Enabling a Secondary Language for Product Names and Descriptions

Part 1: Enabling the Secondary Language

1. From the main menu, go to the “Inventory” section.
2. Click “Products Settings.”
3. Scroll down to the “Secondary Language” section.
4. Toggle it on (shows as “Enabled” once active). The description below the toggle reads: “Show translated product names and descriptions alongside the original values on documents and print templates.”
5. Click “Save” at the top of the page.

Upon successful activation, a new “Name (Secondary)” and “Description (Secondary)” field become available on the product create/edit form.

Part 2: Adding Secondary Language Values to a Product

1. Open any product from the products list, or create a new one.
2. Enter a value in the “Name (Secondary)” field.
3. Enter a value in the “Description (Secondary)” field.
4. Click “Save.”

Both secondary fields are optional — you can leave them empty, and the product will simply display its primary name and description on documents.

Part 3: Finding Untranslated Products

To help you keep track of products still missing a secondary translation, a new filter is available in the Products and Services list: “View untranslated products.” Selecting this filter shows all products where the secondary name and/or description field is empty, making it easy to complete translations across your catalog.

How Product Names and Descriptions Appear on Documents

Once the secondary language is enabled and a product has secondary values, its name and description are displayed in the format:

Primary / Secondary (e.g., “Chair / Chaise“)

This display format applies to:

• All sales transactions (Estimates, Sales Orders, Sales Invoices, Refund Receipts, Credit Notes, POS Orders, Shopfront Invoices, Delivery Notes, etc.).
• All purchase transactions (Purchase Orders, Purchase Invoices, Purchase Returns, Debit Notes, etc.).
• Both the on-screen document view and the printed/rendered template output.
• POS (web and mobile) product lists and cart displays.

If the secondary value is empty or not set, only the primary value is displayed (e.g., “Chair“) — with no empty parentheses, no trailing slash, and no fallback to any other language.

Searching and Stocktaking with the Secondary Language

You can search for products using their secondary language value in any product search field across the system. Stocktaking is also mapped by the secondary product language, so products can be matched and located using either language.

Template Variables (For Advanced Print Template Design)

If you customize your printable templates, the following variables are available:

• {{ product.name }} and {{ product.description }}: These existing variables automatically output the bilingual format (Primary / Secondary) when the secondary language is active and a secondary value exists. No changes are needed to your existing templates.
• {{ product.name_primary }} and {{ product.description_primary }}: New optional variables that output only the primary value, useful if you want to control its position, styling, or font independently.
• {{ product.name_secondary }} and {{ product.description_secondary }}: New optional variables that output only the secondary value, for the same purpose.

Disabling the Secondary Language

You can turn this feature off at any time from the same toggle in “Products Settings.” On save, a confirmation dialog appears:

“Disabling bilingual entities will hide secondary language values from new documents. Existing translations remain stored. Documents already saved are not affected.“

As a result:

• The secondary fields are hidden from the product create/edit form (though their stored values are not deleted).
• New documents display the primary value only.
• Previously saved documents remain unchanged.

 

Notes

• Secondary “Name” and “Description” fields follow the same maximum character limits as their corresponding primary fields.
• Secondary values are automatically copied over when cloning a product, service, or bundle.
• This feature does not apply to product Excel imports, e-commerce sync (Salla, Zid, WooCommerce, Shopify), or reports — product references in reports always display the primary value only.