--- title: "Categories" description: "Organize your equipment into categories and subcategories (up to five levels), set their order, and see how many products each one holds. The tree drives inventory filters and the catalog customers browse on the client portal and your website." canonical_url: "https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/inventory/categories" --- # Categories > Organize your equipment into categories and subcategories (up to five levels), set their order, and see how many products each one holds. The tree drives inventory filters and the catalog customers browse on the client portal and your website. **Categories are the groups your products are sorted into, such as Audio Equipment, Cameras or Cabins.** A category can hold **subcategories** (Audio Equipment → Microphones → Dynamic microphones), up to five levels deep, and the order you set here is the order customers see on your [client portal](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/online-booking/booking-flow#_2-choosing-items) and website. You can find this page under **Settings → Inventory → Categories**, or at [https://app.requiply.com/settings/inventory/categories](https://app.requiply.com/settings/inventory/categories). **Admins only.** Members without admin access cannot open this page. Categories are available on every plan.
![The Manage Categories page in dark mode. Under the title a hint reads Drag a category up or down to reorder it. Drag right to nest it under the category above, left to move it out a level. An Add category button sits on the right. Below, the tabs Equipment 6, Property 0 and Equipment for sale 1; the Equipment tab is open. The tree lists Audio Equipment with a folder icon and, indented under it, Microphones and Audio interfaces; then Video Equipment with Cameras and Switchers indented under it. Each row has a drag grip on the left, a grey product count tag and an edit split button on the right. The mouse is over Microphones, which shows its count tag 4 and four arrow buttons: left, right, up and down. Box 1 marks the tabs, box 2 the drag grip of Microphones, box 3 its arrow buttons and box 4 its product count tag](https://requiply.com/docs/assets/settings/inventory/categories/category-tree.png)
**1** One tree per inventory type. **2** Drag a row by its grip to move it. **3** The same moves with buttons, shown when you point at a row: out a level, nest under the category above, up, down. **4** How many active products sit directly in the category.
## What categories are used for
Where What the category does
Manage inventory The Category column and the Category filter. Filtering by a parent category also finds the products in all its subcategories.
Add item and the product edit page Every product can be placed in one category, at any level of the tree.
Custom fields A field limited to a category also applies to every subcategory below it.
Client portal and website Customers browse the catalog by the same tree, in the same order, with a product count per category.
Import inventory The category column accepts a path such as Audio Equipment > Microphones and builds the missing levels.
## The page at a glance The page shows one card titled **Manage Categories** with: - the hint *Drag a category up or down to reorder it. Drag right to nest it under the category above, left to move it out a level.* - **Add category** on the right, which opens the [add page](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/inventory/categories/add-or-edit) with the type of the open tab already chosen, - a **tab per inventory type**: **Equipment**, **Property**, and **Equipment for sale** once at least one sale category exists. Each tab shows how many categories it has. Each tab holds the tree of that type. A row shows:
Part Meaning
Drag grip (three lines) Hold and drag to move the category.
Folder or tag icon A folder means the category has subcategories, a tag means it has none.
Name Top-level categories are bold. Vertical guide lines show the nesting.
Count tag Products in this category itself, without its subcategories. Archived products are not counted. Hover for Products in this category: {n} .
Arrow buttons Move out a level , Nest under the category above , Move up , Move down . A button is greyed out when the move is not possible.
Edit button The pencil opens the edit page . Its menu holds Delete .
A tab with nothing in it reads *No categories of this type yet.* When the organization has no categories at all, the page shows **No categories yet** with an **Add category** button instead. ## Building the tree ### Nesting a category under another There are three ways to put **Microphones** under **Audio Equipment**: 1. **Drag** the Microphones row by its grip to just below Audio Equipment, then drag it to the right by one step. 2. Place Microphones right below Audio Equipment and click **Nest under the category above** (the right arrow). 3. Open Microphones with the pencil and pick **Audio Equipment** as its **Parent category**. This saves immediately. **Move out a level** (the left arrow) does the opposite: the category moves one level up and becomes a sibling of its former parent. A category always moves together with its subcategories. ### Changing the order Drag a row up or down, or use **Move up** and **Move down**. A category moves within its own level, together with its whole branch. The order of siblings is the order the client portal and website show. ### Saving Moves made with drag and drop or the arrow buttons are a draft until you save them: - **Save order** stores the whole tree of the open tab at once and shows *Category order saved*. - **Discard changes** puts the tree back the way it was. - While there are unsaved moves, the other tabs are locked and **Add category** is replaced by these two buttons. - Leaving the page asks *The category order has unsaved changes. Leave without saving?* If someone else added or removed a category of the same type in the meantime, saving fails with *Could not save the category order*. Reload the page and repeat the moves. ### Rules the tree follows
Rule What you see when it is broken
At most five levels : a category, four levels of subcategories under it. Categories nest at most five levels deep. The nest button stays disabled.
A parent and its subcategories have the same inventory type . Equipment categories cannot sit under a Property category. The parent category must have the same inventory type.
A category cannot be placed inside its own subcategory. A category cannot be placed inside its own subcategory.
A category with subcategories cannot change its type. Move the subcategories out before changing the type of this category.
## Adding, editing and deleting - **Add category** opens [Add or edit category](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/inventory/categories/add-or-edit). A new category is added at the end of its level. - The **pencil** on a row opens the same page for that category: name, type and **Parent category**. - **Delete** is in the row's menu, or on the edit page. ### What deleting does Deleting a category never deletes products or other categories: - its **products move to the parent category**, or are left without a category when it was a top-level category, - its **subcategories move one level up**, under the parent of the deleted category. The confirmation dialog tells you how many products use the category: *There are 3 inventory items using this category. Are you sure you want to delete "Microphones"?* with the note *Its products move to the parent category (or lose the category if it is top level), and its subcategories move one level up.* Click **Yes** to delete. **Deleting cannot be undone.** The products and subcategories are kept, but the category itself, and any custom field limited to it, has to be set up again if you need it back. ## Common scenarios ### Splitting a long flat list into groups A studio has twelve categories side by side. The admin adds **Audio Equipment** and **Video Equipment**, then drags Microphones, Audio interfaces and Headphones to the right under Audio Equipment, and Cameras, Switchers and Lights under Video Equipment. **Save order**. On the portal, customers now see two groups and can open either one. ### Putting the best sellers first Customers should see Cameras before Lights. The admin drags Cameras to the top of the Video Equipment branch and saves. The portal and website show the new order straight away. ### Removing a category nobody uses The admin deletes **Old stock**. Its three products move to the parent category and its one subcategory moves up a level, so nothing disappears from the catalog. ### Building the tree from a spreadsheet Instead of clicking, the admin fills the `category` column of the [import template](https://requiply.com/docs/en/guides/inventory/import) with paths such as `Audio Equipment > Microphones`. Each level is matched by name or created during the import. ## Tips and cautions **Tip:** Keep the top level short. Customers on the portal see the top-level categories first, and a handful of clear groups is easier to browse than twenty names in one row. **Tip:** A product can sit in a parent category directly, not only in the deepest one. Use that for items that belong to the group as a whole, like a cable that fits every microphone. **The count tag shows direct products only.** Audio Equipment can show no count even though its subcategories hold ten products. The client portal counts a category together with its subcategories. **Heads up:** Moves are not saved until you click **Save order**. Renaming, changing the parent on the edit page and deleting are saved immediately. ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](https://requiply.com/docs/sitemap.md) for all pages.