Service Catalog — the operational rate card
The Service Catalog is the operational rate card: how work is billed and delivered (billing type, SLA, estimated hours, unit). It is not the commercial product list in Product & Marketing (/prod-mkt/catalog). Those two screens stay separate and link when the same offering is both sold on a quotation and delivered through Service Management.
| Layer | What it answers | Screen |
|---|---|---|
| Stock item | Counted in a warehouse? | Inventory |
| Commercial SKU | What we sell, list price, marketing | Product & Marketing → Products & Services |
| Operational rate card | SLA, billing type, hours | Service Management → Operational rate card |
| Contracted price | What this customer negotiated | Service Contract line items |
| Fulfilment line | What this order delivers | Service Order lines |
When a rate card must be linked to a Product & Marketing SKU
| Situation | Link required? |
|---|---|
| Sell a digital license / invoice in Sales only | No |
| Quote a service, then convert to a Service Order | Yes — the system rejects conversion if the SKU has no active rate card |
| Recurring Sales subscription with no service desk | No — that SKU is not mapped to a retainer contract |
| Internal Service Order / ad-hoc line with no SKU | No |
| Ticket / contract / timesheet priced from the rate card | The order picks the rate card, not the commercial SKU |
Do not create a second, unlinked catalog row for the same SKU. From the commercial product, use Create rate card so both records share one product link. The system does not invent a rate card when converting a quote.
Service Order lines, Contracts, and Timesheet lines pick a rate card item, not a Product & Marketing SKU. A Service Contract’s negotiated lines override list price for that customer. Changing the commercial list price does not rewrite existing contracts or posted orders.
Define catalog items
Go to Service Management → Operational rate card → New Item. Set the name, unit (hour, fixed fee, per visit), default rate, and tax code. When the offering is also sold in Sales, link the Product & Marketing SKU instead of typing a second name.
Reference it everywhere downstream
Service Order lines, Contract rate cards, and Timesheet entries all pick a catalog item instead of a free-typed price — keeping every quote, order, and invoice consistent with the same rate card.
Adjust rates centrally
When prices change, edit the catalog item once. New orders and timesheets pick up the new rate immediately; already-issued documents keep the rate they were created with.
A Service Contract’s rate card can override the catalog price for a specific customer (a negotiated discount, a locked-in rate for the contract term). Orders raised under that contract price from the contract’s rate card first, falling back to the catalog default for anything not listed.