General SOP Facilities

Discount procedures

As well as the ability to choose up to nine selling prices, you may give discounts at several levels:

Line-by-line discounts. You can take a value from the customer account to override or use, or enter it at order entry time for the order as a whole. It applies to each order line, although you may change it for specific lines.

Discount matrix. This facility is used to derive a discount that is dependent on a customer group or specific customer code, matched to a stock group or specific stock code. The discount matrix facility is described in an appendix to this manual. If you elect to use this facility, then the discount matrix values are held in a separate file that is maintained as one of the DeskTop Tools options. If a value from the discount matrix applies, then it replaces any default line discount.

Quantity discounts. Quantity discount breaks are an additional feature supported by the discount matrix facility.

Overall discounts. You may give a further discount on the value of the order as a whole, after taking account of any previous discounts offered on each line.If you are using the "additional charge” feature, you can decide whether or not the overall discount is to apply to this too (you wouldn’t if it were the straight postage or courier charge).

Settlement discount. An additional discount, based on your receiving payment within a specified time period, can be calculated automatically. This value and time period is carried through to the sales ledger, where it is used to check whether the payment is received within the time period and therefore whether the discount can be allowed or not.

Free Format Text Details

A special option allows you to define a set of fields in the order processing files in which you can enter pure text information. You can have one set in the order header, and another set in each order detail line.

You can even exclude the printing of any detail information at all. This feature is useful particularly in service businesses where a free-form verbal description of the service provided may be all that is needed on the invoice. One or more detail lines can hold items and values for the purposes of calculation and your analysis.

Stock Considerations

The interaction of your order processing system with stock needs careful thought. You must consider aspects such as:

Do you reserve stock at order entry, or just deplete stock when delivered?

Should you reduce stock when you print the delivery note, or when you invoice the customer?

Should you ignore stock on order, on the basis you might never get it?

How do you override situations where the stock system says none available, but you know the stock is there?

Clear thinking at the set up stage can pay dividends in reliable stock figures in use.

Note that you can enter order detail lines without a stock code (free format) to cover service items.However, no information is then written to the stock file for such sales, so analysis of stock transactions would exclude these items.

As an alternative, you can define a stock code as a "non-stock” item, which you can use for service lines. The advantages are that analysis details can be defined within the stock record; no attempt is made to update stock quantities for non-stock items; but demand figures are updated for the purpose of analysis.

Multi-Location Stock

The multi-location stock procedures are defined within the stock system. If you have opted for multi-location stock, then order details are requested by stock location too. You need to examine how order fulfilment documentation is handled for each location through your system.