Master Items: The Stock Catalog Behind Every Listing
Why a tenant-managed catalog beats free-text product names, how master items wire to assets, and where they show up in the receiving grid and the listings flow.
"Dell Latitude 5430" is a product. "Dell Latitude 5430, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, i7-1265U" is a different product. Free-text product names hide that difference. The platform’s master items catalog (/settings/core/catalog) is where a tenant defines its product taxonomy as structured rows — and from then on, every asset, every listing, every quote points to the same row instead of a string somebody typed.
What lives on a master item
The product canonical name, the manufacturer, the model number, the category, the typical specifications (RAM, storage, CPU, screen size), an indicative grade-aware price band, photos that represent the product (not the specific asset), and tags. The row is a template — assets get linked to a master item, and inherit the template fields where they’re otherwise blank.
Where it surfaces
Receiving grid: as the operator types a model number, the platform suggests matches from the master items catalog. Pick the right one and the asset row pre-fills with the canonical fields. Listing flow: when building a market batch, the listing description can be auto-filled from the master item, with the per-asset specifics (this serial, this grade, this defect set) layered on top. Reports: aggregations work because "Dell Latitude 5430" is the same row across thousands of assets, instead of fifteen typo variants.
Platform stock catalog
The platform ships with a starter catalog of common ITAD products — laptops, servers, monitors from major manufacturers. Tenants can use the platform catalog as-is, override individual rows for their own pricing/notes, or add private rows for products the platform doesn’t yet cover. The override doesn’t affect other tenants.
What the catalog isn’t
It isn’t the asset inventory. The asset is the specific device with a serial number; the master item is the product specification. One master item, many assets. The platform separates them deliberately so an asset’s state (sold, retired, in-testing) doesn’t leak into the catalog metadata.