Before configuring price levels, please be sure you fully understand how agrē calculates prices. You will need to determine whether or not you wish to use hierarchical or non-hierarchical pricing and decide how many price levels you need. We strongly recommend that you discuss this with your CSC:
agrē provides a wide variety of options for determining retail prices, and it is unlikely you'd want to use all of them. Your CSC is familiar with all of the available features and can help you get the most out of agrē with the least amount of maintenance.
What you'll find:
In order to determine a price for a product, agrē needs to know what product/unit combination it is pricing; the location of the product; the customer's price level and discount group (if they are in one); and, if on an invoice, the invoice date (to determine if there are any current sales to consider). If there isn’t a price specified for the combination of details in play, agrē checks everything again at the next specified price level. Which price level is checked next depends on whether your company uses hierarchical pricing or non-hierarchical pricing (set up in your configuration settings).
Hierarchical vs Non-Hierarchical Pricing
Hierarchical pricing has multiple price levels that 'graduate' from one to the next. You may have Gold level customers who get the best prices, then the next best are Silver, and the regular retail prices are Bronze. With hierarchical pricing, you can specify that when there is no Gold price, the next place to look is in the Silver price level, and after that, the Bronze.
Non-hierarchical pricing is appropriate if you have only one price level, or if there isn't a logical relationship between the various price levels that you do have. Perhaps you have Regular pricing for most customers, and an Employee price level for your staff, as well as a Long Term Customer price level. If there is no price specified for a product at the Long Term Customer price level, you just want to use the Regular pricing.
Non-hierarchical pricing will use the default price level (the first one on the list) if there is no price in the selected price level; hierarchical pricing will "walk the price levels" until it finds a price to use (and will end up at the default price level eventually as well if no specific prices are listed for the other price levels).
Working with Price Levels (Hierarchical Pricing)
(Config C) When using hierarchical pricing, either the Hierarchy Order or the Enter At Level must be specified for each of your price levels. Doing so tells agrē the order that you want your price levels to be checked from the highest level to the lowest level (level 1 is the default price).
Adding a Price Level (Hierarchical Pricing)
To add a price level when using Hierarchical Pricing:
Navigate to Inventory > Manage > Pricing > Price Levels
The Manage Price Levels window opens.
Click in the empty cell at the bottom of the grid. Type a name for the price level (it must be unique).
Fill in either the Hierarchy Order (to specify where this fits in the list of hierarchical price levels) or the Enter At Level to specify which level to check next if there is no price found.
Save your changes.
Editing a Price Level (Hierarchical Pricing)
To edit a price level when using Hierarchical Pricing:
Navigate to Inventory > Manage > Price Levels
The Manage Price Levels window opens.
Select the row that contains the price level you wish to change.
Use Edit Name to change the description of the price level.
If you wish, modify either the Hierarchy Order (to specify where this fits in the list of hierarchical price levels) or the Enter At Level to specify which level to check next if there is no price found.
Save your changes.
Further Details of Hierarchy Order
The price levels entered in the Hierarchy Order column specify the order that all price levels are checked for a product price. If the price level being checked has a price associated with it, agrē uses that price and stops checking the remaining price levels.
As mentioned earlier, agrē checks the transaction location for each price level. If a price isn’t specified at the transaction location at the current price level, then agrē checks for a price at the company location at the current price level (the transaction location is always checked before the <Company> location). If a price is still not found, then agrē continues to check for a price at the transaction location at the next price level specified. agrē continues to check price levels and locations this way until a price is found or the default price level (level 1) is reached. If the default price level at the company location does not have a price specified, the Default Price is used. (The default price level [level 1] at the company location is the lowest price level available for agrē to check.)
In order to explain hierarchy order more clearly, let's look at the following price levels as an example: Gold (level 4), Silver (level 3), Bronze (level 2), and Retail [level 1]; Edmonton is the transaction location.
Note
The default price level (level 1) is always required and cannot be changed or removed; however, the description of the default price level can be changed.
According to the example, agrē gets a price as follows:
If you decide that the Gold (level 4) price level should come before the Silver (level 3) price level, then in the Hierarchy Order column you would enter a 3 for the Gold price level and a 4 for the Silver price level. Once your changes are saved, agrē rearranges the price levels according to the new hierarchy order specified. When you open the window again, the price levels appear in the specified hierarchy order from highest to lowest. According to the example above, agrē now checks the Silver (level 4 now) price level before checking the Gold (level 3 now) price level.
Enter At Level
The price levels entered in the Enter At Level column tell agrē which price levels to ignore and where to “jump into” the hierarchy and begin checking price levels for a product price. This is beneficial when multiple price levels with various product prices associated with them exist. agrē ignores any price levels that you don’t want checked.
Continuing with the original example, let’s say that you want agrē to check the Gold (level 4) price level first, skip the Silver (level 3) and Bronze (level 2) price levels, and immediately check the Retail (level 1) price level next. You would enter a 2 for the Retail (level 1) price level in the Enter At Level column.
According to the example, agrē gets a price as follows:
Working With Non-Hierarchical Pricing
With Non-Hierarchical pricing, each price level is independent. Whenever a price is not found in the current price level, agrē will check the default price level (i.e. the first price level on the list).
Adding a Price Level (Non-Hierarchical Pricing)
To add a price level when using Non-Hierarchical Pricing:
Navigate to Inventory > Manage > Pricing > Price Levels
The Manage Price Levels window opens.
Click in the empty cell at the bottom of the grid. Type a name for the price level (it must be unique).
Save your changes.
Editing a Price Level (Non-Hierarchical Pricing)
To edit a price level when using Non-Hierarchical Pricing:
Navigate to Inventory > Manage > Pricing > Price Levels
The Manage Price Levels window opens.
Select the row that contains the price level you wish to change.
Use Edit Name to change the description of the price level.
Save your changes.
Further Details of Non-Hierarchical Pricing
(Config C) When using non-hierarchical pricing, agrē first checks the customer’s price level for a price. If there isn’t a price specified (at the transaction or company locations), agrē checks the default price level (level 1). If the default price level at the company location does not have a price specified, the Default Price is used. (The default price level [level 1] at the company location is the lowest price level available for agrē to check.) The Hierarchy Order and Enter At Level columns are unavailable to use.
Continuing with the original example, let’s say that a customer is assigned to a Silver (level 3) price level. agrē gets a price as follows:
Removing Price Levels
Removing price levels deletes them from the database. You cannot remove price levels that are in use. When you remove a price level, all product prices associated with the price level are also removed.
To remove a price level:
Navigate to Inventory > Manage > Pricing > Price Levels
The Manage Price Levels window opens.
Select the row that contains the price level you wish to delete.
Remove Price Level at the bottom of the window will be active if this price level is able to be removed. Click to remove the price level.
You cannot remove the default price level.
Save your changes.
Note
If the Remove Price Level button is not available, the price level you selected is in use and cannot be removed.
I want to read the topic on Using a Prepaid Price Level.