Product Bundles & Assemblies (Combos)

Overview of Product Bundles and Assemblies

Bundles and Assemblies are logical groupings of items known as product constituents that belong together under a special SKU to unify them while retaining the ability to sell the individual items themselves.

Assemblies and Bundles are basically the same however the key difference with an Assembly is that the inventory quantity of the items contained in the assembly will be taken from inventory at the time you create the assembly in talech whereas Bundles only affect the constituent product quantities when the Bundle is sold.

When to use a Bundle or an Assembly

Bundles are best suited for meal combos or packs of items (such as a pack of soft drinks). In this way, the inventory of constituent items (cans) is the same however when a pack (bundle) is sold, talech will know to deduct the correct quantity from the inventory of cans.

Assemblies are best suited for products such as gift baskets where the individual items contained may be for sale within your store but should no longer be considered available for individual sale when placed inside a pre-made gift basket.

Requirements: 

How to create a Bundle or Assembly in the talech Register application:

Step 1: Login as an admin, then navigate to: Back Office > Menu

Step 2: Tap the “+” button and select “Create a Product”

Step 3: In the resulting window, choose “Bundle” from the drop-down list in the top left

Step 4: Complete the fields the same way you would when creating a regular product

Step 5: Next, tap ‘Bundles’

Step 6: Use the search bar to find the products you wish to bundle

Step 7: Tap “Save” in the ‘Edit Bundle’ screen

Step 8: Finally, tap “Save” to create the product

Note: When creating bundles, a constituent product can have variations associated with it. By adding the base product to the bundle, the variation menu will trigger when the bundle is sold. To suppress this and force a specific variation, the product + variation can be added to the bundle. This step is required when building an assembly so that the correct variations inventory is adjusted when the assembly is saved.

The search bar will display products containing variations as:

• Product Name
• Product Name - Variation 1
• Product Name - Variation 2

Using Bundles to Create Dynamic Combos

This feature is available as of talech Register version 4.3 and above. An example of this feature in-practice would be a restaurant which has a soup and sandwich combo. Let us assume there is a category of sandwiches with 5 products and a category of soup also containing 5 products.

Rather than create a combo (Bundle) for each combination of soup and salad, simply tag each category. I.e.: Tag the sandwich category as 'Sandwiches' and the soup category as 'Soups'.

Create a new Bundle as above, then in step 5 search for the 'Sandwiches' tag and the 'Soups' tag respectively. Now when the Bundle is added to an order, the choice of which product to include is displayed. Just like using variations. However the variations and modifiers on the products are preserved and function as usual.

Note: If you have upgraded to 4.3.x on one iPad to configure bundles in this fashion, please update all remaining iPads to 4.3.x before creating these products. The product feature is not present in older talech app versions and may lead to unexpected behavior in the Register application.

Customizing Bundle & Assembly Behavior in Orders

Located within the talech register are settings to control the behavior of Bundles and Bundle Items when present in an order. These settings are located in: 

Dashboard > Back Office > Settings > General > Order > Bundle and Assembly

Caveats: Bundles and Assemblies are great for organizing products for sale however because bundles are really just a wrapper around multiple items in the store, a bundle does not have inventory of its own. That is, you cannot adjust the quantity of a bundle to cause a corresponding adjustment of the item constituents within the bundle.

In cases where Bundles are used for items sold individual as well as part of a bundle (such as drinks or snacks) we recommend the inventory be kept using the individual item (can or bag, etc.)

Variable Pricing : A Bundle can also be set with a “Variable” price, which will determine it’s overall price by the items included in the bundle. For example, a Bundle with 3 items priced at $7, $10, and $12 will have a final price of $29. When the bundle is selected for an order, it’ll go in with the total price, $29 for example.