Price Lists and Quantity Breaks
A price list holds what you charge. Several may exist at once, and which one applies is resolved from the customer, the currency, the date and a priority.
What a list carries
- Entity — whose prices these are.
- Currency — a list is in one currency; sell in three and you have three lists.
- Customer class — trade, retail, distributor, or however you segment.
- Valid from and to — so next quarter's prices can be loaded in advance and take effect on the day.
- Priority — the tie-break when more than one list qualifies.
- Tax inclusive — whether the prices already include tax.
Get tax-inclusive right
This flag is a common and expensive mistake. A retail list entered tax-inclusive but flagged exclusive overstates every price by the tax rate, and the error is invisible until a customer complains. Check it on every list you create, and verify with one known product.
Dating rather than overwriting
Load a new list with a future start date rather than editing the current one. The change happens on the day by itself, the old prices remain available for historical questions, and you can prepare an increase without anyone seeing it early.
Quantity breaks
A break is a threshold at which the unit price changes — 1 to 9 at one price, 10 to 49 at another, 50 and above at a third. Breaks belong to the line, so different products can have different structures.
Decide whether a break applies to the whole quantity or only the units above the threshold, and be consistent. Customers notice, and the two produce materially different invoices at the boundary.
Resolution
Where several lists qualify, priority decides. Keep the number of overlapping lists small — a resolution nobody can predict produces a pricing query nobody can answer, and the customer is on the phone while you work it out.