Setting Item Prices - Levels
In e-automate, cost refers to the amount of money you pay for an inventory item, while ‘price’ represents what a customer would pay for an inventory item. There are a variety of methods you can use to set prices for inventory items in e-automate. The following are ways you can set pricing:
Allowing e-automate to set the price
Enabling the default price
Setting the price using Price Levels
Setting the price using customer pricing
All of the above methods are not covered in this topic; however, you can review each method by reviewing the Inventory topics mentioned here. To understand how to enable the Default Price and to allow e-automate to set the price for you, see the Setting Item Default Prices topic. To understand how the different Price Levels interact, see the Using Multiple Price Methods topic.
In this document, the phrase, system cost is a generic way of referring to your system’s cost. System cost can be one of three ways in e-automate based on your inventory cost configuration. E-automate defines the system cost in the following ways for each inventory costing method:
If you are using weighted average for non-serialized items, e-automate uses the system calculated average cost as the system cost.
If you are using first in, first out method (FIFO) for non-serialized items, e-automate uses the cost of the item on the oldest dated layer in e-automate as the system cost.
If you are using last in, first out method (LIFO) for non-serialized items, e-automate uses the cost of the item on the newest dated layer in e-automate as the system cost.
This topic will help you understand how you can use e-automate’s Price Levels to set inventory item prices.
A company can have several levels of prices for inventory items for their customers. In e-automate, these are defined as Price Levels. Using a Price Level allows you to set the price for that level on an inventory item and then assign that level to multiple customers. By assigning one Price Level to multiple customers and setting the item’s price only once, you can speed up the process of setting prices for multiple customers simultaneously.
In order to use Price Levels you must first create them and then define their relationships to one another. When adding Price Level price definitions to inventory items, it is important to understand the different kinds of Price Levels and how they interact.
The Default Price Level is the Price Level that e-automate uses if the other Price Levels are not defined on the inventory item. For example, we could create a Price Level called Retail and then flag it as the Default Price Level. After creating the Retail Default Price Level, we then can define, for each inventory item, a price associated with the Default Price Level. After you set the price for the Default Price Level for every item, e-automate will always know what you want to charge for that item. Once you have set Retail for all items, you then could set item pricing for the Gold Price Level for some, but not all, of the items. e-automate allows you to set pricing for more than one Price Level on an inventory item. For example, when you sell an item to a customer that is set up as a Gold customer, e-automate looks to see if you have defined pricing for Gold customers for that item. If you have, e-automate sets your Gold defined price; if not, it sets the Retail price because Retail is the Default Price Level, and in this example Retail has been defined on all inventory items.
The second kind of Price Level that can be created is a Price Level that is linked to another Price Level. When you link two Price Levels, the linked Price Level is considered the Base Price Level. For example, you could create a Gold Price Level and a Gold2 Price Level. When you create the Gold2 Price Level, you define Gold as the Base Price Level. This configuration tells e-automate to first look for the Gold2 pricing on the inventory item when you sell to a Gold2 customer. If e-automate finds the Gold2pricing, it will use that price; if it does not, it will then look for the Gold Price Level pricing and, if found, use that price. If pricing is not set for either Gold2 or Gold, e-automate will then look for the Default Price Level and use that price.
In this topic you will also learn how to associate a Price Level with a price definition on an inventory item. For example, you will be able to set the Retail Price Level price, the Gold price, and the Gold2 price on any inventory item.
Getting to the TransactionGetting to the Transaction
On the e-automate toolbar, click [Items] to open the Items window.
Double-click on the item for which you want to set prices. E-automate displays the Edit Inventory Item window.
Click on the Prices tab to bring it forward.
Basic InfoBasic Info
Click [Add] to open the Add Item Price window.
Complete the following fields as appropriate:
Price level: The Price Level you wish to assign to the item.
Method: The pricing method you want to use to calculate the total price of the item by Price Level and quantity. Choose from the following pricing methods:
Absolute: Any time the item is sold
to a customer that has the Price Level with the method set as Absolute,
the system will charge the identified price.
Note: If you choose this method,
you must manually change the price whenever you wish to make a change.
Margin – Average Cost: Price determined by a margin formula: Price = System Cost/(1- Margin)
Margin – Standard Cost: Price determined
by a margin formula: Price = Standard Cost/(1- Margin).
Note: Standard Cost is your
cost depending on whether you are using WAVG, LIFO, or FIFO.
Markup – Average Cost: Price determined by a markup formula: Price = System Cost * (1 +Markup %)
Markup – Standard Cost: Price determined
by a markup formula: Price = Standard Cost/ (1-Markup).
Note: Standard Cost is your
cost depending on whether you are using WAVG, LIFO, or FIFO.
Percent of Default: Defines price
based on the existing default Price Level. If you use the Percent
of Default method and have not defined a price on the item for the
Default Price Level, e-automate calculates the percent using the "Default
Price", if the Use Default Price
checkbox is checked. If the "Default Price" is not set,
e-automate calculates the percentage against double your system cost.
For example, assume that we have a default Price Level of Retail. First,
we set up the Retail Price Level on an item, using the method of Absolute,
and specify a price of $100. We then determine that our Gold customers
do not have to pay $100 because they are preferred customers. Gold
customers pay 90% of the Retail customer price. We then add a Price
Level for Gold using the Percent of Default method and we enter 90%
in the price field. e-automate calculates a price of $90 for Gold
customers.
As another example, assume that we have added the level Gold to an
inventory item. When we added Gold, we used the Percent of Default
method and set a percent of 110%. The inventory item does not have
the Retail level defined nor is the Use Default Price checkbox checked.
When this item is added to an invoice, e-automate will calculate an
amount of 110% of double your system cost to determine a price.
Price: The price you assign to the item. With the Absolute Method you enter a dollar amount. If you use a Margin, Markup or Percent of Default method you enter the percent in the field to be used in the respective formula.
Quantity: The minimum quantity of the item the customer must purchase to obtain the price. For example, you may require that a customer purchase two of an item to get a lower price. If so, you would define the price per item and enter 2 in the quantity field. You can enter multiple levels with different quantities and prices to accommodate multiple volume discounts.
Click [OK] to save the new Price Level.
Edit Price LevelsEdit Price Levels
To change Price Level information, do the following:
In the Edit Inventory Item window, double-click on the Price Level. The Edit Item Price window opens.
Change the appropriate information.
Click [OK] to save the changes to the Price Level.
Completing the TransactionCompleting the Transaction
Click [OK] to close the Edit Inventory Item window.
Non-supported ReleaseNon-supported Release
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