Benefits of Manual Discounts
Boost customer satisfaction
No matter your industry, there are going to be cases where a customer requests a discount on an item, perhaps due to the item’s condition. The ability to apply manual discounts allows your employees to make on-the-fly decisions without holding up lines -- or losing the sale.
Pro tip: Require managers to approve discounts before they’re applied to a purchase to ensure that all markdowns fall under policy.
Maintain consistent records
Keep your registers running smoothly without interrupting back office processes. Manual discounts allow you to apply a percent or flat discount to a single item (or an entire receipt) without affecting the price of stock.
Common discount reasons: Damaged item, expired item.
Flexibility outside of promotions
Honoring a raincheck? Ringing up a new customer who has yet to be added to your loyalty program or rewards group? Manual discounts give you the flexibility to extend markdowns when deserved without keeping your hands tied to outdated promotions.
Collect customer data
Discounts can be used as a tool to fuel your marketing strategies. Only offer discounts to customers who provide their name and email address, then watch as your CRM grows.
Using Manual Discounts
Creating item-specific discounts
After an item is added to the cart, Erply allows you to apply a percent or flat discount to an individual item. Discounts can be added to any number of items in the cart by clicking on the % icon on the item line. Use the discount buttons in the Product card or click on the “pen and paper” button in the upper right corner to open the Product edit modal for applying another discount value.
Receipt-wide discounts
Click on the Discount button to apply a percent or flat discount to the entire receipt. Receipt-wide discounts do not stack on top of item-specific discounts.
If there are other discounts (price list/promotion) also applied to the sale then the order of applying all the discounts is following:
- Price List discount
- Manual discount
- Promotion discount
Viewing discounted items
Most sales reports in the back office provide a net discount by dollar amount and by percentage.
The Cashier Sales report, for example, will give you an overview of what employees provided manual discounts, and how much the order was discounted by.
Creating Custom Discount Percentages
You can configure the custom percentage amounts by going to the POS Settings (cog icon) -> Configurations and finding Custom discount percentages under the General section.
Enter the values you would like to be visible to your employees and click the Save button.
Terminology
Discount: A price reduction on an order. Not to be confused with coupons or promotions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you apply a manual discount to an item with a promotion?
Yes.
If an item is discounted, will the customer earn full loyalty points?
No, the customer will earn points in proportion to the final sale total.