Dynamics 365 Epic Battle: Single line vs Multi line Discounts
In this corner, a one-dimensional wonder, the king of Q-T-Y, Line Discount (ount ount ount) and in this corner, the Prince of Big Money, the Passel of Price concessions, Multi Line Discount (ount ount ount). These two worthy opponents go head to head, in a no holds barred cage match, to determine their difference! We are excited to get underway and help the world understand these important tools. First, let’s get to know the opponents.
The tale of the tape:
Let’s start with a look at a very important parameter setting. In Modules> Accounts receivable> Accounts receivable parameters>Prices tab>Prices fast tab there is a setting that tells the system how to calculate discounts (list shown). Most often this is set to Line + Multiline, which will combine any valid discounts found. There are a few options to fit the needs of the organization.
At their core, line and multiline discounts are Trade agreement journals (Trade agreements). Trade agreements can be accessed in various ways, such as directly from a sales order. When done this way, the user will see only the trade agreements that apply to the order from which they were accessed. We are going to jump in from the Modules>Sales and marketing>Prices and discounts>Trade agreement journals. This will open the Trade agreement journal form. Click new and create a journal. Choose a name and add a description. In the default relation field notice that there are a variety of options. We are focusing this blog on sales orders, but the same principles apply to purchasing. Note, if needed, reversing or deleting a trade agreement journal line is not intuitive, so plan out accordingly.
A Line discount (Sales) is applied per line and only considers the qualities of that line to determine validity. The discount line can be set-up for all customers, a customer group, or a single customer and for a single item, item group, or all items.
The system pricing engine will be looking at Customer, item, Dimensions, Quantity, Unit of measure, currency, effective period. If multiple valid line discounts are found, then the system will use the sum of the amount or percentage to process the line.
A Multiline disc. (Sales) will consider all the lines on the order using the same basic criteria to determine the final discount. The discount line can be set-up for all customers, a customer group, or a single customer and for item groups or all items. Note the slight variation here, single items are not allowed in this discount type.
One key setting to consider on either discount is Find next. It is located on the Details fast tab and informs the system that it can continue searching for valid discounts and pricing.
Setting up discounts will also require knowledge of price groups and other settings to help the user have a full understanding of the impact. Now it is time for the battle… DING DING DING… Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!!!!! Side note, wouldn’t it be nice, if everything we did in life was hyped by that big voiced guy?
Round One
The Line discount example. In our demo world of Hill Valley, we have negotiated some special pricing for Doc Brown Enterprises, customer US-088.
We set up a Line Discount (Sales) trade agreement to handle this in D365. We created a new journal, and in the default relation, we choose Line discount (Sales). We clicked on Lines to add a line and configured specifically to customer US-088, for all items, for any Quantity, and set a 5% discount as shown below.
Then we created a sales order for our friends at Doc Brown Enterprises. They are buying 1 Surface Pro, one of the most popular items at Contoso Entertainment System USA. You can see in the image below that they have received a 5% discount on the $1900.00 price.
They are such good customers, we decided to create another discount that offered them an additional 10% off during the month of October on the Surface Pro, if they buy more than 5 units. Notice that they are now getting a total of 15% off their order.
Finally, we added a second line for some mice and note that the system only applied the 5% discount as expected.
Round Two
The Multiline Discount example. In this case, CusCo, a Hill Valley tech giant, has asked for special pricing on some items. We decided to offer 10% off all our High Margin items, if they purchase 5 or more. When the discount line was added, the item relation is assigned a group set-up for High margin items. This group must be assigned to the item for the discounts to work.
Notice in our first example below, CusCo has only added 3 Quantity and the price remains at the base $1900. Note that we used only one item to keep it simple, but this discount would apply to any item assigned to the High Margin group.
When we added two additional lines for quantity 1, the 10% discount was applied.
Referring to the previous setting that allows for combined discounts, look what happens when the quantity on line one increases to 2. Line 1 is now getting 20% off. That is due to another Line discount in place that met the line criteria we outlined.
Post bout thoughts
We have shown a basic set-up and use case for Line and Multiline discounts in D365. Keep in mind that the discounts can use a combination of customers, items, groups, quantities, e.g. These can be very powerful and as it is with most setup, please give some thought to the discount strategies that are being employed.