Price Scales

To access Price Scales select from the main menu Tables|Pricing|Price Scales, or from the Stock Control Menu select View|Price Scales.

Price Scales may be assigned to either stock groups or stock records. A Price Scale allows cost, sell, tax, discount and other forms of pricing information to be automatically calculated for stock control items. For example, imagine you have the following price structure in your stock control system:

Buy Price

Wholesale Price

Trade Price

List Price

For different types of stock items or stock groups, you wish to set-up different pricing arrangements based on margins or other criteria. For a particular item or group of items you may decide to assign a 15% mark-up based on your buy price, and assign this to your Wholesale Price. For the Trade Price the mark-up might be 25% and for the List Price the mark-up might be 40%. It would be very useful if the system allowed you to enter a Buy Price, and then have the other pricing information calculated automatically for you. This can be achieved using a Price Scale.

Managing Price Scales

A Price Scale is a group of calculations of formulas assigned to a specific Price Scale Code, which may be applied as a set, to either a specific stock item, or group of stock items. A Price Scale is given a unique code designation and a brief description. Then price field calculations are defined for the Price Scale.

To add a new Price Scale to the system press the Add button. Press Delete to remove a Price Scale or Edit to edit an existing Price Scale.

Price Scale field entries include the following:

Price Code

Enter a code which may be a mix of letters or numbers, up to 8 characters long. This code is used to uniquely identify the set of Price Scale calculations.

Description

Enter a brief description for your own reference, defining what the Price Scale is used for, if applicable.

Price B - Price Z

Below the Price Code and the Description is the Formula table. Your pricing formulas are defined here. To specify a price formula, click on the price field that you wish to associate with a formula using your mouse and then press ALT-F, or click on the edit box below the Formula heading underneath the Formula table. You can then begin to type in your formula. The formula you enter is related to the currently highlighted Price Formula in the Formula table.

A formula is triggered when a stock item's price field is changed by a user and optionally when prices change during deliveries of stock, via stock receipt and purchase order transaction processing.

In the CAPITAL Stock Control System, price fields are assigned a letter of the alphabet. The first price field is referred to as Price "A", the second price field as Price "B" and so on. Up to 25 price fields may be defined on a stock control record, although by default only 8 are shown on the standard stock control screen. Rather than refer to price fields as "A", "B", "C", etc., they are normally given names or labels, such as "Cost Price", "Buy Price", "List Price", "Retail" and so on. When defining formulas, however, price fields are always referred by their actual field code A-Z, rather than by their name or label. This way you can change the names of your price fields later on, without upsetting your formulas.

Imagine for a moment that your system is set-up with the following price structure and that each price is assigned a price field from A-D.

A: Buy Price

B: Wholesale Price

C: Trade Price

D: List Price

Now if the calculation on price field B (Wholesale Price) is set to A+15%, then when a price is entered in the first Stock Control price field (price A), the second price field (price B) is automatically calculated as price A plus 15 per cent.

Operators may manually override price scale calculations. For example, if price B (Wholesale Price) is defined as A+15% and calculates to $3.44, an operator can alter the suggested price and change it to $3.45.

Price Scale formulas are applied to all Stock Control prices each time a price field in Stock Control is changed, but only for prices ahead of the price being edited. For example, if an operator changes the third price field (price C) then the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th price fields (D through to H) are recalculated. (Provided that price formulas have been assigned to all of these fields via the stock item's assigned stock group.) The 1st, 2nd and 3rd price fields (A, B and C) are not altered.

Only the price fields in Stock Control that are actually available to you will be listed under the Formula table. If you do not have a price field J, K or L on your Stock Control screen, entries for these price fields will not appear in the Formula table.

Formula

The actual price formula is entered here. Examples of valid formulas are described in the following table:

Rounding

You may optionally apply rounding to a calculated price. Rounding is applied after the price formula is calculated.

<Blank>

If the blank entry is selected no rounding is applied.

Up

If Up is selected, rounding is always applied upwards.

Down

If Down is selected, rounding is always applied downwards.

Nearest

If Nearest is selected, numbers are always rounded up or down to the closest value.

Range

If rounding is selected, then a rounding range should also be selected. Rounding options include:

<blank>

If blank is selected no rounding will take place.

5c

If 5c rounding is selected then the final price is rounded to the closest 5c. For example a price of $5.23c might be rounded to $5.25c. A price of $4.99 might be rounded to $5.00 or $4.95 depending on whether rounding was set to up, down or nearest.

10c

If 10c rounding is selected then the final price is rounded to the closest 10c subject to the direction of the rounding.

25c

If 25c rounding is selected then the final price is rounded to the closest 25c subject to the direction of the rounding.

50c

If 50c rounding is selected then the final price is rounded to the closest 50c subject to the direction of the rounding.

95c

If 95c rounding is selected then the final price is typically rounded to the closest dollar and then a further 5c is subtracted.

When rounding down the system will always round down to the nearest whole dollar and then subtract a further 5c. For example, 4.00 and 4.99 will both round down to $3.95 respectively. Note that rounding does not take place if the price is less than 95c when this option is selected and you are requesting to round down.

When rounding up, the system will always round up to the nearest whole dollar and then subtract 5c. For example, $10 and $10.99 will both round up to 10.95 respectively.

$1

If $1 rounding is selected then the final price is rounded to the closest whole dollar.

$5

If $5 rounding is selected then the final price is rounded to the closest 5 dollars.

$10

If $10 rounding is selected then the final price is rounded to the closest whole ten dollar.

Price Scale Entry Tutorial

Based on a scenario where the following price structure has been set-up in stock control:

A: Buy Price

B: Wholesale Price

C: Trade Price

D: List Price

This tutorial will establish a Price Scale to calculate a 15% mark-up on the buy price for wholesale pricing, a 25% mark-up on the buy price for trade pricing and a 40% mark-up on the buy price for list pricing.

1. From the CAPITAL main menu select Tables|Pricing Price Scales

2. Press the Add button.

3. Enter P1 in the Price Code field and press Tab.

4. Enter 'Tutorial Scale' in the Description field and press Tab twice.

5. Price B should be highlighted in the Formula table. Type in the Formula field: A+15% and press the Down button or press ALT-D. (This will cause the next price field in the Formula table to be highlighted and you will be returned to the Formual entry field.)

6. Price C should now be highlighted in the Formula table. Type in the Formula field: A+25% and press the Down button or press ALT-D.

7. Price D should now be highlighted in the Formula table. Type in the Formula field: A+40% and press the Save button.

A new Price Scale code with a set of newly created price formulas should now be added to your Price Scale table. To assign the Price Scale to a stock group return to the main menu by pressing Leave and then do the following:

1. From the main menu select Tables|Stock|Stock Groups.

2. Press the Find button to locate the Stock Group you wish to assign the Price Scale to. Enter the Stock Group code and press Goto when it appears. Alternately do not press Find and use the scroll bars to page through the StockGroup listing to find the Stock Group you wish to assign.

3. Press the Edit button on your highlighted Stock Group or double-click to open the Stock Group.

4. Press Tab three times to move to the Price Scale field code and enter P1 here.

5. Press the Save button to save your changes.

You have now assigned a Price Scale to a stock group. Stock items will now be updated with the above mark-ups when price editing occurs, for all stock items assigned to this stock group.

You may also assign a Price Scale to a specific stock item. The same Price Scale may be assigned to one or more stock items. To do this you must go to Stock Control, find the stock item you wish to assign the Price Scale to, and enter the Price Scale code into the stock item's Price Scale field. If the Price Scale field does not exist on your stock screen you will need to add it to your stock screen using the Screen Builder. For more information on this topic consult: Screen Builder Concepts.

Automatic Price Updates

You can specify in INSTALLATION Workshop that price group formulas are to be applied automatically, each time new stock is delivered through a purchase order or stock receipt. Consult the option Apply Stock Group Formulas found on the Install|Purchasing menu.

For information on price formulas consult the topic: The Formula Processor.

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Related Topics:

Stock Control Concepts

Stock Groups