Advanced price and discount management 

In price and discount management, many of our customers have requirements that go beyond the NetSuite standard. Customers in the retail business in particular have complex rules to be able to automatically determine the right prices and discounts.

Price management requirements:

  • All prices have a valid-from and a valid-to date
  • Prices for items or item groups depend on the subsidiary, the customer group or the customer
  • Prices can be maintained in different currencies

Discount management requirements:

  • All discounts have a valid-from and a valid-to date
  • Discounts are differentiated according to header and line discount
  • Discounts are set for items, item groups or item-sub-groups
  • Discounts are valid for customer, customer group or subsidiary
  • Discounts can be set as total discounts (multiple discounts then add up to a total discount)
  • Discounts are given in % or as an absolute value
  • Each discount can be given in different currencies

In order to meet these requirements, Alta Via has developed an advanced price and discount management.

The prices and discounts are managed in custom records. On the sales order, the invoice or other price-relevant transactions, a script takes over the task of finding the right price and the right discounts and inserting them into the transaction line or into the transaction header. In this case, a search is always made from the special case (example: item and customer) to the general case (example: item group per subsidiary). The first condition record found is then used.

A new date field “Condition Date” in the transaction allows the customer to book business transactions with a different price date, where “old” or “future” prices/discounts apply.

One use case is: The customer is promised that he can still order at old conditions.

Fields have been added to the transaction line to represent the line discounts. This allows single-line discounts but also multiple discounts per line to be mapped. 

The text information on the discounts introduced is available for printing on the line or can be adopted in EDI messages. With the header discounts, there is also a ranking and a definition of the base value to which a percentage discount relates.

The solution has proven itself even with high order volumes and has been in use for a long time, for example at our customer Sodastream. We are happy to bring our approach to other customer projects.

from Michael Schlecht, fromer Management Alta Via