How well do you understand the pricing options in NetSuite? NetSuite provides a variety of different pricing options, including things like price levels, quantity pricing, and even customer-specific pricing. These features enable your company to manage pricing on your terms while eliminating much of the potential for human error.
Item Record Pricing Options
We’re going to break down the pricing options into two different categories: pricing options on item records and pricing options on customer records. The pricing options you designate on both item records and customer records will affect the prices of items on sales transactions.
First, let’s look at the pricing options that are available for selection on item records. All of these options can be found under the Sales/Pricing tab. The following picture represents what this tab looks like before we edit any of the pricing information.
Price Levels
To begin with, we need to understand price levels. Price levels enable you to have different prices for the same item. NetSuite calls this feature Multiple Pricing. With Multiple Pricing, users can create up to 1,000 different price levels for a single item.
When you create a new price level, you specify the markup or discount percentage for that level. A positive percentage will result in a price markup from the base price of an item, while a negative percentage will result in a price discount.
In the above picture, notice the price levels column. Any price levels that have been created for your account (and are active) will appear in this column. On this item record, the base price for the item is $100. Notice that three of the price levels have been configured to automatically apply a discount to the base price. Two of the price levels, however, need to be entered manually. These are the Test Manual Level and the Web Store Price. If no price is entered in the Web Store Price field, then NetSuite automatically uses the base price of the item in a company’s online store. In order to use a price level like Test Manual Level, however, you would need to enter the specific price you want.
Quantity Pricing
Next, let’s look at how quantity pricing affects this item record. Quantity pricing allows companies to provide discounts to customers who purchase certain items in bulk. Once you have enabled the quantity pricing feature in NetSuite and set your preferences for quantity pricing (specifically, the maximum number of quantity levels you want to appear on any item record), you are ready to set specific base prices for each desired quantity on item records.
Notice, in the above picture, that for this item we have decided to provide discounts for customers who buy quantities of either 10+ or 50+. Once we enter the base price for these quantities, NetSuite automatically shows us what the price level discounts would be as a result of those base prices. Now, when any customer purchases 10 or more of this item (up to 49), NetSuite will automatically use the base price of $90 on the sales order. And if the sales rep selects, say, the 5% off Base Price price level on the sales order, then NetSuite will automatically apply both the price level discount and the base price discount, resulting in final price of $85.50 for each item in the order.
While we’re talking about quantity pricing, we also need to understand the options available in the field Calculate Quantity Discounts. “Quantity” can be a tricky thing to measure. Do you want to apply discounts based on the quantity of an item on a single line of a sales order? What if the same item shows up on multiple lines of the sales order?
In the above picture, you can see the options that NetSuite provides for calculating quantity discounts. Before choosing any one of these, be sure to read the help details on this field to make sure you fully understand how your choice will impact quantity pricing for this item.
Quantity Pricing Schedules
As you can imagine, setting up quantity pricing for each item record could be extremely time consuming. If you want to factor quantity pricing in the same way for many of your items, then you may want to set up a quantity pricing schedule. When you create a new quantity pricing schedule, you decide what discounts you want to provide for different quantities. You also decide whether you want to measure quantity numerically or by a specific unit. For example, if you sell cloth, then you may want to provide discounts for the number of yards of fabric that a customer buys.
Once you have created the pricing schedules you need, you would simply select the appropriate schedule directly on the item record. Then, once you enter the base price for that item, NetSuite will apply your predefined schedule.
Pricing Groups
Next, let’s look at pricing groups. Pricing groups are simply a helpful way to organize related items. For example, if you sell different types of mugs, then you might create a pricing group called, “Mugs.” If the item you are working with belongs in a pricing group, then you would select that group from the Pricing Group dropdown list. Once you have associated an item with a specific pricing group, you can select that group on customer records so that NetSuite knows to apply this pricing group’s price levels for those customers. We’ll return to this concept in the section on customer records.
Multi-Currency Pricing
The final item record pricing feature we need to look at is multi-currency pricing. Multi-currency pricing allows companies that need to conduct business in more than one currency to manage their prices for each of those currencies. NetSuite automatically provides for USD, CAD, EUR, and GBP, but you would need to create currency records for any currencies you will be using beyond these four. If your NetSuite instance does use multiple currencies, then you would need to set the base currency for your company, which is the currency that NetSuite will default to. Each subsidiary in a company can have its own base currency.
You may have noticed the different currency tabs, which are highlighted in the pic above. Each of these currencies have the same price level options and quantity pricing options as the USD tab. All you would need to do is put in the base price for the item in that currency, and NetSuite will do the rest.
Customer Record Pricing Options
If you want to give a customer a specific pricing discount, you can do so on that customer’s record. First navigate to the desired customer record and click Edit. Then, select the Financial subtab. There are three options in particular that are available to you: price level, group pricing, and item pricing.
Price Level
In the Price Level field, you can choose to have a specific price level always apply to this customer’s orders. For example, maybe you have a deal with this customer that causes them to always get 15% off the base price of your items. Setting that price level directly on their customer record ensures that the customer isn’t mistakenly charged above the agreed-upon discount.
Group Pricing
In the above picture, notice the Group Pricing tab at the bottom of the record. On this tab, you can allow your customer to get a specific price level discount on any items they purchase within any particular pricing group. Simply select the pricing group and the desired price level you want to give the customer for that group. You can repeat this process for as many pricing groups as wish.
Item Pricing
You can also choose to give customers discounts for specific items under the Item Pricing tab. As with group pricing, you simply need to select the desired item and then choose which price level you want to apply to this customer when they purchase this item. And as with group pricing, you can also repeat this process for as many items as you wish.
Conclusion
The pricing options in NetSuite ensure that your pricing, with all of its nuances, is always accurate for all your items and for all your customers. If this post helped you understand NetSuite better, be sure to subscribe to our mailing list below to receive future posts directly in your inbox once a week!
As far as Customer Record Pricing goes, when using Price Level vs Group Pricing vs Item Pricing, in which order do they take affect? What’s the hierarchy? For example, I set a customer’s Price Level to 15%, Item Group A at 20% and an item that’s in Item Group A to 25% with Item Pricing, what price would that item be sold for? 10%, 20% or 25%? My assumption is that if the item is not set by Item Pricing and does not belong to an Item Group, it will be 15%. If it is not set by Item Pricing and does belong to Item Group A, it will be 20%. And if it’s both set by Item Pricing and in Item Group A, then it would be 25%
Thanks in advance!