About Discount codes

When you save a document, customer discounts of all levels are applied to the document automatically, except for the discounts marked as manual. This topic tells you in which order the system applies the discounts.

You do not have to specify the order of application for automatic discounts. The discounts are always applied in the following order:

• Line-level (applied to each line of the document)
  
  For each document line, the system checks if there are applicable line-level discounts, and picks the one with the largest discount amount.

• Group-level (applied to multiple lines of the document)
  
  The system checks which group discounts that may be applicable, and applies all of them.

• Document-level (applied to the total amount)
  
  There can be only one best document-level discount; that is why group-level discounts (that apply to multiple lines of the document) are often used as document-level discounts.

Several options affect the order of discount application and the calculation of the discounts:

• Exclude from discountable amount: If you use this option (available for line-level discounts), you can exclude the discountable amount of the line-level discount from the discountable amount for higher-level discounts (group or document). For example: by using this option, you can exclude items with a special 75% clearance discount defined at the line level from the basis for the usual 5% document discount the customer receives on orders that exceed £2000.
• Skip document discount: This option is available for group-level discounts. If you design a group-level discount to apply to multiple lines and significantly reduce the document total, select this option to exclude a document-level discount from the documents to which this group-level discount has been applied.

In Visma Net, you can define special prices for particular customers. You can enter and maintain such prices by using the Sales prices (AR202000) window. If customer specific prices are available for items listed on a customer document, the system replaces the general sales prices with customer specific prices.

If you want to use customer specific prices as an alternative to discounts, you can select the check box Ignore line discounts if the customer specific price is available in the Customer ledger preferences (AR101000) window. The system only applies line-level discounts to lines with generally priced items (if applicable). In both cases, group- and document-level discounts are applied as usual.

If you select the Manual check box in the Supplier discount codes (AP204000) window, the discount will not be applied automatically, or selected as the best-available when you save the document. You can use manual discounts for example for rebates or for coupons. Automatic discounts are applied when you save the document, but you apply a manual discount to documents in one of these windows:

• Sales invoices (AR301000)
• Sales orders (SO301000)
• Customer invoices (SO303000)

You can apply manual line-level discounts to a document on the Document details tab in the correct window by selecting the discount code on a specific line. When you select the code and the system applies the discount, the other discounts are recalculated as well.

To apply manual group-level or document-level discounts, you select each manual discount by its code in the table on the Discount details tab in the correct window. If you change the line quantities while you are adding manual discounts, the system recalculates manual discounts; they will not be replaced by automatic discounts, even if the latter results in a bigger discount.

You can configure the system to validate the percentage allowed for discounts on orders (or invoices). When the total discount percent calculated for the group-level and document-level discounts exceeds the established limit for customers of a specific customer class, you will get a warning. You specify the limit (as a percent) in the Group/document discount limit (%) field in the Customer classes (AR201000) window.

When all automatic discounts have been applied, you can apply manual discounts (without discount codes).

You specify manual discounts for specific document lines on the Document details tab in these windows:

• Sales invoices (AR301000)
• Cash sales (AR304000)
• Sales orders (SO301000)
• Customer invoices (SO303000)

To apply a manual discount, you can enter either the discount percent or the discount amount — the system automatically recalculates other related values.

You can update the discounts for documents that have been on hold for some time, if you know the prices or discounts have been updated, or new discounts have been defined in the system.

To update the prices and discounts, select the action Recalculate prices in the respective windows.
You can also choose whether you want to replace manual discounts by automatic discounts or not.
If you are not satisfied with the result, you can apply the manual discounts.