Customer Specific Pricing and Item Info

Modified on Thu, May 13, 2021 at 10:47 AM

The following sections explain how to use Customer Specific sales pricing for inventory and customer item information.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overview
How to Enable Customer Item Info and Pricing
User Privilege to Add/Modify Customer Item Info
Adding and/or Modifying Customer Item Info
Using the Customer Item Info
Using Customer Item Info Fields on Printed Forms

Overview

The customer "Item Info and Pricing" is a powerful feature that can be used for some or all of the following:

Customer Specific Item Pricing
Customer Specific Item Pricing with Effective and/or Expiry Dates (aka contract pricing)
Custom Part Numbers that differ from the Connected part number description
Customer specific Item lists that are used during data entry to display only a specific customers item list

When customer "Item Info and Pricing" is enabled, it becomes the primary pricing mechanism. For example, if the Custom Price Table and/or Price Matrix pricing options have been enabled, items that are listed in the customer item list will always use that price over other methods.

Customer item info and pricing can be used by all Connected configurations, with and without the Inventory module enabled. The following are some specific examples of how this feature can be utilized:

Contract Pricing - A customer may have a negotiated price for a specific product or group of products that runs through a year or period of time. In this case, the items can be specified for that customer with a custom price that has both an effective date and expiry date. Once expired, the price would revert to one of the other pricing mechanisms, unless updated.
Customer Part Numbers - Some customers may require that their part number and/or description be printed on orders, invoices, and packing slips. If this part number is different than the Connected part number, it can be printed on forms and/or searched on during data entry.
Service Rates - Customer pricing can be used to establish different billing rates, by customer, for services performed. By adding the billing items and specific rates (selling price) in the Customer Item Info tab, different rates can be established for the same service to different customers.

A sample of the "Item Info" tab in the Customers window is shown in the following screen:

How to Enable Customer Item Info and Pricing

To enable customer item info and pricing:

1) Select Company Setup from the File menu and choose A/R Defaults.

2) Click the Customers tab, as shown in the following screen:

3) Select the Item Info and Pricing checkbox to enable this feature.

4) Choose the Customer Item Descriptions if the customer part number and description should replace the existing item description by default during data entry.

5) Click OK to exit and save the changes.

User Privilege to Add/Modify Customer Item Info

To enable the ability to add/modify customer item information, the "Item Info Pane" must be selected in the A/R User Privileges window. Users with access to edit Connected user privileges can find this option as shown in the following screen:

A user without this privilege selected can still see the information listed under the "Item Info" tab, such as pricing, during data entry in screens that have the customer record present. For example, when adding a customer order and using the Item pop-up list which would display a tab specific to that customer.

Adding and/or Modifying Customer Item Info

Customer Item Info and Pricing can be added when configuring new customers or at any time when a customer is modified in the Customers window.

PLEASE NOTE: Customer Item Info and Pricing can also be populated using an import. Please see the below link for more detailed information.

Customer Item Info Import

To add or modify customer item info data:

1) Open the Customers window and either add a new customer or locate the customer using the Find command.

2) While either adding or modifying the customer, click the "Item Info" tab, as shown in the following screen.

3) Enter a valid Item No or press TAB to choose from the Inventory List. This field is required. If you are adding to an existing customer item list, click the "+" icon ("Add List Item") in the bottom left of the window.

NOTE: Only one instance of an item can be used in this list.

4) Enter a Customer Item No, if applicable.
5) Enter a customer specific Description, if applicable.
6) The List Price field is displayed for reference purposes and cannot be edited. The field displays data from the "Selling Price" field in the Inventory Items window.
7) Enter the Unit Price, if applicable. If this field is left blank the item price will either default to the one from the Custom Price Table, Price Matrix, or Selling Price in the Inventory Items screen.

8) Enter an Effective date for the pricing. Only entries made on or after this date will use the pricing specified. This field is not required.

9) Enter an Expiry date for the pricing. Only entries made on or before this date will use the pricing specified. This field is not required.

10) Click the checkmark or press ENTER to save.

Using the Customer Item Info

There are four specific ways that the Customer Item Info is used in Connected.

Inventory Item Lookup List
Customer Item Numbers and Descriptions
Customer Pricing with or without effective and/or expiry dates
Exporting/Printing Customer Item Info

Each of these uses is explained in the following sections.

Inventory Item Lookup List

When items have been defined for a specific customer it affects the item lookup list during data entry. For example, if only a few items are purchased by a specific customer, the "Customer Item Info" tab in the Inventory lookup list will contain only those items. This can make data entry much quicker and streamlines the information displayed while adding entries like Quotes, Orders, and Invoices. The following screen shows a sample of the Customer Item Info tab pane in the inventory lookup list during Sales Order entry. The list is filtered to only the items defined for the customer on the order.

Customer Item Number and Descriptions

When customer item/part numbers and/or descriptions are defined in the "Item Info" tab they can be used as either the default line item description of items or printed as separate columns on a form.

If the "Customer Item Descriptions" checkbox was selected in the A/R Defaults, each time an item is added that contains a customer item number and/or description, it will automatically be used in the "Description" field during detail line entry. The following screen shows a sample of where this is would be displayed in the Sales Order window.

Customer Pricing with or without Effective and/or Expiry Dates

The customer item info can be used as simply a price list and does not require any customer part numbers or descriptions. If a customer price for an item number is specified, it will always be the price used. If Effective and/or Expiry dates are specified for a customer price, Connected will verify the entry date is within the dates specified. If the date of the transaction is outside of the effective date, Connected will indicate this with one of the following messages and the standard pricing will be used.

NOTE: Effective and Expiry dates are not mandatory fields. Both fields, one field, or neither of the fields can be used.

Exporting/Printing Customer Item Info

In some cases, a large customer item list may need to be exported or printed. To export or print this information, simply click the "Item Info" tab in the Customers window and select print, as shown in the following screen.

Exporting this information can be helpful when presenting a price list to a customer or as a basis for creating an import file that contains changes/updates to a customer's pricing.

Using Customer Item Info Fields on Printed Forms

The following article describes how to add these fields to specific printed forms.

Using Customer Item Info Fields on Printed Forms