One of the most important functionalities of the interworks.cloud platform is the ability to create and assign price lists. In general, price lists offer significant advantages as they allow you to:

Define and apply specific pricing policies for one or more customers (i.e., groups, such as medium-sized customers, loyal customers, etc.)
Define and customize the array of products and services to be displayed to a customer or group of customers.
Define the array of products/services and their prices that will be propagated to a tenant reseller.

This section explains how to create a price list, add products to it, link it to specific accounts, and how this affects invoicing.

Creating a Price List

As a BSS user, you can easily create a new price list by following these steps:

1. Log in to BSS, and from the left-hand side menu, navigate to “Billing”, and then choose “Price Lists”

2. Click “Add” to open the new price list template

3. The system generates the ‘New Price List’ template, where you need to fill in the following:

The name of the price list (mandatory field) e.g., “Customer ABC”
The validity period of the price list i.e., the start and end dates when the new price list will apply
Active: check the box if you want to activate your new price list immediately
Other optional system fields such as owner, permission rule, notifications & tracking, as well as a description of the price list.

4. When you are done, just click “Save” to save your new price list, “Save & New” if you want to save this price list, and immediately start a new one or “Cancel” to abort the operation.

Adding and Configuring Products in Price Lists

Once created, you can now add products to your new price list. To do that, you need to:

1. Navigate from the left-hand side menu to “Billing” and choose “Price Lists”.

2. Select the price list you want to modify from the list displayed by the system.

3. To edit the list, you need to click on the small pencil right before its name. The system will open up the price list edit window.

4. Alternatively, you can click on the price list and, then click on “Edit…” on the overview window.

5. Once the price list, click on the 'Products' Tab to access the product options.

Depending on how you want to use the price list, you can either add stand-alone products or add many products at once through 'price-groups'. The rule is that when you want to create a price list to be used for propagating services to a tenant reseller, then use stand-alone products is the best choice. All other cases can be supported through price groups.

Adding Stand-Alone Products

To add one or more stand-alone products, from the ‘Products’ tab, click on ‘Quick Add’  ‘Product’.

On the pop-up screen, you can begin adding products as follows:

Locate a product using the Search functionality; just type a few letters or part of the name of the product, and the system will look it up for you.
Choose the products you want to add to the price list.
Click 'Insert to Selected'
Select either 'Same pricing rule' if you want to define the same prices for all the selected products or 'Different price rule' if you want to define different pricing methods for the selected products.
Click ‘Cancel’ if you want to abort the operation.

Find and add products using the Search functionality

The platform includes a comprehensive search functionality that allows you to easily look up any product you want to add to a list. To search for a product while you are on the Quick Add --> Product pop-up window:

1. Just type the code or part of the description of the product and click ‘Go’.

2. The system will display your search results. Select the products you want to add to the price list

3. Click ‘Insert to selected’

4. Select ‘Same pricing rule’ if you wish to define the same prices for all the selected products or product unit groups. For example, a margin of 4% will apply to the monthly charges for all the inserted products.

The pricing methods available through the system are the following:

Currency amount: you can define a specific amount for the product (note: this option should not be used when the same pricing model applies to multiple products at once).
Percent of Sell Price: this option allows you to define the customer's price as a discount over the retail price of the product. E.g. if the product has a retail price of 10, here you define the discount applicable to this price as a percentage. This means that if you want to apply a 4% discount, you enter the number ‘4’ in the amount column.
Markup - Cost Price: this option allows you to define the final price for the customers as a percentage of markup based on your cost of the product. Similarly, for a 50% markup, you just need to type ‘50’ in the amount column.
Percent Margin - Cost Price: with this option, you can define the final price for your customers as a percentage of margin based on the profit vs the revenue.

5. Click ‘Cancel’ if you want to abort the operation.

6. Alternatively, select ‘Different pricing rule’ if you wish to define different pricing methods for each or some of the products or product unit groups that you are inserting in the price list. In the example below, the user sets different pricing methods for Office 365 Business and Office 365 Business Essentials. However, the same functionality is offered for configuring different pricing methods to price groups.

Adding Price-Groups

You can check the process for defining price groups here: Working with Price Groups.

Combining Stand-Alone Products and Price Groups

For additional flexibility, the system allows you to combine stand-alone products together with price groups in the same price list. Note, however, that in this case, the stand-alone products will prevail in the calculation of the price.

Linking Price Lists with Accounts

Price lists allow you to design and apply specific pricing policies for one or more customers by linking the pricelist with the specific customer(s). The platform offers to ways to link a price list with one or more accounts:

I. From the Price List menu

1. From the left-hand main menu, navigate to ‘Billing’ and then click on ‘Price Lists’.

2. The system displays all the available price lists. Click on the name of the list you want to assign to the account.

3. On the left-hand shortcut menu, locate the 'Accounts' option. Click on it to reveal the ‘Assign’ option.

4. The system displays a pop-up window where you can select the customer(s) you want (you can also use can the filter to locate them).

5. Click 'Insert to Selected' and then 'Add'.

That’s it! Now, your price list is assigned to selected accounts.

II. From the ‘Accounts’ menu

1. From the left-hand main menu, navigate to ‘Office’ and then click on ‘Accounts’

2. The system displays all the available accounts. Click on the account you want to assign to a price list.

3. On the left-hand shortcut menu, locate the 'Price Lists' option. Click on it to reveal the ‘Assign’ option.

4. The system displays a pop-up window where you can select the price list you want (you can also use the filter to locate it). Click 'Insert to Selected' and then 'Add'

That’s it! Now, your account is linked to a specific price list.

Monitoring Price List Changes

As previously mentioned, the BSS user can edit a price list by navigating to Billing > Price Lists and then locating the one that needs editing from the list of price lists.

Every time a price list experiences one or more changes, the details of those changes are recorded in the form of dated events by the History tab, which is located next to the Notifications & Updates tab under the Basic Information section of the price list. This logging mechanism provides the BSS user with a transparent ‘reporting’ mean that displays all the changes that the price list has experienced by any BSS user.

More specifically, the BSS user can view in detail the price list changes, such as who has created or deleted a price list; who changed the price list’s effective date from the existing one to the new one, and even who changed the existing price(exact amount) to a new price(exact amount). This kind of historical reporting of the Price Lists is explicit since it displays the previous value(s) as well as the new value(s) in the same event, as it is illustrated in the following screenshot.

Moreover, there are two basic rules that are applicable during the editing of a price list. These are the following:

The Name field is obligatory, and thus it must not be empty.
If you wish to populate the duration Date-fields (From, To):
1. The From date must have a date value later than today’s date.
2. The From date must have a date value smaller than the To date.
3. The To date must have a date value larger than the From date.
4. If the From date is populated, then the To date has to also be populated and vice versa.

In case one of those rules is violated, then the respected field will be colored red to indicate the issue that needs a resolution.

Therefore, the History section of each price list as well as the (editing) rules and the overall stability of the price lists mechanism, allow for a more stable operation as well as transparency and control over the changes that affect any price list within your BSS platform.

Price Lists and Invoicing

Here are some things to keep in mind with regard to price lists and invoicing:

When a customer who has been assigned a price list makes a purchase, the system will calculate the price of the purchase according to the price that is defined in the price list for the product(s) ordered.
If the product is a recurring product, the applicable price list will also be also linked with the subscription. This means that each invoice generated from the subscription will carry the pricing effect defined in the price list for the subscription product.

interworks.cloud platform Documentation

Create & Manage a Price List