At the end of this topic, you will be able to:

Describe the concepts behind pricing in SAP Business One:

• Types of prices
• Items and price lists
• Associating prices with business partners
• Pricing in a document

Imagine that:

• Your company has price lists for different groups of customers.
• Some customers, such as your best customers, receive special pricing.
• Customers can additionally receive discounts based on item groups or properties of the items sold
• Periodically you give discounts on the list price based on volume purchases or during sales events

I/ Pricing in Business One

Businesses have needs for flexibility in pricing. Different customers receive different prices based on the circumstances of the sale.

For example, a one-time customer pays a higher price than a regular customer or one of your resellers.  Similarly a customer buying a larger volume will get a better price than a customer buying only one.  Internet customers get a lower price than customer who need customer service in a store environment. That is why SAP Business One has several ways to handle pricing.

Let us look at some of the different tools available to set up pricing.

In SAP Business One, we have price lists, period and volume discounts, discount groups and special prices for business partners.

The first and most basic way of pricing is price lists.

You can set up price lists for different groups of customers.

On each price list you can enter a price for each item and unit of measure.

Then when a business partner who belongs to that price list buys an item, they get the right price for their customer group.

A basic price for the product may not be enough.

You may want to set up sale prices for a limited time period. You may want to give a discount when a customer buys in volume.

Period and volume discounts allow you to define discounts by dates and based on volume based on an existing price list.  The discounts entered here will override the basic price in the business partner’s assigned price list.

The unit of measure used for the purchase must match the unit of measure defined in the discount for the discount to apply.

The next level of pricing is the discount groups.

You can add discounts based on item group, item properties, and item’s manufacturer.  These types of prices are called discount groups.

If a sales order line item is relevant for a discount group price, then that price will override a discount based on a period or volume discount or a price list price.

Some times you want to give an even better deal to your favorite customers.  In that case, you can use special prices for business partners.

You can base your discounts on any price list, or simply enter them manually.

You can define discounts by date range and quantities and units of measure.

Special prices defined for a business partner override all other prices. 

However, please note that the unit of measure defined in the special price must match the unit of measure specified in the row for the discount to apply.

You will notice that the four types of prices range from the most general “price lists” to the most specific “special prices for business partners”.

When the system searches for a price, it looks for the most specific type of price first.  So, that means it starts with the types of prices listed in the opposite order of how they have been introduced in this graphic.

The system starts looking for a special price for that business partner.

If no special price exists for that business partner, it looks for discount groups.

If no discount group applies, it looks for period and volume discounts.

If no period and volume discount, it uses the price list assigned to the business partner to find the price.

As of the 9.0 release, the system also looks at for pricing associated for the unit of measure used on the row.

II/ Price Lists

Let us start by looking at price lists.

Managing multiple price lists allow you to provide flexibility in pricing.

For example, you want to offer customers that make regular purchases from you or who purchase large quantities a lower price than customers who only make occasional purchases or purchase small quantities of an item. Pricing could also be based on the size of a customer.

Price lists are not only used in sales, but like all of the pricing functionality, they are used in purchasing as well. Typically you will have one or more price lists set up to represent your vendors’ prices for regularly purchased items.

1/ Item Prices

Every item in your system is automatically linked to every price list. You can set an indicator in General Settings that removes items without prices from price lists.

When you look in an item master, you will see that you can view prices for multiple price lists directly in the item master.

You can assign prices for the item in all but two of the price lists.  Two of the default price lists are maintained by the system and cannot be maintained by users: Last Evaluated Price and Last Purchase Price. 

However, even though it is possible, you may not wish to maintain pricing for the other price lists directly in the item master because this overrides automatic pricing in a price list.

2/ Price list concept

When you create a business partner, a price list is assigned to each business partner.  Price lists can default from the customer’s customer group or from the assigned payment terms if no price list is assigned to the customer group. 

A business partner is assigned to only one price list.

You can view and change the defaulted price list in the business partner master.

When you create a marketing document, the system brings in the price list associated with the business partner to the header of the document.

You can see the assigned price list in the Form Settings window for the document.

 You can override the assigned price list in the document either by changing it directly or by changing the payment terms.  If you change the payment terms, the system will prompt you to ask if you want to change the price list or not.

As you enter items in the document, the system proposes a price for each item based on the price list or any discounts or special prices you have defined.

III/ Price Source in Documents

Since a document can contain prices not only from the price list, but also from other types of special pricing: period and volume discounts, discount groups and special prices for business partners, it is useful to be able to identify the source of the price.

The price source field provides information on the source of prices and discounts on the item row.

The field can contain one of the following values:

• Inactive Price list. This indicates that the price list for the business partner is inactive.
• Active Price List.  This means that the price is taken from the business partner price list, with no discounts.
• Active Price List, Discount Groups. In this case, the price is taken from the discount group.
• Special Prices for Business Partners. This means that the price is taken from the Special Prices for Business Partners window.
• Period and Volume Discount. This shows that the price is taken from the Period and Volume Discounts window.

This field can be especially useful to check if everything is working properly when you first set up pricing.

To view the price source field, set it as visible and active in Form Settings.

IV/ Price Determination in SAP Business One

So let us recap how the system finds pricing when you create a marketing document.

Since you can define several prices in the system for the same item, the system needs to use a certain logic to find the valid price, starting with the most specific price.

The system uses the above list of priorities to find the valid price. Once it has found the price, it enters the result in the document.

First, the system looks for a business partner and item specific special price.

If none exists, then it looks for a discount group associated with that business partner.

If no discount group exists, then it looks for period and volume discounts for the selected price list.

Then it looks for a period and volume discount.  The system looks to see if the item and unit of measure specified in the row match the period and volume discount for the pricelist.

If no valid period and volume discount for this price list exists for this item and unit of measure, then it uses the basic price list assigned to the document.

If a specific price exists for the unit of measure in the document, then that price will be used. However, the price list does not need to contain an entry for the specific unit of measure used in the document.  A price will be automatically calculated for the item based on the relationships in the unit of measure group.

V/ Summary

Here are some key points:

• There are 4 types of prices:  price lists, period and volume discounts, discount groups and special pricing for business partners.
• When you create a document, the system brings in the price list associated with the business partner.
• You can change the assigned price list in the document.
• The system proposes a price for each item in the document.
• The system looks first for the most specific price and continues until it finds an applicable price.
• The pricing hierarchy order is: special prices for a business partner, discount groups, period and volume discounts, price list.
• The price source field shows  the source of prices on the row.