Within the ACR system there are a number of ways to set what price your customers will pay for an item. Two of the most common methods for applying a special price for a product or group of products is to use the Specials System or Pricing Module Maintenance.
Both the Specials System and Pricing Module Maintenance give the ability to set special pricing for one or many products for either an individual or a group of customers. Either of the two options can achieve this in but in different ways so one method may be better suited to a specific situation than the other. It is common to have a mixture of both of these operating together within a system.
Specials System
The Specials System is commonly used for set period discounts such as weekly/monthly promotions where specific products have special prices set on each product. Whether this pricing has come from a group your business is a member of or if you set this yourself they are setup in the same way. You set the Date range the special will be for, which products are on the special and how much each product is going to sell for. Each special can be set for either all customers or only specific Customer price/Promo groups. It can also be determined if the special price over rides any other customer pricing or if the system looks for the lowest possible price.
As items setup in the Special System tend to be valid for a set period only and new specials are setup on a weekly/monthly basis the ability to create an import file has been provided to make setting them up easier. The list of Products on a Special can be pushed into a SalesTALK Campaign to make it easier to setup catalogues for your sales reps.
Pricing Module Maintenance
Pricing Module Maintenance is commonly used for setting up ongoing customer specific pricing. This may be a special price for staff (such as cost plus $1) or incentive pricing for groups of customers (such as 10% discount on plumbing goods for customers who are plumbers). You set the Date range the pricing module will be for. Leaving the Active Dates blank will set it to run indefinably. Select which customer or group of customers the pricing module will apply to. Set which product or group of products the price and discount rules will apply to. Finally you set what price rule to use and any discount that is applied to this price rule. The system will apply the price rule first then apply the discount to this price rule. Each Pricing Module can only have one pricing and discount rule set which will be applied to all customers and products that it is set for.
It is important to consider what you want to achieve before deciding to setup specific pricing within your ACR system. Both of the methods mentioned may be able to achieve the desired outcome but one may be easier to setup and maintain in the long run.