The Catalog section within Settings lets you tailor SureStock to match exactly how your business organizes and tracks materials.
➡️ Categories & Subcategories
Create, edit, or delete material categories. From the three-dot menu on any category, you can add subcategories. There's no limit to how many categories or subcategories you can create.
This tab is organized into three sub-tabs:
Sub-tab | What it tracks |
Material Categories | Categories for your regular Materials — e.g., Adhesives sealants and tape, Air ventilation, Appliances, Black pipe, Commercial plumbing, Copper fitting, Copper pipe, Duct, Electrical, and more |
Equipment Categories | A separate set of categories specifically for Equipment/Tools, distinct from Material Categories |
Equipment Types | Further classification within Equipment, separate from both Material and Equipment Categories |
From the three-dot menu on any category, you can add subcategories. There's no limit to how many categories or subcategories you can create.
What you'll see per category:
Category Name
Source — shows where the category came from (for example, a default category provided as part of your setup will show a source like "Ferguson SureStock"; categories you create yourself won't show that same source tag)
Margin Goal — a target profit margin you can set at the category level. Click into it to set a goal; it shows as "—" until one is configured.
A three-dot menu for further actions on that category
Use the search bar to find a category by name, and the pagination controls at the bottom to move through your full list (rows-per-page and page number are both adjustable).
💡 If you manage both materials and equipment/tools, don't assume one category list covers both.
Equipment Categories and Equipment Types are separate structures from Material Categories — set up each independently if you're categorizing both.
💡 Setting a Margin Goal per category can help you spot pricing drift at a glance, even before diving into individual materials — useful if you manage a large catalog and want a quick way to flag categories that are underperforming on margin.
➡️ Units of Measurement
Define the units of measure used across your materials, for example, each, box, roll, gallon, etc.
➡️ Custom Material Fields
Need to track something beyond the standard fields? Create custom fields here — for example, an expiration date, a warranty number, or a serial number. Once created, the field will appear on any material in your catalog for you to fill in.
To set one up: go to Settings → Catalog → Custom Material Fields, click to add a new field, name it, and save. Then head back to your catalog and add it to the items you want — you'll see it show up in each material's Information section.
💡 Need to bulk-add a custom field to many materials at once? Contact support — this can be done for you rather than adding it item by item.
➡️Stock
Under the Stock tab, you'll find Show location position prefixes — a single toggle controlling whether location position prefixes (A/B/L/B, for Aisle/Bin/Level/Bin, etc.) are displayed in Stock. Turn it off to hide the prefixes entirely.
➡️ Location Position Prefixes
Control whether position labels display as full words or abbreviated letters. For example: A for Aisle, B for Bin, L for Level — or hide the prefixes entirely.
📌 This setting lives under the Stock tab within Catalog Settings (alongside Categories & Types, Units of Measurement, Custom Material Fields, Location Types, and Tags).
➡️ Location Types
Add labels to your warehouse locations to describe their purpose, for example, tagging a warehouse as Plumbing or Electrical.
➡️ Material Tags
Create tags to apply to materials across your catalog for additional filtering and organization.
➡️ Bulk Upload
Need to add a large number of materials at once, or make large-scale changes to materials you already have?
Use Bulk Upload, found as its own item in the main navigation sidebar (alongside Catalog, Procurement, Automations, etc.) — not nested inside Catalog settings.
Adding new materials (Bulk Upload): Import materials from a spreadsheet directly into your catalog.
⚠️ Avoid duplicating materials that already exist in your catalog before uploading.
Editing existing materials (Bulk Update): Instead of only importing new items, you can also export your entire existing catalog, edit it in a spreadsheet, and upload it back to apply changes at scale — ideal for mass price changes, name adjustments, or updated descriptions.
Go to Bulk Upload from the main sidebar.
Click Update Existing and Export,confirm the columns you want to edit are selected, then send the export to your email (or it downloads automatically depending on file size).
Edit the spreadsheet, change names, descriptions, prices, or any other editable field.
Save the file, then upload it back through the same Bulk Upload panel. Choose the correct sheet if your file has multiple tabs, then click Continue.
Review the preview, use Show Errors to see anything that would block the upload, and Show Modifications to see only what's changed. Fix anything flagged directly in your sheet and re-upload if needed.
Click Next to finalize. You may see a warning like "Some materials already have the same name. Please review them", review flagged items before continuing.
Once confirmed, your catalog updates with the applied changes and shows how many items were successfully updated.
🚨 Never change or delete the Material ID column when editing an exported file. This is how the system maps your edited spreadsheet back to your existing materials. Changing or removing it can cause the upload to create a brand-new duplicate item instead of updating the existing one, or cause the upload to fail with an error. Every other column is safe to edit.
➡️ Best practices
✅ Keep a backup of your exported file before editing it for a Bulk Update. If something goes wrong mid-edit, you'll want the original to fall back on.
✅ Never touch the Material ID column. This is the single most important rule for Bulk Update — see the warning above.
✅ Use Show Errors and Show Modifications every time, even on small updates. It only takes a moment and prevents surprises after you've already clicked confirm.
✅ Check for existing materials before a fresh Bulk Upload of new items. Uploading a spreadsheet without checking for overlap with your current catalog is the most common way duplicate materials get created.
✅ Set up categories, units, and location types before a big Bulk Upload, not after. Retrofitting organization onto materials that are already in your catalog takes more effort than setting the structure up first.
➡️ Common issues & fixes
"My Bulk Update created new duplicate items instead of updating my existing materials."
This almost always means the Material ID column was changed, removed, or left blank on some rows in your exported file. The system uses Material ID to match your edits back to existing materials — without it, or with it altered, those rows get treated as brand-new items. Re-export a fresh copy and only edit the other columns going forward.
"I got a warning that some materials already have the same name."
This is a check to help you avoid ending up with duplicate or ambiguous materials in your catalog. Review the flagged items in your spreadsheet — if two rows really are meant to be different materials, make sure their names (or other distinguishing details) are clear before continuing.
"I set up categories for Materials, but Tools/Equipment aren't showing the same categories."
That's expected — Equipment Categories and Equipment Types are tracked separately from Material Categories. Set them up independently under their own sub-tabs.
"I don't understand what the Margin Goal column on a category does."
It lets you set a target profit margin at the category level, rather than only per material. It shows as "—" until you configure one for that category. If you're not actively using margin targets, this is safe to leave blank.
"I need to bulk-upload materials, but I'm not sure whether some should be Materials, Consumables, or Tools."
Sort this out before uploading if you can — our data team typically needs this confirmed, along with whether item names/numbers match a supplier list correctly, and whether you want items added to your catalog only or also set up with stock tracking from the start. See Understanding the SureStock Catalog for more on this.
➡️ FAQ
Is there a limit to how many categories, subcategories, or tags I can create?
No documented limit for any of these — create as many as make sense for your business.
Can I bulk-upload custom fields for materials that already exist?
Yes — reach out to support rather than adding the field to each material individually.
What happens if my Bulk Update file has multiple sheets/tabs?
You'll be prompted to choose the correct sheet before the upload proceeds.
Still need help? Contact Support!