Creating Price Levels
Typically, a company will have several different prices for different customers to whom they sell inventory items. In e-automate, these different prices are called price levels. The correct price of an item is assigned by a hierarchy defined in e-automate. The hierarchy is as follows:
Customer-specific pricing
User-defined price levels
User-defined based on price levels
User-defined default price
System default price (double the average cost)
To use a price level, you must first create one. After the price level is created, you must then define how that price level affects the pricing of your individual items. You can specify a default price that all customers will be charged for a particular item.
If you assign a price level to an item, the price level will serve as an exception to the default price for customers with the assigned price level. If you do not set any price levels or a default price, e-automate doubles the average cost as a price to your customers.
In summary, the price level for an item will only take effect if it matches the price level on the selected customer. If there is no match, the system will use the default price of double the average, FIFO, or LIFO cost.
You can set up price levels that are based on other price levels. This is best explained with an example. First, we'll assume you have a price level called Retail that covers all retail sales customers. Next, you create another level, Gold, that applies to your Top 100 customers. While you are creating the Gold price level, you realize that you want your Gold customers to be charged the same price for most of your retail items, except for 80 specific items that will be priced differently. Instead of creating a new price level and assigning it to all your items again, you base your Gold price level on your Retail price level. Then you assign the Gold level to the 80 specific items and to the top 100 customers.
When a top customer buys an item with the Gold price level assigned to it, the system finds a match (Gold = Gold), and uses the special price for that item. But suppose that the same customer also buys an item that only has the Retail price level assigned to it, so the system sees that there is no match (Gold <> Retail). At this point, the system checks to see if the price level on the customer is based on any other price level. Because the Gold level is based on the Retail level, the system now finds a match (Retail = Retail) and charges the customer the Retail price. If the customer buys an item that has no price level assigned, the system will not find a match for the Gold level (Gold <> none), nor will it find a match for Retail (Retail <> none), so it will look for the default price on that item. If there is one, it will use it. If not, it will double your system cost for the item.
Getting to the TransactionGetting to the Transaction
From the Tools menu, select Lists and Codes to open the Lists and Codes window.
In the Select a list or code type field, use the drop-down menu to select Price Levels.
Click [New] to open the Add Price Level window.
Details TabDetails Tab
Complete the following fields as appropriate:
Price level: Code for the price level.
Description: Brief description of the price level.
Base price level: Price level you
want to base your new level on, if any.
Note: This feature allows you
to inherit the settings of the level you are basing from to the level
you are creating.
Default Price level: When checked,
this price level is the default price level for your company.
Note: This level will be the
last level that the system checks before it checks the item's default
price. It should be the base upon which your other price levels
are built.
Note: Field for internal notes about this price level.
Dependencies TabDependencies Tab
Click the Dependencies tab to bring it forward. E-automate displays how the price levels relate to each other.
Completing the TransactionCompleting the Transaction
Click [OK] to save the price level information.
Non-supported ReleaseNon-supported Release
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