12.1 Sales Pricing Options

Sales rates come from six different tools

A sales order, invoice, or web order needs a rate before it can be saved. Six tools make that rate: Quantity Pricing, Price Levels, Pricing Groups, Pricing Schedules, multi-currency pricing, and customer-specific pricing. Price levels name the rate card. Quantity tools change the rate as quantity grows. Groups and customer item prices choose the card. Currency prices choose a stored foreign amount or a converted base price.

Price levels and the 1,000 ceiling

Multiple Pricing is enabled at Setup > Company > Enable Features. On the Transactions subtab, check Multiple Prices, then save. Price level records are created at Setup > Accounting > Accounting Lists > New by choosing Price Level. Name the level for the job it does, such as Wholesale or Employee, so the person entering the order can recognize it.

Oracle NetSuite Help states that Multiple Pricing lets you create up to 1,000 price levels. Creating Price Levels describes the same ceiling as up to 1,000 active records. The October 2024 foundation sample uses that 1,000 figure, and current Help still states 1,000. A quantity pricing schedule has a separate bracket limit, covered below.

Markup/Discount % is optional. A positive percent marks the base price up, and a negative percent discounts it. Help applies that percent to the Base Price. You can also type an explicit rate on the item. The first columns are Base Price, Alternate Price 1, Alternate Price 2, Alternate Price 3, and Online Price. Further levels come from the accounting list.

Unused price levels can be inactivated. Help recommends that for performance, including levels that store a markup or discount percent.

A $200 list price at 10 percent below list

Start with a base, or list, price of $200. Create a price level whose Markup/Discount % is -10, which is 10 percent below list.

The discount amount is 10 percent of the base price: $200 times 0.10 equals $20.

The level price subtracts that discount from the base price: $200 minus $20 equals $180.

A customer on that level gets $180 unless item pricing or a custom line rate replaces it. The percent starts from the base price, not from another level.

A markup uses the same base and the opposite sign. Plus 10 percent of $200 is $20, and $200 plus $20 is $220. The case to remember is the discount path: $200 becomes $180.

On a web order, the online price overrides the other prices. If that price is blank, the store shows the base price. A logged-in shopper otherwise sees the price level on the customer, or the base price when no level is stored.

Quantity pricing

Quantity Pricing is a separate checkbox on the Transactions subtab. It changes the sales price from how many units are sold.

Then open Accounting Preferences, Items/Transactions. Maximum # of Quantity-based Price Levels is how many quantity columns appear on each item. That number is a preference you enter. It is not the 1,000 price-level ceiling. Check Allow Quantity Discounts per Price Level on Schedules when each price level should have its own quantity discount. Quantity Pricing is not compatible with Billing Classes.

The item also chooses which quantity is tested:

• By Line Quantity uses the quantity on that line only.
• By Overall Item Quantity adds every line for the same item on the transaction.
• By Overall Parent Quantity adds items that share a parent, which is the matrix-item case.
• By Overall Schedule Quantity adds every line on the transaction that uses the same pricing schedule.

Pricing schedules

A quantity pricing schedule is a template at Lists > Accounting > Quantity Pricing Schedules > New. Quantity Pricing and its preferences must already be saved. Applying a schedule to an item creates prices for every price level on that item.

Name the schedule and base it on a quantity or on a unit of measure. Check Use Marginal Rates when each bracket prices only the units inside it. Help's example gives no discount on the first 100 units and 5 percent off above 100. Sell 150 and the first 100 stay at the normal price while the other 50 take the 5 percent discount. Clear marginal rates if the matching bracket should apply to every unit.

Help limits the schedule to 4 non-zero quantity levels. That bracket limit does not reduce the 1,000 price levels you can create.

A schedule can also store a vendor purchase price. Help allows one vendor on each vendor quantity pricing schedule, and that schedule can still apply to many items.

Pricing groups

A pricing group assigns one price level to a set of items for one customer. Help's example is a group named Laptops linked to every laptop item. Create it from Accounting Lists as a Pricing Group. Help says you generally should not create more than 1,000 pricing groups, because the practical maximum depends on price levels and customer records you already have.

Assign it on the customer Financial subtab, Group Pricing, by choosing the group and a price level. That group level overrides the customer's general price level, and it does not override item pricing.

Customer-specific pricing

Set the customer's general level on the Financial subtab, in Price Level. It autofills on that customer's orders. An empty field means the base price.

You can still choose Custom on one transaction and type a rate, or pick a different named level. On Item Pricing, select an item and a price level. Help states that those item price levels override the customer's Price Level field and also override pricing-group levels.

On one line, a Custom rate replaces the stored customer setup. Item pricing beats both the general price level and the pricing group. The group beats only the general price level. Quantity brackets then run inside the level that won, so a -10 percent level can still drop again when a schedule bracket is crossed.

Multi-currency pricing

Enable Multiple Currencies before you store foreign rates. Every item still needs a base price in the company base currency. With Multiple Prices on, open the item Pricing subtab, choose the currency, and enter a price for each price level. With Multiple Prices off, enter the foreign amount as an alternate price on Sales/Pricing.

If you stored a price in the transaction currency, NetSuite uses it. That foreign amount stays fixed when the exchange rate moves, so the company carries the exchange-rate risk. If no foreign price is stored, NetSuite converts the base-currency price. A preferred vendor's purchase price shows in that vendor's currency.

How the six tools compare

A $200 item at the -10 percent level is $180 on that table. Item pricing can still point that one item elsewhere, and a stored foreign-currency price is used when the transaction currency has one.