Best Price Logic

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There are often conflicting pricing rules that make it difficult to determine the best price. By adding pricing logic into CRM, the system automatically calculates the best discount so reps no longer have to worry if their customers are getting the best price.

Best pricing logic ensures a discount is applied based on which pricing rule offers the best discount if there are conflicting pricing rules. A pricing rule can be associated to both a Contract and a Campaign at the same time. The discount is applied based on which offers the best price.

For example, Pharmacy A has a contract with a 50 percent discount on Product X. A current promotional campaign offers a discount of 80 percent. In this case, the campaign discount overrides the contract discount. With best pricing, the system applies the best discount.

Best Pricing logic is applied to the following pricing rule types:

  • Standard Pricing Rules — can have a hierarchy in place if more than one pricing rule (not related to a Contract or an Order Campaign, or both at the same time)
  • Contract
  • Pricing rebates (discounts), or natural rebates (free goods)

Pricing clusters are logical groupings that determine Pricing Rules hierarchy:

  • Contract and Campaign driven rules — Identified by a value in the Order_Campaign_vod field AND a value in the Contract_vod field on the Pricing_Rule_vod record. Those rules are currently the highest level possible in the Pricing Rule hierarchy.
  • Order Campaign-driven rules — Identified by a value in the Order_Campaign_vod field on the Pricing_Rule_vod record
  • Contract-driven rules — Identified by a value in the Contract_vod field on the Pricing_Rule_vod record
  • Standard rules — Pricing rules that are neither associated to a Contract nor an Order Campaign. These rules define general base pricing, and may be associated to no Account, one Account, or one Account Group.

Best Pricing logic may be applied to the following pricing rule types:

  • Free goods
  • Discount
  • Brand discount

There are four new fields associated with finding the best price:

  • Best_Discount_Rule_vod — (Order_vod object) displays and stores the pricing cluster that triggered the best price discount at the Total Order level
  • If FLS edit permission is not granted for the Best_Discount_Rule_vod field, best pricing is not enabled at the Total Order level
  • Line_Best_Price_Rule_vod — (Order_Line_vod object) displays and stores the pricing cluster that triggered the best price discount at the line level
  • If FLS edit permission is not granted for Line_Best_Price_Rule_vod field, best pricing is not enabled for line-level discounts
  • Brand_Best_Price_Rule_vod — (Order_Line_vod object) displays and stores the pricing cluster that triggered best price discount at the brand level on that order line
  • If FLS edit permission is not granted for the Brand_Best_Price_Rule_vod field, best pricing is not enabled for brand level discounts
  • Free_Good_Best_Price_Rule_vod — (Order_Line_vod object) displays and stores the pricing cluster that triggered the best price Free Good at the line level on that order line
  • If FLS is not granted for Free_Good_Best_Price_Rule_vod__c, best pricing is not enabled for Free Good rules

Field-level security for field visibility determines whether Best Pricing is enabled for the following pricing rule types:

  • Discount_Rule_vod
  • Free_Goods_Rule_vod
  • Brand_Level_Rule_vod

For the functionality to be active for the user, the user must have edit permission to the objects associated with fields and read-only FLS permission to the fields. The fields do not need to be added to the page layouts.

Discounts set against a kit item are ignored by the Best Pricing logic.
Best pricing can only work for pricing rules using the same currency.

If a conflicting pricing cluster exists, the system calculates a combined value to determine the best discount for that Order Line. For example, for a given product, if there are two sets of rules to calculate the line discount:

  • One (standard, contract, campaign) uses Quantity as the comparison type. In this case, the Contract has the best discount.
  • One (standard, contract, campaign) uses List amount as the comparison type. In this case, the Campaign has the best discount.

In this scenario, as the line discount is composed of two best pricing discounts (one associated to a Contract + one associated to a Campaign), the system will determine that the best discount is ‘combined_vod’.

Best Pricing logic does not exist for standard Pricing Rules. There is a hierarchy within the standard pricing rules. Although, as shown in the following table's Line Discount column, the Account Group offers the best discount. The system compares the Account discount because it is higher in the hierarchy.

Conflicting Rules/Hierarchy

Conflicting Pricing Cluster Line Discount Brand Discount Free Good

1 Contract with Campaign

5%

20%

-

2 Campaign

3%

15%

5

3 Contract

9%

5%

6

4 Standard (Account)

4%

-

-

   Standard (Account Group)

15%

6%

-

   Standard (Base)

5%

5%

2

In this example, to determine which conflicting line discount rules should be compared, the pricing engine parses the four pricing clusters. The ones being compared are italicized. Within the standard set of conflicting rules, no Best Price logic is applied; the systems chooses the value of the standard rule that is the highest within the Pricing Rule hierarchy.