Manual adjustments
The Pricing Service enables a customer sales representative to manually adjust the price of a line total or an order total during the creation or modification of an order. The adjustment may be a discount or an additional charge.
For example:
- In a quote scenario, a customer sales representative can manually add a discount to a line, based on the negotiation between the buyer and the seller.
- If a customer is not satisfied, or has had a bad experience with any of the services that are provided, a customer sales representative can appease the customer by manually applying a discount to the order total.
In addition, manual price adjustment rules can be configured that enable a customer sales representative to offer specific discounts in the form of coupons or promotions to certain customers.
Manual pricing rules
You can create manual pricing rules that can be used by a customer sales representative in a quote. A manual pricing rule will be used to perform pricing adjustments to a quote. However, a manual pricing rule will be applicable only if certain conditions are met. A manual pricing rule is characterized by conditions and effects. When a condition pertaining to a manual pricing rule is satisfied, the corresponding effect is applied to the corresponding quote's price. There are various price adjustments that a customer sales representative can apply to the price of an entire quote, a line item or an option in the quote. For example a dealer can give the factory discount, marketing discount, and special pricing discount on an item. Manual pricing rules can thus be applied to a quote as required. However, a manual pricing rule cannot be applied automatically. A customer sales representative must select the appropriate manual pricing rules to be applied to a quote using the IBM® Sterling Field Sales application.
For example, a customer sales representative creates a quote for one HD TV and one BluRay Player, and then selects and applies the following manual price adjustment rule to the quote:
Apply up to 30% discount to the order total, with a default discount of 10%.
In this scenario, if the customer sales representative does not specify the percentage of discount to be applied, a default discount of 10% is applied to the quote, as illustrated in the following table:
| Item | Quantity | Amount | Manual discount | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HD TV | 1 | $1,200.00 | $120.00 | $1,080.00 |
| BluRay Player | 1 | $300.00 | $30.00 | $270.00 |
| Line | $1,350.00 | |||
| Order | $1,350.00 |
If, however, the customer sales representative specifies that a 20% discount be applied to the order, a discount of $240.00 is applied to the HD TV and a discount of $60.00 is applied to the BluRay Player, resulting in an order total of $1,200.00.
The effect of a manual pricing rule can either be a discount or a surcharge. Discounts can be an absolute amount, a percentage amount, or a flat fee. A manual pricing rule that modifies the price applied to a quote by an absolute amount can be applied only to a single currency. A manual pricing rule that modifies the price applied to a quote by a percentage amount can be applied to either a single currency or multiple currencies.
Pricing adjustments defined for a manual pricing rule can be overridden by a customer sales representative when creating a quote. However, a pricing adjustment cannot exceed the maximum adjustment defined in a manual pricing rule.
While a pricing organization user can only create or modify a manual pricing rule, an enterprise user can assign a manual pricing rule to customers.
When a pricing rule is applied to an order, the promotion and the PromotionGroup value of MANUAL are added to the order. Generally, a promotion applies to all current and future lines in an order. However, a promotion can be applied to only specific lines in an order. Also, the charges on the order and the order line will have the IsManual flag set to M, indicating a manually triggered pricing rule. An error is thrown if multiple IsManual values are set for a charge.
An attribute is set at the line level and order level of quotes, which enables users to see the manual discount percentages that have been applied to the applicable line total and order total. The ability to view the manual discount percentages applied to lines and orders can be particularly helpful for approvers during the approval process.
The following table lists the types of manual pricing rules that can be created:
| Manual pricing rule type | Refer to |
|---|---|
| Combination | Create a manual pricing rule based on the combination of items ordered |
| Item quantity | Create a manual pricing rule based on item quantity |
| Order Total | Create a manual pricing rule based on the order total |