Customer Discount Programs

This discount processing applies when the invoice is generated and can be setup to encourage customers to pay their On Account invoices by the Date Due, in order to maintain their eligibility to receive discounts on future invoices.
When any invoice charged and posted on account becomes past due, the discount eligibility is withdrawn for subsequent invoices, until the account becomes current again. A grace period is allowed before the customer actually forfeits the right to receive the rental and/or sales discount.

Discount programs can be maintained in the Customer Discount Programs window in the "Accounts Receivable" parameters on the Accounting tab of the Configure System Settings.
An operator must be assigned a Security Role that allows permission to the Accounting - Customer Discount Programs in order to access this table.

Discount Programs are not reflected in the Inventory Search results window, even when the "Apply Discounts to Search Results" flag is set in the Company Inventory Parameter.

A discount expiry period can also be set based on a defined number of Rental Days following the date the customer's account opened. This provides the ability to give new customers a discount for an initial period of business.

Different levels of the Customer Discount Programs can be setup and assigned to preferred customers in the Standard Customer Special Pricing or Multi-Tiered Customer Special Pricing window of the Customer Information.
These Discount Programs apply after all other discounts are applied.
Note: If a Time-Based Discount is given on a rental product, any Customer Discount Programs no longer apply for that product.

• Each Customer Discount Program can be defined with a Rental discount%, and the # of rental days after which rental items becomes eligible for the discount.
• The rental Discount Program can be flagged to expire a set number of days after the date the customer's account opened.
• Each Discount Program can be defined with a Sales discount%.
• Each Discount Program can also be defined with the number of days that any On Account invoice is allowed past its Due Date, before the Program Discount eligibility is withdrawn.

Some Rental stores may prefer to use the Discount Programs as incentive for preferred customers in place of Special Pricing programs.
Discount Programs do not apply to Cash Customers.

Note: A Rewards Program can not be assigned to a customer if the customer has already been assigned any rental or sale discount percents, trade discount percents, discount plans, special pricing, special rates codes, tiered prices or rates, loyalty plan or delivery/pickup billing code.
The Discount Plan fields are disabled for a customer if that customer has already been assigned a Rewards Code in the Customer Codes window.

When an invoice that has benefited from a Discount Program is reviewed in Change mode, the discount amount and program name can be reviewed in a pop-up window on the Expanded product detail line for both sales items and rental products.
The Discount % field in the expanded rental product detail record on the document or on the Rental Return will not display a percent value, because the discount is not necessarily a percent of the whole rental period. (i.e. the discount could kick in after 10 rental days). The discount is displayed as a dollar amount in the Disc Amt field.

Note: Rental equipment in product classes identified in the "Additional Information" window of Rental Product Class as not eligible for discounts will not be allowed customer discounts.
Sales parts identified in the "Re-Order Information" window of Sales Inventory as not eligible for discounts will not be allowed customer discounts.

The prompts to setup the Discount Programs include:

SEQ

The sequence number tracks the number of Discount Program records in the file.

CODE

Type in a Discount Program code of up to 6 characters.

DESCRIPTION

Enter a description of this Discount Program.
i.e.. Platinum, Gold, VIP, Introductory Offer, etc.

RENTAL DISC %

Enter the discount percent that is to be applied to rental product rates, according to the "Rental Days" value.

RENTAL DAYS

This field controls when the "Rental Discount %" kicks in or when it expires.

• If this discount plan is flagged as an "Expiring Discount", enter the number of days that this rental discount percent should apply following the customer's "Date Account Opened", as set in the "Credit Information" window of Customer Information.

• If this discount plan is NOT an "Expiring Discount", enter the number of days that rental equipment must be out on rent before the "Rental % Discount" applies.
  If "Rental Days" is zero or left blank, then there is no delay and the rental discount applies immediately.

SALES DISC %

Enter the discount percent that is to be applied to Sales product prices for customers subscribing and eligible for this Discount Program.
Sales discounts are always given regardless of rental days, as long as the customer is eligible for the Discount Plan assigned in the "Codes" window of Customer Information.

Note: If the ability to override Extended prices for sales parts is enabled in the Company Security Parameters, then the Sales % Discount in this program is ignored.

FORFEIT DAYS

This field controls when the customer is no longer eligible for this Discount Program.

Enter the number of days grace period allowed for customers subscribing to this Discount Program.
If any invoice posted On Account is past due according to the customer's terms, by this number of days then that customer will no longer receive the discounts on new invoices.
The program will be reactivated automatically when his account is no longer past due, so that subsequent invoices will again be eligible for the discounts in this program.

Eligibility for discounts is determined at the time that the invoice is created according to the posted A/R.
This means that existing invoice discounts will not be affected when the discount eligibility is withdrawn or when it is reinstated.

If a customer is not eligible for the Discount Program at the time an invoice is created, a warning will be triggered on the screen after the invoice header information is completed, to alert the operator.

EXPIRING DISC

Uncheck this box if this Discount Plan is designed to give 'good credit' customers a discount on sales and on long term rentals.
The "Rental Days" value is then used to determine when the rental discount should begin, rather than when it would expire.

Check this box if this Discount Plan is designed to give new customers an introductory discount from the date the customer opened an account, for an initial period determined by the number of days set in the "Rental Days" field.
The "Date Account Opened" is set for each customer in the "Credit Information" window of Customer Information.
Note: If the Date Account Opened is blank, the customer is not eligible for this discount.

PRINT NOTE ON INVOICES

Check this box if the Discount Program name and discount amount should print on the invoice for each line item.
Uncheck this box to suppress printing the discount information for each product detail.

ALT LANGUAGE DESCRIPTION

Enter the Alternate language wording for the description of this Discount Program.
This wording is used for Alternate language customers if the discount information is printed for each product detail.

DISCOUNT POSTING ACCT

If this field is blank and no G/L account has been assigned to the Discount Program, then the Credit amount posted to the Product Class Revenue account is the net amount charged for the product on the invoice (i.e. after discount), and no additional discount posting is required.

When a G/L account has been assigned to a Discount Program, then the Credit to the Product Class Revenue account is for the full rental charge (i.e. before discount), and an additional Debit is generated for the discounted amount to post to the specified Discount Posting Account during Daily Close.

Finished ?

Click the ACCEPT button to accept and exit, or click the CANCEL button to abort.

The Discount Programs can now be assigned to preferred customers in the "Codes" window of Customer Information.

Pad Days used to Maintain Discount Eligibility:

When a rental product on a contract is exchanged in Exchanges By Customer using the Ship Exchange option, the rental days that the original product had accumulated can be transferred to the new replacement product to maintain its eligibility in the customer discount programs.
The additional days are stored as the Pad Days value.
The utility Contract Discount Program Pad Days can also be used to manually manage Pad Days.

ACTIONS:
Additional actions provided by buttons on the Customer Discount Programs screen include:

• Clear Expired Discount Plans from Customer File:
  Click the EXPIRE DISCOUNTS button at the bottom of the screen to "cleanup" old discount plans assigned to customers that are past the "Expiring Date", by removing the Discount Plan from the "Codes" window of those customers in Customer Information.