stock leaves on a confirmed dispatch, a step designed for goods that ship or are handed over, which is a heavier step than a busy counter wants.
- Not a manufacturing system. Pacten does not do bills of materials or production planning. If you build products from components and need that, an ERP such as Odoo is stronger. Pacten sits alongside your accounting software, which still handles tax filing.
When this is not the right fit
If you sell almost only products, with hundreds of orders a day, a dedicated e-commerce platform will serve you better. If most of your takings are over a counter and you need a till, a point-of-sale system is the right tool. If you are a one-person business with a handful of customers, a spreadsheet and a booking link may be enough. Pacten fits when you sell a mix, your customers cross between the two, and you want one record rather than a stack of connections. The trade-off between one system and several is covered in all-in-one versus best-of-breed software.
Where to start
Start with the customer record and the catalog. List what you sell, mark what is a service and what is a product, and decide which products you actually count. Then get started, and look at the apps and connections and the pricing page to see what fits. Moving existing customers and stock across is scoped and priced, not free.
Frequently asked questions
- Can one invoice include a service and a product?
- Yes. The invoice line picker lists your services and products together, so a visit and a retail purchase can sit on one invoice.
- Do I have to use stock tracking?
- No. Stock belongs to the Supply app, which is switched on per workspace. Without it you can still list and sell products, and you simply do not count them.
- Does an online order create a customer record?
- Yes. The shop matches the buyer by email and creates a customer when there is none, so the order sits with their bookings.
- Can I take a deposit on a service and sell products at the same time?
- Yes. A service can require a deposit when it is booked, and products can carry their own deposit or payment plan, each on its own invoice.
- Does it replace my accounting software?
- No. Pacten runs the day-to-day side of selling and sits alongside the software your accountant uses to file taxes.