Deliver Guide
Products, services, customers, and sales transactions
How to sell products in Ardent Seller
Build a catalog of products (with variants and pricing tiers) and services, add customers, then record a sale by selecting customer, items, quantities, and method — Ardent Seller decrements inventory at weighted-average cost and posts the COGS automatically, and you can generate a PDF invoice on demand. You can also capture sales by photo with Snap a Sale or import them automatically from a connected Etsy shop.
Products
Navigate to Deliver → Products to manage items you sell to customers.
Core Fields
Name
The product name as displayed to customers and in your catalog.
SKU
Unique stock keeping unit identifier. Auto-generate or enter your own.
Description
Product description, up to 2,048 characters.
State
Draft, Active, or Archived. Only active products appear in sale item selection.
Retail Price
The base selling price. Can be overridden per variant or by pricing tiers.
Tracking Unit
The unit used to track inventory (e.g., pieces, kg, dozen).
Photos
Up to 20 product photos. Thumbnails display in the list view.
Bin Location
Physical storage location identifier.
Replenish Point
Stock level that triggers a low stock alert.
Replenish Quantity
Standard quantity to replenish.
Variants
Products can have multiple variants representing different sizes, colors, flavors, or configurations. Each variant has its own SKU, optional price override (if different from the base product price), and can carry custom attributes defined in Settings → Attributes. Variants appear as expandable sub-rows in the product list. Each variant tracks its own quantity and cost independently.
Custom Attributes
Attributes are custom fields you define in Settings → Attributes (e.g., "Size", "Color", "Scent"). Once defined, you can assign attribute values to both the base product and to individual variants. This helps organize and filter your catalog.
AI Listing Copy
A product's detail sheet includes a Listing Copy panel with a Generate Listing Copy button that drafts a marketplace-ready title, description, and tags from the product's own details — you review and edit before saving anything. See the AI Listing Copywriter guide for how it works and what it costs.
Barcodes & QR Codes
Products (and all inventory items) can generate barcodes and QR codes from their SKU. The barcode format is set in Settings → Preferences and can be: CODE39, CODE128, EAN13, UPC, QR, AZTEC, or PDF417. Barcodes are displayed in the detail sheet and can be printed for labeling.
Pricing Tiers
Pricing tiers are formula-based pricing configurations defined in Settings → Pricing Tiers. There are two types:
- Markup over Cost — calculates selling price as a percentage or fixed markup on the item's cost (e.g., "Cost + 50%")
- Adjustment from Retail — adjusts the base retail price by a fixed or percentage amount (e.g., "Retail - $5" for wholesale)
Assign a default pricing tier to a customer in their entity record. When you create a sale for that customer, their tier pricing is automatically applied to all items. You can also override the pricing tier on individual sales. In the sale detail, each line item shows a pricing panel with the item's average cost and retail price; when a tier applies, the tier name and formula appear with the calculated price, and a manually overridden price is flagged as Manually adjusted.
Services
Navigate to Deliver → Services to manage non-physical services you offer.
Fields
Name
The service name (e.g., "Custom Decoration", "Gift Wrapping", "Design Consultation").
SKU
Unique identifier for this service.
Description
Description of what this service includes.
State
Draft, Active, or Archived.
Price
Rate per unit of time (e.g., per hour, per session).
Unit
Time-based unit: hours, minutes, or days.
Services are time-based offerings (hourly, per-session, etc.) that are not physically inventoried. They can be sold to customers and included in sales transactions but cannot be used as recipe ingredients or purchased from vendors.
Customers
Navigate to Deliver → Customers to manage your customer relationships.
Fields
Name
Customer or business name.
State
Draft, Active, or Archived.
First Name / Last Name
Contact person name.
Customer email for invoices and communication.
Phone
Customer phone number.
Website
Customer website URL.
Address
Full mailing address (street, city, state/province, postal code, country). Used as ship-to address on invoices.
Default Pricing Tier
Assign a pricing tier to automatically apply custom pricing when creating sales for this customer.
Referral Source
How the customer found you. Sources are defined in Settings and power acquisition reporting.
Groups
Customer group memberships for segmentation and filtering.
Customers are linked to sales transactions. The Top Customers dashboard widget ranks customers by spend. A customer's address is used as the ship-to address when generating sale invoices as PDF.
Groups & Referral Sources
Customers can be organized into customer groups (managed under Settings) for segmentation — the customer list has a Groups column with badges and a group filter, and you can assign groups in bulk. Each customer can also carry a referral source ("How did they find you?") so you can see which channels bring in business, including the Acquisition by Source dashboard widget and the Customers by Source report.
Customer Insights
The Insights action on a customer row opens a dedicated customer page with a KPI strip (lifetime revenue, and — once you have cost data recorded — lifetime profit and margin percentage), their top products, and a paginated purchase history of every sale linked to that customer.
Sales
Navigate to Deliver → Sales to record sales to customers.
Transaction Fields
Invoice Number
Reference number for this sale. Can be auto-generated or manually entered.
Customer
Select the customer for this sale. Their default pricing tier is automatically applied.
Status
Initiated, In Progress, Completed, Canceled, or Returned.
Initiation Date
The date the sale was made. Defaults to today.
Completion Date
The date the sale was fulfilled or shipped.
Pricing Tier Override
Override the customer's default pricing tier for this specific sale.
Tax Category
IRS Schedule C income category for tax reporting.
Payment Methods
Select one or more payment methods. Fees are auto-calculated.
Surcharge
Additional charge (fixed amount) added to the total.
Discount
Discount amount subtracted from the total.
Tax
Sales tax amount.
Shipping
Shipping or delivery charge.
Line Items
Each sale contains one or more line items. For each item, select the product (or enter a free-form description), choose a variant if applicable, specify quantity and unit, and set the price. If the customer has a default pricing tier, tier pricing is auto-applied. Each line item shows the unit price, line total, and a pricing panel with the item's cost, retail price, and any tier or manual-override pricing that was applied.
Other Ways to Record Sales
You don't have to type every sale in by hand. The Snap a sale button on the sales page lets you photograph a paper sales record — a market-day tally sheet or handwritten order form — and AI turns it into a draft sale for your review; see the Snap a Sale guide. And if you sell on Etsy, connect your shop and completed orders import automatically as sale transactions — see the Etsy integration guide.
Costs & Totals
The sale total includes: item subtotal + surcharge - discount + tax + shipping + fees + payment method fees. Payment method fees are auto-calculated from your configured transaction methods.
Invoice Generation
You can generate a PDF invoice for any sale transaction. The invoice includes your company name, customer name and address, invoice number, date, an itemized list of products with quantities and prices, and all totals. Generate an invoice from the row actions menu in the sales list, or from the Generate Invoice button in the sale detail view.
Transaction Status
Sales use the same status workflow as purchases: Initiated, In Progress, Completed, Canceled, or Returned. Only Completed sales deduct inventory quantities and appear in revenue reports.