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DEAR Inventory has the ability to add discounts and markups to products, known as product discounts. These can be applied at the product level, customer group level and individual customer level. 


It also has the ability to add a percentage customer discount, which will be applied to all products bought by that customer. You may also be interested in Setting Custom Prices for Customers.


Finally, discounts can be added at the sale order line level, which will apply only to the order line on that sale. 


More complicated combinations of discounts (deals, e.g. 'Buy one, get one free'), which are applied at the shopping cart level, can be set up in the Product Deals section. To add a discount for all customers, all POS customers or all B2B customers, use Product Deals. To add a discount across a product category, brand or product tag, use Product Deals.


Prerequisites

  • Set up Products (required)
  • Set up Customers (recommended)
  • Users will need the Inventory: Stock – Product Discounts permission to use this feature. 


Table of Contents


Discount Types

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DEAR Inventory allows you to create several types of discounts.


Simple

Discount AmountProduct price will be reduced by the amount specified in the Value field, e.g. $10.
% DiscountProduct price will be reduced by the percent specified in the Value field, e.g. 10%.
Markup AmountProduct price will be increased by the amount specified in the Value field.
% MarkupProduct price will be increased by the percent specified in the Value field. (Discount must be between 0% and 100%. If you want to apply markup with negative discount, please change the Discount rule to  Updates the sale price in General settings.
Price OverrideThe amount specified in the Value field will be used as the new price for the product. The price override will be applied to each unit of the product.

1 watch is 10$

Price overrride will be 15$

1 watch = 15$, 2 watches = 30$

Flat AmountThe amount specified in the Value field will be used as the new price for the product. The flat amount will apply to the product total.

1 watch is 10$

Flat amount will be 15$

1 watch = 15$, 2 watches = 15$, 100 watches - 15$

Quantity-based

Quantity-based discounts allow different discounts to be applied depending on the number of products purchased. For example, 50% off further items when 5 or more are purchased.


Free Shipping

If the order exceeds $X, the customer will get free shipping. This type is not available as a product discount and can only be used at the shopping cart level in Product Deals. See Product Deals for more information. 


Creating a Product Discount Rule

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A product discount rule must be created for each type of product discount. This is not required for order line discounts or customer discounts.  


Simple Product Discount

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Create a simple product discount:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Reference Books.
  2. In the Stock section, click Product Discounts.
  3. On the Discounts page, click +.
  4. On the New Discount Rule page, enter a Name for your discount. This is visible internally.
  5. Choose Simple from the Type list.
  6. The discount rule is already set to Active by default, meaning it can be applied immediately to products in your inventory after it is created.
  7. By default, Discount Type is set to Discount Amount. You may change this to any of the Simple discount types discussed in Discount Types above.
  8. Enter a Value for the discount. This value depends on the discount type, e.g. if Discount Type is set to Discount Amount, entering 10 in the Value box means that $10 will be discounted from the price of products to which the rule is applied. If Discount Type is set to %Discount, a 10% discount will be applied instead.
  9. Click Save. If you click Back to List, you will see the new discount rule appear in the list on the Discounts page.


Quantity-based Product Discount

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These are discounts applied to the product depending on the quantity of the product that has been purchased. It is particularly useful for giving discounts to customers who buy in bulk.


Create a quantity-based product discount template:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Reference Books.
  2. In the Stock section, click Product Discounts.
  3. On the Discounts page, click +.
  4. On the New Discount Rule page, enter a Name for your discount. This is visible internally.
  5. Choose Quantity-based from the Type list.
  6. The discount rule is already set to Active by default, meaning it can be applied immediately to products in your inventory after it is created.
  7. Click to add a line to the rule.
  8. In each line, enter the number of items that the discount will apply to, the type of simple discount to be applied (see Simple Discount Types above), and the discount amount. For example, to enter a discount that will apply a flat 10% discount for anyone buying up to 100 pieces of an item in your inventory, enter 100 in the Up To column, select %Discount as the type of discount, and enter 10 as the amount.
  9. To add other lines to the rule, repeat Steps 7-8 (you may add as many lines to the rule as required). Otherwise, click Save.


NOTE: Quantity-based discounts apply to the total quantity of items. For example, if the sample discount rule discussed under this section is applied to an order with 100 units of a product, a 10% discount is applied to the combined value (or total price) of all 100 units. If the order is for 200 units of a product, a 20% discount is applied to the total price. 


Free Shipping

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This simple discount applies free shipping to orders over a certain amount. This type is not available as a product discount, and can only be used at the shopping cart level in Product Deals. See Product Deals for more information. 


NOTE: Free Shipping discount/deal is applicable to B2B orders and DEAR Inventory sales, it does not apply on sales captured from eCommerce channels such as Shopify. 


Create a free shipping discount template:

  1. Select Free Shipping type from the list.
  2. Enter the order amount required to receive the discount.
  3. Click Save.


Discount Settings

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There are currently three settings that affect how discounts are applied. These can be changed by navigating to Settings → General Settings → Sale Process Customisation.


The discount rule is

There are three options for displaying discounts: Updating the sale price and Updating discount %. Updating the sale price will cause discounts to automatically reduce the unit cost and sale price. Updating discount % will display the total percentage discount of the order line. Sale documents will also reflect this setting. 


NOTE: It is possible to display both the discount % and discounted sale price by editing the sale document templates (described below).


Automatically Apply Discounts

When this setting is enabled, customer and product discounts will automatically be applied to the sale order upon authorisation of a sale quote or sale order. It is not possible to skip applying the discount when this setting is enabled. If this setting is disabled, the user must click the Apply Discounts button on a sale quote or sale order to manually apply the discount. If Apply Discounts is not pressed, the order will be authorised without any discount. 


Apply customer discount after other discounts

A customer may have both a product discount and customer discount when making an order. If this setting is enabled, the customer discount will be applied after the highest priority product discount is applied to the order. If this setting is disabled, the discount is applied as follows. The discounted price is calculated by applying the product discount to the original price. Then another discounted price is calculated by applying the customer discount to the original price. The discount that results in lower discounted price is used finally. This setting does not affect order line discounts (described below). 

Apply Discounts

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Product Discounts can be applied at the product level, the customer level and the customer group level. If the discount setting Automatically Apply Discounts is enabled, all applicable discounts will be added automatically. If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is disabled, the user must press the Apply Discounts button at the quote or order stage to apply applicable discounts to the order. 


For more complicated deals at the shopping cart level (e.g. 'Buy one, get one free'), see Product Deals.


The order of priority of product level discounts is:

  1. The individual customer level has the highest priority. It overrides all other discounts.
  2. If there's no discount at the individual customer level, the customer group discount will be applied.
  3. If there are no discounts at the customer and customer group levels, the product level discount will be applied.

NOTE: Currently, only one product discount can be applied at a time. 


Customer discounts will stack with product-level discounts only if the discount setting Apply Customer Discount after other Discounts setting (described in Discount Settings above) is set to Yes


If an additional order line discount is specified, this is applied after any other discounts have been applied. 


Order line discount

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A simple percentage discount or markup can be added to a sale order line. This discount only applies to the sale order line on the current sale. Only percentage (%) discounts are supported.  A positive value will add a percentage discount. Negative discounts cannot be applied. It can be added at the Quote or Order of a sale order. 


If you wish to add a discount to sale order lines after the invoice has been authorised, see Customer Credit Notes and Refunds – Discount applied to Order


If the discount rule in the discount settings is set to Updating the sale price, any order line discounts will be applied last to the discounted price.


If the discount rule in the discount settings is set to Updating discount %, any order line discounts must be added to the total discount %. 



Customer discount

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Customer discounts can be applied from the Sales > Customers > [selected customer] screen. Only percentage (%) discounts are supported. This discount will be applied to all products on all sales for this customer. You may also be interested in Setting Custom Prices for Customers


NOTE: Customer discounts will stack with product discounts if the discount setting Apply Customer Discount after other Discounts setting (described in Discount Settings above) is set to Yes.



If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is set to Yes, the customer discount will be added automatically to sale quote or sale order lines in the Discount field.



If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is set to No, the user must click Apply Discounts for the customer discount to be applied. A note showing the percentage discount applied will be listed at the top of the quote/order screen. 


Product discount – product level

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Discounts applied at this level can be applied to just this product, on any sale order and for any customer. To add discounts to all products within a category, brand, or with a specific product tag, use Product Deals


Apply a discount at the product level:

  1. Navigate to Inventory → Products.
  2. Select the product you wish to apply the discount to.
  3. In the Product Discount drop-down menu, select the discount you wish to apply.
  4. Save the product.


If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is set to Yes, the product discount will be added automatically when the sale quote or sale order is authorised. It is also possible to manually apply the discount by clicking Apply Discounts. If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is set to No, the user must click Apply Discounts for the product discount to be applied. A note showing the discount applied will be listed at the top of the quote/order screen. 


Product discount – customer group level

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Discounts applied at this level can be added to any sale of this product to customers included in this group. Customers are added to customer groups by adding tags to their customer details. 


NOTE: To add a discount for all customers, all POS customers or all B2B customers, use Product Deals.



Apply a discount at the customer group level:

  1. Navigate to Inventory → Products.
  2. Select the product you wish to apply the discount to.
  3. Go to the Discounts tab of the product.
  4. Click +Customer Discount.
  5. Type the Customer Tag into the field.
  6. Choose a Discount (from your previously created Product Discount Templates).
  7. Save the product to apply the discount.


If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is set to Yes, the product discount will be added automatically when the sale quote or sale order is authorised. It is also possible to manually apply the discount by clicking Apply Discounts. If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is set to No, the user must click Apply Discounts for the product discount to be applied. A note showing the discount applied will be listed at the top of the quote/order screen.


Product discount – customer level

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Discounts applied at this level can be added to any sale of this product to this customer. 


NOTE: To add a discount for all customers, all POS customers or all B2B customers, use Product Deals


Apply a discount at the customer level:

  1. Navigate to Inventory → Products → View All.
  2. Select the product you wish to apply the discount to.
  3. Go to the Discounts tab of the product.
  4. Click +Customer Discount.
  5. Select the Customer from the drop-down list.
  6. Choose a Discount (from your previously created Product Discount Templates).
  7. Save the product to apply the discount.


If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is set to Yes, the product discount will be added automatically when the sale quote or sale order is authorised. It is also possible to manually apply the discount by clicking Apply Discounts. If the Automatically Apply Discounts setting is set to No, the user must click Apply Discounts for the product discount to be applied. A note showing the discount applied will be listed at the top of the quote/order screen.


Add or Edit Discounts in Bulk

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Product Discounts can be imported/edited in bulk via CSV file. Product discount templates must have already been created before they can be imported via CSV. 


Product-level product discounts (described above) are added/edited through the Inventory List


Add product-level product discounts in bulk:

  1. Navigate to Inventory → Products.
  2. Click Export → Inventory List or Export → Inventory List (without descriptions).
  3. A download window will appear with the Inventory List CSV file.
  4. Open the file and add the product discount name under DiscountName
  5. Using Import → Inventory List, upload the new Inventory List to apply the discounts.


Add customer-level and customer group-level product discounts in bulk:

  1. Navigate to Inventory → Products.
  2. Click Export → Discount Matrix.
  3. A download window will appear with the Discount Matrix CSV file. Only products with existing product discounts will appear in the exported file. 
  4. Each discount for a product must be added in a new line. SKU and DiscountRuleName are required, ProductName is included on export for your information only. CustomerName and CustomerTag are mutually exclusive. One of these fields is required for each product line, but entering information into both will cause an error.
  5. Using Import → Discount Matrix, upload the new Inventory List to apply the discounts.


Show Discounts on Sale Documents

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Discounts in DEAR are either displayed as reductions in sale prices or as a discount total percentage (%), according to your discount settings (described above). Your settings are reflected in your generated sales documents. 


It is possible to add both the total discount % as well as the discounted price to your sales documents by editing the sales document templates. See Managing Document and Email Templates for more detailed information on editing templates.


NOTE: Discounts applied in B2B portal sales cannot currently be displayed as a percentage in DEAR web portal due to system settings that prevent precision rounding errors, instead, a discounted price is shown. Discount percentage will be displayed in the quote memo, sale order memo, and sale invoice memo fields of a sale in DEAR for informational purposes.

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