When would you manually add a product?
Most of the time, Garde creates Products automatically as invoices come in. But there are a few situations where you’d want to add one yourself:- You’re setting up inventory before your first invoices are processed. You want to count items on Day 1, but Garde hasn’t seen them on an invoice yet.
- You have a product that doesn’t appear on invoices. Maybe it’s a house-made item, a complimentary product, or something received without a formal invoice.
- You want to pre-build recipes. You need the product to exist so you can add it as a recipe ingredient before purchase data flows in.
Required fields when adding a product: Name, Category, and Primary Count Size (the unit of measure you count by). Everything else is optional but helpful — especially the starting price if you plan to use the product in reporting before an invoice arrives.
Primary vs. Secondary Count Sizes
The Primary Count Size is the smaller unit you use for day-to-day counting — for example, 1 bottle or 1 lb. The Secondary Count Size is an optional larger unit that represents how the product is packaged or delivered — for example, 1 case containing 6 bottles. Setting both sizes lets Garde convert between the two automatically, which is especially useful for inventory counts and cost calculations.Step-by-step instructions
1. Go to Products > View All Products
2. Click + Add Product in the top right corner
3. Enter the product name
As you type, you’ll see a dropdown of suggestions — these are standardized names already in the Garde system. For example, if you type “Banana,” you might see a suggestion like “Bananas, Fresh.” We strongly recommend picking one of the suggestions. Standardized names help our team match future vendor items correctly and prevent duplicate products from piling up. If nothing in the list fits, scroll to the bottom and select the “(New Product)” option to create one with your own name.4. Select the category
Pick the reporting category for this product (e.g., for “Bananas, Fresh,” you’d select Produce). Want to split the product across multiple categories? Click + Add Category, pick the additional categories, and assign a percentage to each one. Keep in mind that you can’t change a product’s category on a per-invoice basis, so set the percentages based on your best estimate of general usage.5. Set up reporting and inventory options
Check the appropriate boxes to control how this product appears on reports and whether it should be inventoried. If you want to add it to a count sheet right away, you can do that here too. Keep in mind: sheet-to-shelf inventories do not automatically add new products, so you’ll need to assign it to a count sheet manually.6. Choose your count-by unit of measure
This is how you’ll count this product on inventory and see it on reports. For wine you might pick “bottle,” for oranges “each,” and for basil “bunch.” The “Count-by Nickname” is the label you’ll see on your count sheet. The dropdown sets the actual unit of measure behind the scenes.7. Set a starting price
Since this product is brand new, you can give it a starting price. This is what Garde will use in reports until an actual invoice comes in with a linked vendor item. Don’t know the exact cost? Check the “Price is an estimate” box. That way, when you’re reviewing prices on the Products page, you’ll know it’s a placeholder and not an actual invoice price. Once an invoice with a matching vendor item arrives, the price updates automatically and locks to prevent manual edits.8. Manage allergens (optional)
If you want to tag allergens on this product, click the button in the bottom right corner. A popup will let you select any relevant allergens, and those tags will carry through to any recipes that include this product.Don’t see any allergen options? You need to set up your allergen list first under Recipe > Setup. See Allergens in Recipes and Products for details.