The inventory catalog is your master list of equipment types — Standard Portable Toilet, ADA Unit, Hand Wash Station, VIP Trailer, and anything else you rent. Each item has a default billing period and prices for each period you might bill at.
The default billing period is the cadence pre-selected when this item is added to a job, quote, or invoice. Most operators set this to Per Month (the industry standard for ongoing service) or Per 28-Day Cycle. Per Day, Per Week, and Flat Rate are also available — Per Day and Flat Rate are typically used for event rentals and short-term jobs.
For each billing period, you can set a default price. Leave any period blank to hide that option when adding this item to a customer's Rate Card, quote, or job. If you only ever bill monthly and per-28-day, leave the daily and weekly fields blank and they won't clutter the line item dropdowns.
The catalog price is the lowest layer of the Track B pricing hierarchy (used for job, quote, and manual invoice line items) — it only applies when there's no matching site Additional Charge and no customer default rate. Recurring Rate Card rows don't go through this hierarchy; they bill their own rate directly on the Cycle Invoice. Most operators set realistic catalog prices anyway so the system has a sensible fallback. Common starting points: Standard PT $85/month, ADA $125/month, Hand Wash $45/month, VIP Trailer $1,500 flat.
The badge on the inventory item overview page displays the price for the item's default billing period. If you set Standard PT to default Per 28-Day Cycle with a $110 rate, the badge reads "$110 / 28-day." If the default period has no price set, the badge falls back to the next available price in priority order (monthly → 28-day → weekly → daily → flat) so you always see something meaningful.
Changes to catalog defaults apply going forward only. Existing customers keep whatever rates were set when their Rate Card or Customer Default Rates were configured. To update existing customer rates, edit them directly on the customer's Rate Card.