The right rate, without anyone remembering it
Almost every wholesale and semi-wholesale business charges different customers different prices, and almost all of them hold that knowledge in somebody's head. It works until that person is away, or until the shop has more parties than anyone can remember.
Rates are set once and applied at every counter.Rates in a head are a risk, not a system
When rates live with a person, three things follow. Billing slows down while somebody is asked. Mistakes happen in both directions, and the ones in the customer's favour are never reported. And the business cannot open a second counter without duplicating that person.
Holding the rate against the party fixes all three at once. The bill is made by whoever is at the counter, at the rate that was agreed, and the agreement is a record rather than a memory.
Four ways a price gets decided
A rate for a party
A specific customer gets a specific rate on specific items. It applies automatically the moment that party is selected on the bill.
Price lists for a group
Retail, wholesale, semi-wholesale, staff, institutional — a list per category, and each party belongs to one. Changing a category's rates changes it for everyone in it.
Quantity slabs
A different rate above a quantity, a case rate versus a piece rate, or a rate that steps down as the quantity goes up. Applied on the line as it is billed.
Schemes and free goods
Buy-one-get-one, a free quantity above a threshold, a scheme that runs for a fortnight. Set with its dates, applied while it is live, and stopped when it ends without anyone having to remember.
Who is allowed to change a rate
Automatic rates are only useful if they cannot be quietly overridden. These controls are what make the numbers trustworthy afterwards.
- Below-rate billing can be blocked outright, or allowed only to named users.
- A discount limit can be set per user, so the counter has room to move but not much.
- Overrides are recorded with who did it and when, and appear in a report.
- Rate changes on the item or the party are logged, so an unexplained price has a history.
- Minimum margin can be enforced, so nothing is sold below cost by accident.
This is where most of our work starts
What is described above is how Stock2Track does it out of the box, and for most shops that is the end of the conversation. When it is not — when your business does this one step differently and the difference matters — that part gets built. Over two hundred customers run a version of Stock2Track altered in some way for how they work.
How custom development worksQuestions owners ask
What if a party has a special rate on only two items?
That is the normal case. Party rates apply to the items you set them on, and everything else falls back to the price list for that party's category.
Can the salesman still change a price at the counter?
Only if you allow it. It can be blocked entirely, allowed within a limit, or allowed to named users, and every override is recorded.
Do schemes stop on their own?
Yes. A scheme is set with its dates and stops applying when it ends, which is usually where money is lost when this is managed by hand.