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TPSquared - Pricing Guidelines

Conceptual Overview

TPSquared provides for 10 price levels, any one of which can be assigned to any customer. Additionally it provides for price breaks, sale pricing and contract pricing.

Within TPSquared the user can setup from 1 to 10 price levels per item. Each price level is given a name, or title, by the user. Such as Wholesale, Retail, Contractor, Non-profit, Installed, etc. Each customer has a price level assigned has their "Normal" price level. This parameter can be overridden with each order placed.

The user need not setup, or make use, of all 10 price levels.

Each price level may or not have price breaks defined. Price breaks could be defined for the wholesale level but not at the retail or installed prices.

Any one, or all, of the price levels can be put "On Sale" for a pre-specified period of time. This can be done at the individual item level or en-masse via a program designed to function on a from - to sequence by item code.

In addition the user can setup "Contract Prices" per customer. Any customer may have multiple contracts on file at any given time. A contract simply contains the items eligible for a contract price and the specific price per each item.
Contracts can be copied and pasted between customers.

The system will determine the best , or applicable, price during the sales entry process. After an order is completed the price is locked in for that order. Although they may be modified manually on an item by item basis.

Applicable Price Determination

The system uses the following logical sequence to determine the most appropriated price for an item every time an order is placed.

The price extracted from the data base is based on the customer for which the order is made out to.

If the customer is "Contract Price Eligible" then the system will ask if the order being placed should use a contract price. If so, the user selects which contract is applicable to the order being placed.

If a contract price applies to the order being placed and the item being sold is in the contract then the contract price is used. Regardless if it is higher or lower than his normal price for that item.

If a contract price applies to the order being placed and the item being sold is not in the contract, then the price is determined based on the regular pricing algorithm.

The following rules are applied in sequence.

1)        The customers price level is extracted from the data base and the corresponding normal price is applied.
2)        A check is made to determine if a price break is applicable and if so then it is applied.
3)        A check is made to determine if the price level stipulated for the customer has an active sale price, and if less than any above price, it is applied.
4)        The user is allowed to then override the calculated price and it is accepted regardless if it is higher or lower than a computed price.

Importing prices

It is possible to import any of the ten prices as an ASCII text file. This can be useful if prices are calculated outside of TPSquared, such as within an Excel spreadsheet. This process works only for the base prices, not price breaks or sale prices. The procedure is accessed under the top-line menu item, Inventory and the sub-menu item, Pricing. The format is available elsewhere in this document.

Pricing Adjustments

TPSquared offers the user a powerful set of utilities to set, adjust or modify current prices. Within this Utility you can clear any price level of all prices on file. You can set one price level based on any other. Any price level can be adjusted by a percentage, either up or down. Any price level can be rounded to the nearest dime, quarter, half-dollar, dollar or to .49 or .99 cent level thus eliminating the awkward cents generally arrived by percentage adjustments.

These adjustments functions can be processed for any group of items by specifying a starting item code and ending item code.

Sale Price Computations

A utility program is also available to assist in "batch" setting of sale prices. When initiated, this program will show all of the items where a sale price is currently on file. It allows the user to set a sale price for any price level, as a percentage of the original, by specifying a starting item code range and an ending item code range. It also allows for the reverse process. When setting a sale price the user must specify a valid date range where the sale is price is effective. The sale price will only be applied to an order during this period.

"USE" tax v. "SALES" tax

TPSquared is also capable of managing "USE" tax. In general terms "USE" tax is a form of sales tax but generally based on the sellers purchase price rather than the selling price of an item. Additionally, "USE" tax is generally included in the selling price, not computed and shown separately on the invoice.

When taking advantage of "USE" tax the seller may or may not pre-pay the sales tax when he purchases the goods and include it as part of his cost basis when determining the selling price. In this case the seller need only report that tax was pre-paid when purchased. In other cases he may purchase product under a tax exemption. In this case he must compute the tax due the IRS and maintain appropriate records. Generally this tax is based on the purchase price and is embedded within the selling price. The buyer has no knowledge that a portion of the selling price was to re-cover the "USE" tax. It appears the buyer does not pay any sales tax.

TPSquared has a full set of features to manage this situation. Any item may be marked as being exempt from further "USE" tax and/or the appropriate "USE"
tax amount can be recorded against any item.

Appropriate reports can be generated for any period showing those invoices sold where traditional sales tax is due and for those invoices where "USE" tax is due.