Published at: 2026-09-17
Product overview and core terms
Understand the business role of Products, the available configuration modes, and the relationships among Products, Items, and Units so that you can choose the correct Product maintenance method.
Business value
Product is the CRM object used to centrally maintain the basic information for goods or services that an enterprise sells. It is also the basic reference object for Sales, Quotes, Orders, and Contracts, and runs through the business process from an Account Opportunity to delivery.
Centralized Product maintenance prevents duplicate entry and inconsistent information across business stages. With Items and multiple Units, enterprises can manage standard Products, variant Products, and multi-unit Products as needed.
Product Price is returned to business documents according to the applicable Price Book.
Core concepts
| Concept | Definition | Related objects |
|---|---|---|
| Product | Goods or service information that can be sold, quoted, or ordered | Item, Unit, and business documents |
| Item | Object that maintains public Product information | Product and variant combinations |
| Non-variant Item | One Item that corresponds to one Product | Item and Product |
| Variant Item | One Item that corresponds to multiple Products | Item, variant combinations, and Products |
| Variant combination | A set of attribute values that distinguishes variant Products | Variant Product |
| Unit | Unit of measure used by a Product | Product and multiple Units |
| Multiple Units | Multiple Units associated with one Product with conversion rules maintained between them | Units and conversion rules |
| Public information | Information maintained centrally by an Item and synchronized to related Products, such as Product Category, Unit, and attributes | Item and Product |
| Base Unit | Basic Unit of measure in a multi-Unit conversion | Multiple Units and conversion rules |
Decide before use
The Product creation method depends on the current status of the Item and multiple-Unit features:
- Neither feature enabled: Create an independent Product directly; the Product uses one Unit.
- Item enabled only: Create a Product as a non-variant Item or variant Item.
- Multiple Units enabled only: Maintain multiple Units and conversion rules on the Product.
- Both features enabled: A non-variant Item’s multiple Units are maintained by the Product; a variant Item’s multiple Units are maintained centrally by the Item.
[!IMPORTANT] If the Product page fields or edit permissions do not match your expectations, first confirm the Item and multiple-Unit modes configured by the administrator. Do not directly modify public information inherited from an Item or multiple-Unit information for a variant Item.
Usage boundaries
- After the Item feature is enabled, the Item maintains public information such as Product Categories and Units, and the Product page cannot edit it independently.
- Under a variant Item, one Item can correspond to multiple Products, and each Product corresponds to one variant combination.
- The Item centrally maintains multiple Units for a variant Item, and all related Products share the same configuration.
- Under a non-variant Item, the Product can maintain its own multiple Units according to the current mode.