Classifying products by the price list
Updated on 2026-09-12
The categories on your product records today came from Optios. They grew together there over the years: a few are right, a few overlap, and for a few nobody remembers why they are called what they are called.
The price list Wella mails you does have a coherent structure — your supplier's own. With Instellingen → Producten klasseren (Settings → Classify products) you put your products into that structure.
Where the structure comes from
In Wella's Excel file every article sits under two things: a brand and a series heading, the product line.
SP ← the brand
SP SMOOTHEN ← the line
SP 99350148782 … ← the article
SP HYDRATE ← the next line
SP 99350188179 … ← the article
The category becomes those two, with a dot between them: SP · HYDRATE.
Why the brand is part of the name. Line names recur at Wella. REPAIR exists under SP and under SYSTEM, Vibrant Reds under three different colour brands, DARK OIL under Sebastian and under Sebastian (old). In the April 2026 price list that covers four hundred articles whose line name appears under more than one brand. Without the brand in the name they would all end up in one heap, and afterwards there would be no way to tell.
If a line is called the same as its brand — ILLUMINA COLOR under the heading ILLUMINA COLOR — the category becomes just the brand. Repeating a name twice is not a structure.
Look first, apply afterwards
On every visit the screen works out what would change and shows it: how many products move, which category they come from and which they land in, which categories get added and which are left empty. As long as you touch nothing, nothing changes.
Only Klassering doorvoeren (apply the classification) at the top writes anything, and that button asks once more — with the numbers in the question, so you see at the last moment what you are saying yes to.
If you apply it and later upload a new price list, you simply do this again. Classifying twice gives the same result as once: if a category already exists it is reused, and no second one appears.
You need a price list first
The structure comes from the file Wella mails you. If there is no price list yet, upload one first under Instellingen → Wella-prijslijst (Settings → Wella price list). Classification uses the most recent list — the same one your prices come from.
If the Wella connection is switched off, the software does not know which of your products come from Wella. Switch it on first under Instellingen → Koppelingen (Settings → Connections).
Nothing is deleted
No category disappears, not even when it holds no products at all after classifying. Which ones those are is shown on screen under Categorieën die leeg achterblijven (categories left empty).
That is deliberate. A category may hold products that do not come from Wella and are therefore not in this file. And deleting a category empties the category of every product under it — your old structure is then gone with nothing left to trace it by. If you want one gone, do it yourself; then you know what you are throwing away.
What stays where it is
A product that is not in the price list does not change category. No plausible-looking category is invented. Such products appear on screen under Wat niet geklasseerd wordt (what is not classified), with the reason. Usually Wella no longer carries them, or the record holds the wrong article number.
How a product is found. First by the barcodes — including the old ones, because those stay scannable as long as anything of that packaging is still on the shelf — and only when there is no code at all on the record, by the Wella article number.
Why the article number still counts here and not when reading in a price list. That number was not always put there by you: an earlier run could write it there itself. When reading in, a purchase price changes without you ticking anything, and such a number is too risky there. Here it is about a category: you read the plan first, you apply it yourself, and you can undo it in one go. If the number fell away here too, a salon with hundreds of unscanned records would lose its whole classification. Every line states which route it was found by, so you can see it.
Not by name. A bottle would then change category because its name resembles something, without anything changing on the record.
If a product's barcodes point to more than one article, nothing is chosen — nor does the article number decide it. Those articles can sit in different lines, and then any choice is a guess. Leave only the code of the bottle you sell on the record.
Archived products take no part. You have put those away; they are in no selection list any more and do not need reclassifying.
Where the price list contradicts itself
Sometimes an article sits under another brand's series heading. In the April 2026 list that happens six times. Color Station III and Wella Boy III appear there as WP ACCESSORIES under the heading TROLLEYS, and that heading belongs to WP LARGE EQUIP. At the end of the file three SYSTEM products sit under the heading BRIOGEO NEW LAUNCH — Wella simply appends new articles there.
In such a case the line is not adopted: those products are placed under their brand alone — WP ACCESSORIES — and not in a line where they do not belong. That is coarser, but it is correct. What happened is shown on screen under Waar de prijslijst zichzelf tegenspreekt (where the price list contradicts itself), so you can check it yourself.
If the same article number appears twice in the file, the first occurrence counts. That happens nine times in the April 2026 list.
What does not change
The brand on the record (Merken — Brands) and the supplier stay as they are. This screen only touches the category. Your prices, your stock and your barcodes are also left alone — those come from the price list screen itself.