Exploring Services List Management Features – Master Your Service Offering Management

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Service Catalogue Overview

Your service catalogue is one of the most important parts of your OctopusPro setup. It controls how your services are presented, priced, booked, delivered, invoiced, assigned, and managed across the admin dashboard, customer portal, fieldworker app, quotes, and invoices.

In OctopusPro, Service Settings do much more than store a simple list of services. This area lets you build your service catalogue, organise categories, configure pricing rules, control online visibility, set service-specific payment terms, assign eligible fieldworkers, create bundles and packages, add custom fields, link products and stock, and improve the booking experience with FAQs, gift vouchers, and transparent pricing displays.

When your service catalogue is set up properly, customers can understand your services more easily, staff can follow consistent service standards, and your business can price jobs more accurately while reducing manual admin and booking errors.

OctopusPro service and workflow settings management overview

On this page

What Service Settings control

Service Settings is where you build and manage your service catalogue in OctopusPro. This is where you create and configure services, define how they appear to customers, choose how they are priced, decide whether they can be booked online, and connect them to operational rules such as products, inventory, service FAQs, and fieldworker pay.

A service can represent almost anything you sell, such as a cleaning visit, inspection, repair, consultation, treatment, lesson, delivery task, installation, maintenance job, or recurring service plan. Once configured correctly, that service can then be reused consistently across inquiries, quotes, bookings, invoices, online booking pages, and gift vouchers.

Why this matters for service businesses

A well-structured service catalogue helps you:

  • present services clearly to customers
  • standardise service delivery across office staff and fieldworkers
  • apply the correct pricing model for each service
  • show or hide services across different customer-facing channels
  • reduce quoting mistakes and manual price overrides
  • collect the right booking details before the job starts
  • improve conversion with clearer service content, FAQs, and pricing transparency
  • link services to products, stock, payment rules, and pay rates for better profitability control

Service catalogue structure and presentation

Your service catalogue should be organised in a way that makes sense for both your team and your customers. OctopusPro lets you organise services into clear service categories, making them easier to browse in the customer portal and easier for staff to find when creating quotes or bookings.

Service Categories

Each service should include a clear service name, customer-facing description, internal notes, and supporting media where needed. Using the service setup page, you can add service descriptions, service images, galleries, videos, and attachments to help customers understand what is included and help staff deliver the service consistently.

OctopusPro also supports:

  • free or non-billable services for inspections, warranty visits, callbacks, or internal service items
  • multi-language service content for businesses serving customers in more than one language, configured from the service creation and setup guide
  • service-level display controls so descriptions and media can appear where needed across the portal, quotes, and customer-facing records

This makes the service catalogue useful not only for online booking and marketing, but also for operations, service quality, and billing clarity.

Pricing models, discounts, and pricing rules

One of the main strengths of OctopusPro’s service catalogue is pricing flexibility. When you set up a service, you can choose the pricing model that best matches how that service is sold.

Common pricing models include:

  • time-based pricing for labour-based services charged by hour, minute, day, or another time unit
  • job-based pricing for fixed-fee services with one standard price per booking
  • unit-based pricing for services charged by quantity, area, items, distance, or another measurable unit

You can then expand pricing further with advanced pricing controls, including:

This flexibility allows different service types to be priced correctly. For example, a mobile mechanic service may use job-based pricing with add-ons, a cleaning service may be priced by time and extras, and a lawn care business may charge by area with quantity-based discounts for larger jobs.

OctopusPro service settings feature overview

Service-level payment terms and deposits

Service Settings can also control service payment terms and deposit requirements. This is important when different services in your business should follow different payment rules.

Service Payment Terms overview (deposit, prepayment, pre-authorization, card on file, pay on invoice, milestone payments)

For example, you may want one service to require full payment upfront, another to collect only a deposit, and another to simply capture a card on file without charging immediately. Service-level payment rules are especially useful for high-value bookings, custom work, mobile services with cancellation risk, or services that require materials to be ordered in advance.

Using service-specific payment terms helps you:

  • reduce no-shows and last-minute cancellations
  • improve cash flow with deposits or advance payment
  • apply different payment policies to different services
  • override the company default where a service needs stricter booking conditions

Customer portal visibility and online booking controls

Service Settings also determine how each service behaves online. This is especially important if you use the customer portal as your online booking system. With the customer portal online booking setup, you can control whether a service is visible in your service catalogue, whether it can be booked instantly, or whether it should appear only as an enquiry option.

For each service, you can control settings such as:

  • whether the service appears in the customer portal
  • whether customers can book it online or submit an enquiry first
  • whether it appears in your lead capture form for quote-first workflows
  • whether customers can request repeat or recurring services for that offering
  • whether multiple service addresses can be used where your setup supports it
  • whether the service can be purchased as a gift voucher

You can also improve pricing transparency in the customer portal by enabling:

For online bookings, you can also configure checkout payment methods for the customer portal, enable repeat and recurring customer bookings, and place service-specific calls to action on your website using the Book Online button setup guide.

Custom fields, conditional logic, and service configuration

Many service businesses need to collect more than just a date and address. They need to ask questions, capture options, calculate add-on costs, and tailor the booking flow to the selected service. OctopusPro handles this through custom fields for bookings, lead capture, and CRM workflows.

Custom fields can be used to:

  • collect service-specific information from customers
  • offer add-ons, upgrades, or extra options
  • adjust price or duration based on what the customer selects
  • capture internal operational details for your team
  • filter service eligibility or create more accurate booking workflows

Custom Field Groups - split long booking forms into quick steps

To keep forms organised, you can group related custom fields together. To make the experience smarter and simpler, you can also use dependent custom fields with conditional logic, so customers only see relevant questions based on earlier selections.

Custom field dependency and conditional logic diagram

This is especially useful for industries where pricing or service requirements depend on job size, access conditions, material type, property type, urgency, asset details, number of attendees, or optional extras.

Products, inventory, and stock control

If your services use materials, parts, consumables, or retail items, Service Settings can work together with OctopusPro’s product and stock features. You can manage service-related product lists and assign products to services so they can be used during quoting, booking, invoicing, or job completion.

Products List Management in OctopusPro

This is useful for businesses that sell parts, supplies, accessories, or materials alongside labour. Product records can include names, pricing, tax, unit labels, images, attachments, and item codes such as SKU, barcode, or QR code values.

For businesses that need deeper stock control, OctopusPro also supports stock management and inventory control. This includes:

  • real-time stock visibility
  • inventory locations such as warehouses, branches, and field vehicles
  • storage strategies such as FIFO, FEFO, and LIFO
  • minimum stock thresholds and default suppliers
  • serial number, expiry date, and barcode-based item tracking
  • stock adjustments, transfers, receiving, and issue history

Stock Management and Inventory Control

This allows service businesses to manage both labour and materials within the same system instead of tracking products separately.

Fieldworker assignment, skills matching, and pay rates

Service Settings are not only about what customers see. They also affect how your team delivers the service. OctopusPro lets you assign services to fieldworkers for skills-based scheduling, so only the right fieldworkers appear as eligible for specific work.

Assign services and service options to fieldworkers to improve matching across admin portal and fieldworker app

This improves:

  • dispatch accuracy by reducing assignment mistakes
  • availability matching by showing only suitable fieldworkers
  • service quality by aligning jobs with the right skills or certifications
  • workflow automation when using smart scheduling and job assignment rules

Service Settings can also support workforce costing by linking services to fieldworker pay rates and commission rules. Depending on your business model, you can use hourly rates, commissions, or hybrid payment structures that vary by service type.

This is particularly useful for businesses with contractors, subcontractors, technicians, therapists, trainers, or other service teams where eligibility and pay may differ from one service to another.

FAQs, gift vouchers, and customer confidence

Clear service content does more than explain what you sell. It helps customers feel confident before they book. OctopusPro supports service FAQ management, allowing you to create FAQs that can appear on service pages, during the booking process, and even inside automated emails.

Service FAQs Management overview showing FAQs synced to booking page and emails

This is useful for answering common questions about preparation, access, pricing factors, what is included, cancellation policies, and service limitations before the customer contacts your office.

If you want to turn services into prepaid gifts or promotional offers, you can also sell gift vouchers for eligible services. This can help increase cash flow, generate referrals, and allow customers to buy services for others directly through your online booking experience.

Selling gift vouchers with OctopusPro - overview

Importing and exporting services

If you are migrating from another system or building a large catalogue, OctopusPro also supports service import and export from the services area. The current service creation guide includes the latest import and export workflow.

This is useful for:

  • bulk setup when launching your account
  • updating many services faster
  • reviewing your service catalogue offline
  • keeping a backup or working copy of your service list

If you manage a large number of services, bulk import/export can save significant admin time and help keep pricing and naming consistent across the catalogue.

How to set up your service catalogue

A practical way to build your service catalogue is to follow this sequence:

  1. Create the service: Start with the new service setup guide and define the service name, category, and core details.
  2. Organise the catalogue: Use service categories to group related services logically.
  3. Add service content: Write a clear customer-facing description, add internal notes, and upload service images, videos, or attachments.
  4. Choose the pricing model: Set whether the service is charged by time, job, or unit, then add tax and any minimum pricing rules.
  5. Set payment requirements: Apply the correct service payment terms and deposit settings where needed.
  6. Apply advanced pricing: Add quantity discounts, geo-pricing zones, or packages and bundles.
  7. Add custom fields: Use custom fields to collect booking details, offer add-ons, and improve pricing accuracy.
  8. Control online visibility: Decide whether the service is shown in the customer portal, available for instant booking, displayed as an enquiry option, or offered as a gift voucher.
  9. Improve pricing transparency: Enable the portal options that show price ranges, minimum prices, custom field pricing, or real-time pricing updates where suitable.
  10. Assign eligible fieldworkers: Configure fieldworker service assignment so the right team members can deliver the service.
  11. Link products and stock if relevant: Assign materials or products to the service and enable inventory control where needed.
  12. Set workforce rules: Apply the correct fieldworker pay rate or commission structure if staff compensation depends on the service.
  13. Add trust-building content: Create service FAQs and enable gift vouchers if those features suit the service.

Examples of common service setups

Cleaning business: Create categories such as Regular Cleaning, Deep Cleaning, End of Lease Cleaning, and Commercial Cleaning. Use custom fields for bedrooms, bathrooms, extras, and access instructions. Apply time-based or job-based pricing, enable add-on pricing display, and use FAQs to answer common pre-booking questions.

Trades business: Create services such as Inspection, Standard Repair, Emergency Call-Out, and Preventive Maintenance. Use geo-pricing zones for different service areas, set a minimum booking price, apply deposits for higher-risk bookings, and assign eligible fieldworkers by trade skill.

Consulting, tutoring, coaching, or therapy business: Create one-off sessions plus packages such as 5-session or 10-session bundles. Use repeat booking controls, gift voucher support, and custom fields to capture goals, preferences, or attendee information.

Mobile service business using materials: Link products to services, enable stock management, assign van inventory locations, and track product usage against jobs for better stock control and profitability.

Best practices

  • Use service names customers immediately understand.
  • Keep categories simple and intuitive.
  • Explain what is included, excluded, and what affects pricing.
  • Use images and videos where visual explanation improves conversion.
  • Only display services online when they are ready for customer booking.
  • Use custom fields to reduce back-and-forth communication.
  • Use service-level payment terms when different services require different booking commitments.
  • Assign services to the correct fieldworkers to improve dispatch accuracy.
  • Enable pricing transparency where it helps customers make faster decisions.
  • Use FAQs to answer repetitive questions before they become support requests.
  • Review your service catalogue regularly as your pricing, policies, and service offerings evolve.

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