A new item has been added to the ACR menu. It is called Price Rounding Maintenance. This screen allows for the setting up of rules on how sale prices will be rounded after the margin/markup has been applied to the cost when a cost change has been done.
The screen is split into four sections; the qualifiers, the rounding rules, the price examples, and the price test sections.
The Qualifiers
The fields in this section setup what prices to round, and how to round them:
- Price Inc From – Enter the starting price of the range to be rounded.
- Price Inc To – Enter the end price of the range to be rounded.
- Trunc to Whole $ – Selecting this will truncate (remove) the cents value of the price to be rounded.
- Type – This sets how you want the price rounding to work. It works in conjunction with the Direction field (see below). There are two options:
- Round To – this will make the amount field available in the rounding rules. Using this option will mean that the sale price will be rounded to the next value that is divisible by the number entered into the amount field.
- Replace with – This will make the Dollar and Cent fields available in the rounding rules. Using this option will allow you to use price rounding rules that have set dollar and cent amounts to round prices to. e.g. for sale prices between $1 and $9.99 Round prices to $3.99, $6.99 and $9.99.
- Direction – This determines how rounding/replace is applied. The options are:
- Next – round/replace the price up to the next configured price. The ‘Price Inc To’ value will be used as the Highest possible rounded value to ensure there are no gaps in the rounding structure.
- Previous – round/replace the price down to the previous configured price.The ‘Price Inc From’ value will be used as the Lowest possible rounded value to ensure there are no gaps in the rounding structure.
- Nearest – round/replace the price to the nearest configured price (either up or down). The ‘Price Tnc To’ value will be used as the Highest possible rounded value and the ‘Price Inc From’ value will be used as the Lowest possible rounded value to ensure there are no gaps in the rounding structure.
The Rounding Rules
This section sets what values will be used for rounding to:
- Amount – Enter an amount the sale price will be rounded to. .
- Dollar – Enter the dollar value/s you wish to use for the replace function.
- Cent – Enter the cent value/s you wish to use for the replace function.
The dollar and cents fields work together to create values that the sale price will be changed to.
As an example if you had the dollar values of 3 and 7 as well as the cents values of 99, the replace with feature would work as follows:
It would replace the last dollar value with either the value of 3 or 7 and replace the cents value with 99. Which number to use if determined by the direction option which is set for this price rule.
The Price Examples
The Price Rounded Set, which will only ever show up to the first 50 values found, will display examples of prices that price rounding will use. If there are more than 50 possible options, these will not be displayed on this screen.
The Price Test
This feature can be used to test the price rules that have been created to ensure they are working as intended. You do not have to save a rule to be able to test it. Simply enter a price into the ‘Example Price Inc:’ field and select the Process button to see the resulting rounded/replaced price.
- Example Price Inc: – enter the example price you wish to test rounding with.
- Process – selecting this will start the rounding test.
- Results: – This will show what price the system will be rounding. as an example if you have ‘Trunc to Whole $’ selected for a rule the Result field will show the original entered price with the cents removed and replaced with 00 cents.
- Rounds To – This will show the rounded/replaced sale price that will be used by the system.
Note: The rounding option works by rounding the sale price to a value that is divisible by the value entered into the Amount field. For example, if you entered .05 it will round the price to any number that is divisible by .05 (this would achieve rounding to 5 cents)
Add Price Range – Select this button to add an additional price range to the qualifiers section.
Remove Price Range – Selecting this will remove the currently highlighted price range.
Save – This will save the changes made to this screen.
Quit – selecting this will close the screen.
Warning: The use of price rounding can over time introduce Margin/Markup creep. This is a situation where the rounded price of an item may increase the Margin/Markup of an item. The next time there is a price increase the increased Margin/Markup that was created due to the rounding will be used. This new price will then have rounding applied which may again increase the Margin/Markup recorded on a product. If price rounding is to be used it is strongly advised that it be monitored and managed so as to prevent prices becoming uncontrolled.
