Price Lookup Help Documentation

Modified on 01/09/2012 02:42 PM by Jason Greenleaf — Categorized as: Help Text, Needs Review, Public, Support


Price Lookup

 

It is possible to set up very complex pricing scenarios, depending on your needs. It may even become difficult to track how a price was calculated, because the pricing tools at your disposal are so flexible. The Price Lookup feature is a powerful tool to for analyzing precisely how a price was determined.

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You can reach the Price Lookup from the main menu. There are also shortcuts to the Price Lookup from the Actions menu in all point-of-sale functions, as well as the “Explain Pricing” link in the Discounts page. The shortcut in the Actions menu and the link on the Discounts page will automatically populate as much information as they can into the Price Lookup.

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When you supply a customer, location and item, the Price Analyzer shows you what the customer will pay for the item, along with how the system arrived at this price. This includes any price profile rules, special pricing rules and promotions. It is also possible to tell which rules were not applied because the quantity ordered was insufficient or the date was out of range. You can even see how each price was calculated, by examining the costs and price levels on the item and comparing them to the formulas in each pricing rule.

Using the Price Lookup



Several factors influence pricing. Every customer may have a different price profile and/or special pricing rules. Every item could have different average costs at different locations that are used to calculate prices. Even the quantity ordered may influence quantity breaks for promotions. Therefore, you must supply a customer, location, item and order quantity in order to perform a price lookup.

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Most of these values are carried over for you from the invoice / credit function. Some fields populate automatically, as well. For example, when you supply a customer, the default location for the customer is automatically populated, and the ordered quantity is always assumed to be 1. Once all fields have been supplied, press Price to analyze the price of the item for this customer at this location, at this quantity. A list of pricing rules and promotions for the customer / item combination will then be displayed, detailing how the price was determined.

The pricing rules for the customer / item combination are listed in three regions: Price Profile, Special Pricing and Promotions. Each region contains the pricing rules for their respective profiles.

Price Profiles



The Price Lookup shows a list of pricing rules for the selected customer / item combination. If the customer has a Price Profile assigned, the Profile and its rules will appear. Each rule will show a formula for how price is calculated, as well as the price that was generated by the formula. The pricing rule that most specifically matches the item will appear in bold text.

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Special Pricing



The Price Lookup shows a list of special pricing rules for the selected customer / item combination. If the customer has special pricing, the Profile and its rules will appear in the section below Price Profile. Each rule will show a formula for how price is calculated, as well as the price that was generated by the formula. The special pricing rule that most specifically matches the item will appear in bold text.

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Promotions



The PriceLookup shows a list of promotions for the selected customer / item combination, unless the customer is disallowed from taking part in promotions. If any promotions apply, the pricing rules will appear in the section below Price Profile and Special Pricing rules. Each promotional pricing rule will show a formula for how price is calculated, as well as the price that was generated by the formula.

Rules that do not qualify, either because the minimum quantity was not met or the date for the rule was out of range, will appear slightly faded. Qualifying rules will appear more prominently, and the rule that yields the lowest price will appear in bold text.

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Security



New Permissions



There are two new permissions for the Price Lookup function.


The Price Lookup feature is accessible for users who have either the Price_Lookup permission or the Price Profile_Analyzer. The Price Profile_Analyzer permission gives the user access to all the costs on the item being priced, and allows users to see the formulas for each pricing rule. Price_Lookup should be assigned to any employee who needs to respond to an inquiry about the price of a particular item, where PriceProfile_Analyzer is intended for managers and inventory control personnel. The PriceProfile_Analyzer shows costs, which may be considered sensitive information, and formulas on the pricing rule details that could allow employees to back-calculate costs from the given price.

Defaulted Permission Assignment



Upon release of the promotional pricing features and Price Lookup, the new permissions were automatically added to security groups that already contained similar permissions. Specifically, any security groups with the Lookup_ItemSales permission were also granted the Price_Lookup permission, and all security groups with the Lookup_ItemCostPrices permission were granted the PriceProfile_Analyzer permission. You may of course modify these permissions at your discretion.