Authorized Discount Rules
Authorized Discount Rules define, ahead of time, the maximum discount that can be granted on an item or a business line, to a specific salesperson or to an entire user group. They aren't a transaction and don't post any accounting entry: they're a setup catalog that the system checks automatically when a Quote or Sales Order is authorized, to block approving a document with a discount higher than what's allowed.
What is it and what is it for?
Every salesperson has, on their employee record, a maximum discount percentage they can grant on their own. Every item can also have its own maximum discount configured on its price level. Authorized Discount Rules let you open extra exceptions on top of those two limits, without touching the employee's record or the item's price: for example, temporarily authorizing a larger discount on a specific business line, for a particular user group, or only during a campaign with a start and end date.
These rules only take effect when your company uses the authorization workflow for Quotes or Sales Orders (documents a salesperson enters with a discount, which a supervisor must approve before they can move forward). If your company doesn't use that workflow, the rules don't block anything.
How the validation works
When a Quote or Sales Order is authorized, the system checks each item on the transaction separately. If the same item appears on more than one line of the document, its effective discount is calculated as the weighted average across all of those lines (as the screen's own description states: "if an item appears more than once in the transaction, the transaction's average discount will be taken as the effective discount").
That effective discount is compared against the maximum allowed discount for that item, which is the highest of these three values:
- The base discount configured on the record of the salesperson who entered (or is authorizing) the document.
- The discount configured on the item's price level, for that unit of measure, currency and destination.
- The discount from the Authorized Discount Rule that best matches the item (or its business line), the user (or their group), the subsidiary and the document's date.
If the item's effective discount exceeds that maximum, authorization is rejected with a message naming the item, the discount that was granted and the maximum allowed, so the salesperson or supervisor knows exactly what to fix.
When looking for a matching rule, a blank field is treated as "no restriction" on that dimension: a rule with no Item applies to any item (unless it has a Business Line set), and a rule with no User applies to any user (unless it has a User Group set). This lets you create rules as broad or as specific as you need.
Key fields
| Field | What it's used for |
|---|---|
| Subsidiary | Restricts the rule to a specific subsidiary. Only shows up if your company has subsidiaries enabled; left blank, it applies to all of them. |
| Item | Restricts the rule to a single item. Can't be filled together with Business Line. |
| Business Line | Restricts the rule to every item in that business line (item class). Can't be filled together with Item. |
| User | Restricts the rule to a single salesperson/user. Can't be filled together with User Group. |
| User Group | Restricts the rule to every user in that group. Can't be filled together with User. |
| From Date / To Date | Optional validity window for the rule, useful for promotions or temporary authorizations. Left blank, the rule never expires. |
| Discount % | The maximum discount this rule authorizes. Required, and must be greater than 0 and up to 100. |
| Notes | Free-text notes to document the reason for the exception (for example, the campaign's name or who approved it). |
How to use it, step by step
- Open Discount Rules from the Inventory menu.
- Click New and decide the scope of the exception: a specific Item or an entire Business Line (pick only one of the two).
- Decide who it applies to: a specific User or an entire User Group (pick only one of the two), or leave both blank so it applies to any salesperson.
- If your company uses subsidiaries, pick the subsidiary it applies to, or leave it blank for all of them.
- If the exception is temporary, set the From Date and To Date.
- Enter the maximum Discount % you want to authorize and, optionally, a note explaining why.
- Save. The rule is active immediately for the next authorization of any matching Quote or Sales Order.
- Use the Visualize link on the list to review an existing rule, or delete it once the exception no longer applies.
Validations when saving
- You can't fill in both Item and Business Line at the same time.
- You can't fill in both User and User Group at the same time.
- The selected Item, Business Line, User, User Group and Subsidiary must exist.
- The Discount % must be greater than 0 and up to 100.
- You can't save two rules with the exact same combination of Item, Business Line, User, User Group and Subsidiary; the system warns that "this configuration already exists".
Availability
- Within the Enterprise plan, this screen is enabled through a feature your provider turns on for your account; if you don't see it available, request that it be enabled.
- Requires the "Prices" permission of Inventory in your user group (with add, edit or delete level depending on the action you want to perform).
- The Subsidiary column and filter only show up if your company has subsidiaries enabled.
- It only affects Quotes and Sales Orders that use the authorization workflow; if your company doesn't use it, the rules stay saved but don't block any document.
Tips and common mistakes
Leave Item/Business Line and User/Group blank for a general rule. A rule left completely blank in those four fields applies to any item and any user; only combine them when you truly need a narrow exception.
Use From Date and To Date for temporary promotions. That way you don't have to remember to delete the rule once the campaign ends: it simply stops applying once it expires.
The rule doesn't always "win". The system always uses the highest value among the salesperson's base discount, the item's price-level discount and the rule's discount. If the salesperson's or the item's discount is already higher than your rule, the rule has no extra effect.
Remember it's evaluated per item, not per line. If the same item appears several times on the Quote or Sales Order with different discounts, what gets compared against the maximum allowed is the average across all of those lines, not each line on its own.