In this guide 6 sections
Rules clash when nothing says which one wins. A customer list, a slab discount, a free goods offer and a keyed override each work alone, yet together they can price one invoice line twice. Fix it before billing. Write one precedence order, date every rule, lock overrides.
Where the two rates come from
Open any bill with a wrong rate and trace it back, and you will usually find two rules that were both valid on the invoice date. Neither rule is wrong. One came from the customer’s own list, agreed by the owner over tea with a dealer in April, and never given an end date. The other came from a scheme circular that the sales head sent to the field in July, announcing a monsoon slab discount on cartons. Billing must now pick one.
Each rule had a different author. The owner set the dealer rate by phone, the sales head built the scheme in a spreadsheet, and the billing clerk keys whatever looks fair at the counter. Nobody wrote the order of play. So the billing screen falls back on creation order or coding order, which no one at your company ever chose or checked against a real invoice.
- A customer specific rate agreed once and never given an end date
- A slab discount that starts at a carton quantity
- A free goods offer such as one case free on ten
- A keyed override typed by the billing clerk at the counter
- A brand level discount that overlaps a product level one
Why the billing screen cannot settle it alone
Most billing screens apply rules in the order they were created, or in whatever order the developer happened to code them in the first place. That order is accidental. The same two rules can therefore produce different bills depending on which one was entered first, and the difference shows up only when a customer complains.
Manual overrides make it worse. A clerk sees a high rate for a long standing customer, types a lower one, and the system accepts it without asking why. Three weeks later the sales manager finds a bill below the floor price and cannot say who approved it or on which day. There is no trail.
Write the precedence order down
Sit down with three people. Bring the sales manager, the accountant and one senior biller into a room, and rank the rule types from strongest to weakest on a single sheet. A common order puts a signed contract rate first, then the customer list, then a time-bound scheme, then the general price list. Your order may differ.
Then decide whether rules stack or compete. A slab discount on top of a customer list may be fine, while two free goods offers on one line rarely are. Write the answer for every pair.
- Rank contract, customer list, scheme, general list
- Mark each pair of rules as stack or replace
- Set a floor price below which no rule may push the rate
- Name who can approve a break from the order
Give every rule a start date and an end date
Most clashes are expired rules. A festival offer stays live because nobody switched it off, and a customer list carries last year’s rate right beside this year’s rate. Make an empty end date impossible to save.
Add a review prompt as well, so that thirty days before a rule ends its owner receives a message asking whether to renew, change or retire it. Billing never has to guess. A rate that nobody has confirmed for a year should stand out on the price screen, with a flag the biller can see before printing the invoice.
Test the order before the next billing run
Pick ten past invoices that ended in a dispute and re-price each of them under the written order, using the validity dates that applied on the day. Compare each result with the bill. Any invoice that comes out different from what you expect points to a gap in your ranking, or to a rule that was set up wrongly.
Keep the override lock simple. Allow a keyed rate only with a reason code, and ask a second approver once the gap from the list passes a limit that you set in advance. Start with this week’s dispute file.
Price rule precedence sheet
A worksheet of four blocks. Block one lists every active rule on its own row, with the type, owner, start date, end date and the customer groups it covers. Block two is a grid of rule pairs, each marked stack or replace. Block three records the floor price per product group and the approver for an override. Block four holds ten disputed invoices with the expected and the actual rate.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Why does the same customer get different rates on different days?
Usually a rule started or expired between the two bills. Check the validity dates on every rule that touches the item, including the brand level discounts that nobody remembers setting.
Should clerks be allowed to type their own rate?
Only with a reason code and an approval once the gap from the list passes a limit. Open overrides are the quickest route to bills below the floor price, and they leave no record of who agreed.
Can a free goods offer and a slab discount apply together?
Only if your precedence sheet says so for that pair. Many businesses let a slab discount stack with free goods on a different item, but not on the same invoice line.
Who should own the price rules?
One person in sales, with the accountant as reviewer. Rules created by many hands without an owner are why clashes keep returning every season.