Did you know Microsoft is rolling out a New Sales and Purchase Pricing Experience for Business Central and Bevica? As of 2024 it will come as standard, but you can start using it now. This webinar discusses the features, functionality and timeline for release as standard.
The features included are:
- Better visibility of price lists
- Ability to set price list status
- Ability to see prices and discounts on one screen
- Introduction of new price types, including contacts and G/L Account
In this webinar, you will gain insights into:
- What is the New Sales and Purchase Pricing Experience?
- What features and functionality are included in the New Pricing Experience
- How to migrate your prices to the new price list model
Transcript
0:00
Good morning everyone and good afternoon, I’m passing you over to Claudio.
0:05
Alright, welcome everyone.
0:07
So, today, we’re going to look at the new pricing experience in Business Central.
0:12
And how it works, what you, what people need to think about.
0:16
And to give you a quick 15-minute, 20-minute overview of what it does, so you can start thinking about how it can impact you and how you’re going to work it. Hi everyone my name is Danusia Jolliffe and I’m the Marketing and Customer Services Director here at TVision and Bevica.
0:32
And just to let you know, whilst Claudio will be doing all the talking today, I’m going to be monitoring the chat and the questions. If you have anything you’d like to ask at any point, please do type in the chat, type, type it in the question box, we will be sending this to you afterwards, at the end, by email and Claudio back to you.
0:50
OK.
0:53
Right, so, the new pricing experience, what we’re going to go through really is what’s changed in the software.
1:00
Try and understand, maybe why Microsoft are changing it. How does it work and what you can do next?
1:11
So, from the what’s changing point of view. So, from the very beginning of Navision, Business Central, the sales price and purchase pricing and discounting has always remained the same.
1:25
The model that you’re used to at the moment. Microsoft a few years ago decided they wanted to change it.
1:33
And this only applies to those that are on SaaS, so if you’re on an on premise, nothing will change until you migrate over to SaaS.
1:42
If you’re on SaaS, you have the ability to start looking at this now and Microsoft will switch off the current way of doing pricing towards the middle of next year with the waves one update.
1:56
There’ll be switching off sites effectively forcing everyone to move over to the new model. And the new model. Although Microsoft call it sales pricing, it does impact both sales and purchase pricing, sales and purchase discounts.
2:16
So, why are they changing it? I think there’s probably a couple of reasons why Microsoft decided to change it.
2:24
The primary one is, I think it’s a, it’s a more, it’s a simpler thing to understand for people.
2:29
It’s more in the way that people expect sales and purchase pricing to work. So, it’s based on price lists, rather than just a long line of prices that your, your setting up. It also makes it more in line with other Microsoft products. So, from the Microsoft ecosystem, or the Microsoft World Point of view, if they have a similar process for pricing across all their products, I think that makes most sense, easier to migrate between products. And then, the one that’s probably the most interesting for us and for the future, is that the way they’ve structured it. Number one, it’s easier for us to do development on pricing, if we want to. So, if there’s any new kinds of schemes that people need to set up with their pricing, this is an easier way of doing it. And also, I think it paves the way for Microsoft to introduce more complex pricing structure. So, for example, in the retail world, you know, by 6 get 1 free, by a set of items, get something else discounted or free.
3:28
We get asked that quite a lot, and the product has never been able to manage those types of complex pricing.
3:36
But with this new structure, although this isn’t in the product at the moment, I suspect that in the future, they will be on the SaaS product making releases that do this kind of additional functionality, the sorts of things that you’d expect, maybe if you were a retail outlet.
3:57
So how does it work? What actually have they changed?
4:01
The new model is based on price lists.
4:03
So, effectively, you set up a price list with a description: What Sorts of things you’re going to add to that list, and then you put in your products and your customers and your different types of prices within that list. You can create as many lists as you want for any type of reason.
4:18
So, I think from a management point of view, it’s easier, and hopefully you’ll see in a minute that. For example, you can create a price list for a customer. Or a price list for customer price group.
4:31
So, again, you can contain your prices more easily than what you have at the moment, which is effectively just one long list which you would filter to be able to see prices by this group or prices by that group.
4:43
So, I think the management is easier, and also that leads onto the better visibility.
4:48
So, you can say to someone, go to that, go to that customer’s price list and then you will see all the prices that customer might get.
4:56
So that kind of is, is better visibility and easier to manage and to share around around the company.
5:04
They’ve also brought into the price lists, resource pricing, resource group prices, which did exist or does exist in the current model. But they were kind of hidden away on the resource card and the resource groups and now they’re bringing that into the price list. So, it’s more visible, it’s easier to understand where the prices are coming from. But interestingly, they’ve also added the ability to create prices by GL accounts.
5:28
So those of you who are using GL, GL accounts directly on sales or purchase lines for things like delivery charges or ad hoc things you want to charge customers. You can now set up different prices for customer or per group. So, it gives you a bit more flexibility. And then, interestingly, you can set up prices by contact.
5:48
So, if you create, for example, a sales order for your customer, and then you say, actually, it’s this particular contact, that customer that gave me this order, you might then create special prices, because that person gave us that particular order.
6:05
So, if you have consultants that you use to get you orders, then you might be able to say, this consultant gets an extra 20% off because it’s being ordered by him, so that’s quite interesting. That’s something new in the software, which we’re kind of still playing around with and coming up with ideas and how that, how that might work.
6:25
In terms of moving over to the new
6:27
model, there’s a migration process. It’s, I’ll show you that at the end of the demo.
6:33
It’s a quick couple of clicks of a button. And the software automatically will move all your current prices to the new model. So, we do suggest that you practice this in the test or sandbox environment first, just to understand how the migration is happening and how things move into the new model, then try things out or sales and purchase orders.
6:53
But what Microsoft has tried to do here is that it make it as simple as possible to move across because they’re effectively forcing everyone. So, they don’t want a lot of pain involved in moving over to this new model. So, Claudio, we have two questions I actually…Brilliant.
7:07
First question is, if we’re on-prem, um, excuse me. Can we assume Microsoft aren’t looking to remove that functionality and force everyone to move onto SaaS?
7:18
So, if you’re on-prem, none of this applies to you at the moment. And while you remain on premise, none of this applies to you. This will only apply to you if and when you move over to SaaS.
7:31
So the chances are, if you’re on-prem at the moment, you’re not going to be moving over to SaaS the next month or two. So, when you do, let’s say, in the next six months, a year or two years, this will be just the normal way of doing pricing, rather than having to migrate from one to the other.
7:45
And, that kind of leads into the second question, was, if it’s mandatory? So, if you’re on-prem, then no? If you’re on-prem, no, you don’t have to worry about it.
7:55
And then we also have a third question. You mentioned around testing this in a sandbox. Do we know when we will have access to sandboxes?
8:02
If you’re on SaaS, you do have access to Sandboxes, you have three sandboxes that you can get access to, so, you should have that already.
8:10
Thank you.
8:12
OK, so, automatic migration, and I’ll show you that at the end of the demo, how easy it is to do that, and kind of the outcome of it.
8:20
And then the last bit on the slide here, which is really quite important, is that this is really, what I’m going to show you.
8:27
And what Microsoft has changed is really just how you manage, creating and managing your prices.
8:34
…Your sales and your purchase prices. The way that prices are applied on things like sales orders, purchase orders, quotes etcetera hasn’t changed at all.
8:45
So, there’s the logic for finding which is the best price, or the most appropriate price to put on the sales order.
8:52
That hasn’t changed, so I think that’s quite important. It’s just how we manage the price lists in the first place, that has changed slightly.
9:00
Okay I’ve got another question now. So, on SaaS, the person has asked – on SaaS we have some companies on Business Central, is it mandatory there then, and what is that deadline?
9:12
Or will you be covering that.
9:14
Sorry, repeat the question again? On SaaS, we have some companies on SaaS on Business Central. Is it mandatory there then? And what is the actual deadline for this? If you’re on SaaS, it is mandatory.
9:28
And the deadline is, when you migrate, when you upgrade to Wave one next year.
9:35
So that will be roundabout…
9:37
June is probably the latest.
9:39
You want to be doing that, so June 2024, will be the latest to you…
9:45
You should migrate to Wave one. And that’s when Microsoft will switch off the old model and force everyone to automatically migrate to the new model.
9:56
OK, yeah, so, what to do next?
10:01
If you’re on Business Central, it’s available now. I’ll show you how you can try it out, what you need to click.
10:07
If you’re on Bevica, we are we are doing an update for Bevica for the new pricing and that’ll be available from April.
10:16
So, communication will go out to all our Bevica customers in April, and from that point on, you can try it in your sandbox environment to try and understand for yourselves how, how it all works.
10:28
OK, so let’s go into the software itself and kind of give you a flavour of of how it works and what it does.
10:40
So, we have new options once you switch this on.
10:45
So, you won’t see these these options currently in your software, because you haven’t switched on the new model, but once you switch on the model. You will see options like sales price lists, and purchase price lists.
10:57
So, if I click into purchase price lists. So what I’ve done here is I’ve created a number of price lists, each one for a defined set of prices and discounts. This is the way I think most people will set up price lists.
11:13
So, you’ll see here, I’ve got price list that are date ranged.
11:18
Up here, we’ve got a main price list for a particular date range. They can be inactive, draft or active. Again. That’s quite nice. So, you can plan prices or you might even use it as part of an authorization process.
11:29
Where you say for a particular customer, the salesperson creates the prices.
11:35
They’re inactive until someone with the right to authority comes along and activate them. So, it’s a nice way of, again, keeping things under control.
11:43
So you do, when you set them to draft begin, then when they, when you want it to go live, you set them to active, and then the date’s kick in.
11:51
And then at the end of the process, again, if you want to keep things neat and tidy, and you haven’t maybe put dates on them, you can set them inactive. And they’re just kind of dormant in the background.
12:00
So, you will see the types of prices I’ve created here for different reasons, keeping things tidy in different groups.
12:09
And Claudio, we have another question, how different is this from inventory price lists?
12:15
Inventory price list is a screen where you can see a certain type of price with inventory values and other item related.
12:27
The inventory price list takes information from here. It is a separate piece of functionality.
12:33
So, for example, if I go into my main price list, this active one, so, price list number two, when I open it up.
12:43
Um, the way that the price list works, is, you have some head of fields where you really, if you want, you set up the defaults for the lines.
12:56
So, here, for example, I’ve said that all the items I’m going to create, all the things I’m going to add to this price list, are added to the all customer price.
13:04
They don’t include VAT.
13:07
They are for these two, between these two date ranges, and then all the lines are going to allow invoice discount, and allow line discount. So that means that when I create or add items to the lines here, it’ll default all of these values to the line. So, again, makes it easy.
13:26
I can just put in my product code, if I have a variant, I could put the variant in minimum quantity, unit price, etcetera.
13:34
So, the lines look a lot like what you’re used to at the moment in terms of the sorts of information the system is asking for.
13:42
If I… close…
13:44
Another question. Yep. How will mass import of pricing work?
13:48
Where you have a sales price worksheet per list? Does that make sense?
13:53
Er, repeat the question again? How can mass import of pricing work if you have a sales price worksheet per list?
14:03
I assume that’s per price list.
14:05
So yes, there are screens where you can import your prices, or, in fact, you can import the prices directly into a price list here, and then make sure they’re correct, and make them active.
14:18
Or you could use rapid start to bring prices in and attach them to a price list.
14:24
There are, up here you can see, you have a suggest lines routine.
14:31
That can look at existing price list and create a new price list.
14:36
Given the items on the existing price list with adjustment factor and rounding if you want, or you can copy one price to another price list to then go and change those prices on the new price list.
14:51
So, if I go back to my prices, so this wholesale price here, for example, so this one has been set up to allow me to add prices and discounts on the same price list.
15:04
So, the one we looked at previously was just the prices, but if you look at the lines here, if I scroll down, you can see I can add a line here for this particular product.
15:17
That both has a price and a discount, or if I want, I can add a new line here.
15:28
Hmm, which might be just for a price or just for a discount. So again. You can add them all into one, one price list. You’ll also notice here that the line has gone red.
15:43
So, if the price list is active, when you create a new line on that price list, it doesn’t automatically make it active. It goes red, because it wants to verify the lines, because you might you might be creating a price that is identical to one that already exists, either on this price list or at different price list.
16:05
So, to make it active, you have to verify the lines, and when you verify it, does that check.
16:13
And if everything’s OK, it just activates it, if not.
16:18
You’d get this warning message here saying that what you’ve actually entered is exactly same as an existing price already.
16:27
To keep things tidy, it won’t let you do that.
16:29
So, it shows you the two prices, and then, it suggests which one, you might want to remove, so you can, you can change whichever one you want. You say, OK.
16:40
And then it’ll remove the duplicate price list, and leave you with the one that you wanted to keep.
16:49
So, up to now, I’ve shown you how to create a price list, where you define exactly how the lines are supposed to behave on that price list. But you can also have a price list that is completely open, and free for you to put any sort of lines on it.
17:06
So, this is a pretty much empty price list.
17:11
And you’ll notice here, that I’ve ticked ‘allow updating defaults.’
17:16
So, by ticking that, when I come down to the lines, it’ll take the defaults from the header, but I am allowed to change the details on the lines. So, whereas.
17:31
In the previous ones, each price list was for, for the specific details on that header.
17:37
This one, I can add a line that might be for a group of customers, for an individual customer, for all customers, for contact, anything I want to. So, this might be a price list you have…
17:46
that might mop up kind of miscellaneous type of prices around, around the system.
17:58
So, really, the main thing I think people have to think about is how you’re going to manage this list here.
18:04
Will you have one price list that has all the prices in it? So, one, huge one, that has all different types of prices, validity, dates, quantity breaks, and so on. Or are you going to manage multiple price list
18:18
Because it’s easier, and more visible from this point of view to say, OK, this is where I’ve got all my Europe prices. This is where I’ve got my group pricing, and so on.
18:28
So, that’s probably the amount of work that people just have to think about when they are kind of moving it, moving over to this model, and planning how you’re going to move forward with it. So, it’s not something that we had to think about in the past.
18:46
So, I am now going to show you how you migrate from the current model to the new model. And it’s really easy. So, what you do is, you go to a company, sandbox first for testing. You go to feature management.
19:03
And for those that don’t know, feature management is a list of all the new functionality, that Microsoft of bringing into the product, where you can either try it out.
19:17
Or if you click on Learn More, it’ll take you to some article that Microsoft written explaining how it works.
19:24
So, in a sandbox environment, you might be able to click on something like this one, Modern Action Bar, and try it out to see if it works. And then you can go to your production environment and do the same thing and set it up for real.
19:36
For this particular one, Sales Pricing, if I click on New Sales Pricing, there’s an option here, feature update, new sales pricing experience.
19:46
And you’ll see it says pending data updates, because I’ve already set it up on some companies in this environment, but not in all companies. And this one, I haven’t actually switched it on.
19:59
So, if I click Data Update, and schedule, it’s asking me, do I want to create or do I want to take all my existing prices and put them into one big new price list, or do I want the software to try and split them out in some sensible way?
20:19
So, I’ve said, I want it to split them out, to see to try and understand how the software is trying to kinda categorise my products and prices, then I accept data update, say, next.
20:35
And.
20:38
Update. So, in this demo environment, they’re probably only about one thousand odd lines of prices, so it doesn’t take that long. But even in a real scenario, I’m not expecting this to take hours, for example, it should take 10, 15, 20 minutes maximum.
20:54
So, you can see now, in this particular company, it says complete data update.
20:58
And if I go back to my homepage and do, for example, sales price lists.
21:08
That’s what it’s automatically done from the prices that I had set up from the old model migrating them to the new model.
21:15
So, it looks like what it’s trying to do is trying to create price lists per customer, per groups, and then we have some for campaigns. So, in its own way, I think it’s, it’s created them in the similar way that I showed you before. In kind of a logical group. So that it’s easy to go into, let’s say, a customer and see the price list that I’ve applied to that customer. Or groups of customers or groups of discounts.
21:40
If I’d set up, just to use the one price list, everything would have been thrown into this number one price list, and all the others would be would, just wouldn’t exist. So, you can see there that, it’s done it for sales prices.
21:55
If I click on purchase prices, it’s done the same sort of idea, although here
21:59
I’ve got less, less purchase prices set up then I have sales prices, which is normally the case.
22:11
So just, the last thing I wanted to show you is how you can see your prices, maybe from the item card or the customer card.
22:19
So if I click on Customers.
22:24
So you have the option, just like you have at the moment, from the customer card, to see your prices.
22:30
So prices and discounts, but you’ll notice now that rather than just looking at the sales prices, which is what you’ve currently got.
22:38
You can now look up price lists and that will show you all the price lists that have prices.
22:46
That this customer has access to. Say this customer is called the Salad Bar and Grill so they can see their own specific special prices. They can obviously have access to the main price list for the the all customer prices. That they are part of the bar.
23:04
Customer price group.
23:05
So that’s why we can see that prices as well, and then the euro in the USD if they buy in those currencies. That’s why those prices are available. And then from here, if I want to, I can drill down and actually go into the price list and see the details.
23:21
The other option is looking at Sales prices.
23:26
And this will show me the specific lines that are relevant to this particular customer.
23:31
So here, this customer has a special prices.
23:37
The prices are over here on the right-hand side.
23:38
And you would see discounts here as well, if there were customer specific discounts.
23:44
And you have the same option on the vendor card, and the item card, to look at the price list that exists for that particular item or vendor, and then individual prices and discounts for those vendors and items.
23:58
OK, that was a, just a quick overview.
24:01
Hope it hope it made sense, and it started started to make me think a little about how, how you might set it up for yourselves. You could just switch it on and use it as the data migration is expecting you to.
24:15
But I think you’ll get the most out of it if you have a think about how to create them, and how you want to manage them going forward.
24:24
We, we haven’t had any more questions from the batch earlier on. I can’t see any more coming in.
24:30
Um, no, no, no more questions at the moment.
24:36
OK. Right well thank you so much everybody for joining us today, we hope that’s given you a flavour for what it looks like when that new sales price list comes in. If you’ve got any further questions do get in touch with us, and I can facilitate a conversation for you. As I said previously, the webinar will be available on demand on the website and you’ll be sent out a link and a couple of days. Thank you so much everyone. Have a great day, and thank you to Claudio for speaking.
