Discount items after they are transferred to the House Account. (details)

Print Discount Dates and Prices on Price Tags.

Things to Know about Discounting Aged Inventory:

• Any category that is to be discounted must refer to a correctly-formatted Discount Schedule.
• If discounts are not acting as expected check to see if entries have been made in Special Promotions (and remove them). (In the Sales Work Area, select 'Promotions' from the lower-left menu.)
• If a Discount Schedule is changed, discounts for items to which it applies will be recomputed, making existing price labels incorrect.
• Opening the New-Sale Screen for the first time each day applies discounts. On networks, on the main PC, run discounts manually each day (under Sales on the Main Menu) and  turn Automatic Discounts off on network POS stations.

Discount Aged Inventory

As inventory items remain unsold they are typically marked down in price to entice purchase. A helpful software feature is the ability to reduce the prices of unsold items over time automatically or manually. Click on Discounted Items (in the Inventory Work Area) to view a list of discounted items (arranged by 'time since the In Date with discount time ranges in sequence'.

The Discount Schedule

A typical Discount Schedule reduces sale price in increments of # of days from the 'In Date' and percentage of Original Selling Price.

Four Rules

1. Time is measured in the # of days an item has been in inventory (from 'Date In').
2. Percent Discount is based upon the Original Selling Price.
3. 'Transfer to House Account' must be selected in the consignor's record for items to transfer.
4. The Discount Dates are entered in the first column (next to 'After'). All 4 Discount-Date fields must be completed. The values cannot be zero and there must be a 'progression'.

   For example, if there is to be no discount for 60 days but items are to transfer to the house account on day 61, then the 'Discount by' fields can be 0 but the 'After' fields (# of days) would be 57, 58, 59, 60 and 61.

   

Below is an example of a correct Discount Schedule for an item entered into inventory on January 1st for $100 that is to be discounted by 5% every 10 days then transferred to the house account after 50 days. (The number of days and discount amounts, of course, can be different than those shown.)

• After 10 days, on January 11th, discount original price of $100 by   5% to $95
• After 20 days, on January 21st, discount original price of $100 by 10% to $90
• After 30 days, on January 31st, discount original price of $100 by 15% to $85
• After 40 days, on February 9th, discount original price of $100 by 20% to $80
• After 50 days, the item will auto-transfer to the House Account (if 'Process discounts and transfer automatically' is check in Program Setup, Inventory). The 'Date In' shown in the House Account Record for transferred items will be the original 'Date In'.

  

In the following example, items are to be discount after 30 days (by 10% - of the original price) then again after 60 days (by 15% - of the original price) then no additional discount after 60 days, with unsold items transferring to the House Account after 90 days. The schedule on the left is correct. Note that the schedule on the right is incorrect in that setting the discount to zero on the 61st day removes the discount entirely (because the discount is applied to the Original Price.)

Note: If a discount is the same as the previous discount (15% in the example above) only the first of such duplicates will be printed on price labels. In the above example, for an item entered on 1/1/11 for $100, the label entries would be:

01/01/2011 $100
02/01/2011 $90
03/01/2011 $85

Multiple Discount Schedules

Any number of Discount Schedules can be created. Each Discount Schedule can be associated with a category for discounting items in the specified category according to the assigned Discount Schedule.

Create Multiple Schedules

1. In Program Setup on the Inventory tab, click on Edit Schedule Names:

   

2. Enter a name for the Schedule:

   

3. Click on Create New Schedule:

   

   The new schedule name will appear in the list but it is not recorded yet.

4. Click on Save Changes:

   

5. If no other schedules are to be created, click on Exit.
6. Back on the Inventory tab, click on the drop-down arrow for Discount Schedule Name:

   

7. Select the Schedule to be edited.
8. Check the box 'Process discounts and transfers automatically:

   

   If this box is not checked, items will not be discounted.

9. Complete the Schedule as desired, being sure to follow the rules for proper completion.
10. When finished, click on Save Schedule to record the Schedule in the database:

    

11. To confirm the entry, choose a different Schedule from the drop-down box for 'Discount Schedule Name' then choose the Schedule just completed. The entries made should appear.
12. Click Save/Exit to exit Program Setup.

Discounts Window

Because discounts are based upon the # of days since the 'Date In', discounts only need to be processed once per day. Discounts may be applied manually or automatically (when the New-Sale Screen is opened for the first time each day). Either way, BCSS will reduce the selling price by the designated amount for each item at the designated time. When the item is sold, the new discounted price is applied.

Process Discounts Automatically

To process Discounts automatically, check 'Process discounts automatically' in Program Setup, Inventory. Discounts will be processed each day when the BCSS New-Sale Screen is opened for the first time.

Each item's record can be edited to change the Discount.

Process Discounts Selectively

To prevent automatic discounting of select items, create a special category or categories for the select items and assign a discount schedule of 1 day 0%, 2 days 0%, 3 days 0%, 4 days 0%.

Process Discounts Manually

Discounting manually provides the opportunity to change the amount or date of the discount for each item.

To discount manually, click on Apply Discounts in the Inventory Menu:

(This function also appears on the Main Menu under Sales.)

Allow a few seconds for the Discounts Window to display items eligible for discounting.

The list may be sorted by clicking on the column headers (like ID, Date In, Days, etc). If there are many items in the list, the sort will take a few seconds. Please only click once and wait.

The current discount rules (set in Program Setup, Inventory) appear on the Discount Screen. Any of these values may be changed and applied to items selected for discounting. (These values may be changed permanently by resetting them in Program Setup, Inventory.)

Uncheck items not to be discounted. (Use 'Check All' and 'Check None' for convenience.) Unchecked items will reappear the next time discounts are processed.

Click OK and allow sufficient time for processing.

View One Discounted Item

Go to the Inventory Work Area:

and select the item in the list. Click the Details tab at the bottom on the screen to view information about the item:

View All Discounted Items (sorted by Category)

In the Inventory Work Area, select Discounted Items from Quick Links:

Optional: Print Discount Schedules on Price Labels

BCSS includes an option to print the Discount Schedule on Price Tags, making reprinting of price tags unnecessary after Discount Dates have been reached. These are examples of sheet labels. ("Re" is the disposal code for 'return'. The date on the Detailed Label and the Hang Tag is the Date In.)

Medium Label

Detailed Label

Hang Tag

Discount Schedules on Thermal Labels can only be printed on labels 1.5" in height or greater. These labels can have discount prices but not dates: 4 x 1, 2 x 1, 3 x 1.25. These labels cannot accommodate a Discount Schedule: 2.25 x 1.25, 2.25 x 1.37.

For thermal labels it may be necessary to choose a smaller font size (in Program Setup, Printer tab) to fit dates and prices onto labels, especially for items priced $1,000 or more.

To turn this option on, click on File, Program Setup and select the Inventory Tab. Place a check in the box 'Show discount price schedule on pricing labels.' (upper left).

Some store owners prefer not to have upcoming Discount Dates known to potential buyers (so buyers won't delay purchasing until a known Discount Date). Other store owners use Discount Dates as a reason to encourage purchase: "Buy now or this item will be gone before the Discount rolls around."

Still other store owners use colored price tags for different Discount Periods so that everyone can readily see how much an item has been discounted (pink: discounted once, blue: discounted twice, etc.), or different colors are used for different months.

If the Discounted Price is to be shown on the Price Tag, either the Discount Schedule must be printed initially or price tags must be reprinted after Discounting.

Note: A discount period which is the same as the previous period will be skipped on the label. For example, if the Schedule is...

• 10 days    -10%
• 20 days    -20%
• 30 days    -20%
• 40 days    -20%

...only the first two periods will appear on price labels.

Why make discounts the same for different periods? All 4 fields on the Discount Schedule must be completed. If there is only 1, 2 or 3 discounts, the remaining fields on the schedule must have entries. Making the entries the same completes the requirement without causing undesired additional discounting.

Transfer to House Account

In order to transfer unsold items to the House Account automatically, complete a correct discount schedule (Program Setup, Inventory tab) and enter the number of days to elapse for items to transfer:

Make sure this box is checked (Process discounts and transfers automatically.):

Transfer to House Account without Discounting

Make sure the box (just above) is checked and complete the schedule like this (changing the date values as needed):

(after 30 days: 0; after 60 days:0; after 90 days: 0; after 100 days:0; after 110 days: transfer)

There is an option to set the same price for each transferred item.

Reprint Labels

Identifying only those items which have been discounted is easy. On the Main Menu, select Reports then Inventory to open the Inventory Report Designer screen.

Check 'Dated Discounted' under 'Make Report Settings' and enter dates in the From and To fields.

Click the type of label to be printed under 'Print the Report'.

See Price Labels for more detailed printing instructions.

Related:

Discounts at POS - Discount one item or the entire invoice by percentage or dollar amount.

Inventory Prices Explained (Current Price, Original Price, Lowest Price)

Promotional Discounts - Discount by store-wide sale or by category.

Email Support (Add the domain name mm.st to your email program's Approved Senders List or White List to lessen the chance that spam filters will block our emails to you. (Instructions) For phone and remote PC help, contact: Joy Archer, enJoy Consigning Services, 972-898-7921 (NY), Email, or Computer Mechanics, 800-448-1436 (MI), email.