Every month we publish a "feature of the month" where we ask one of our consultants to highlight a feature in MILAS AX (our specific ERP modules for Microsoft Dynamics AX). This month Tim De Ryck shares his insights.

One of the best methods to retain and grow your customer base in a market characterised by homogeneous goods is by offering attractive sales prices and discounts. Therefore, Adifo designed a comprehensive, yet easy to use, solution which is compatible with all standard Microsoft Dynamics AX functionalities.

Different types of discounts are a good way to encourage a desired behaviour of your customers:

• Payment discounts will encourage customers to pay on time and use direct debits
• Volume discounts will increase your turnover
• Full pallet discounts will optimize your inventory and storage
• Discounts on collected orders will eliminate the dependence on transportation

You’ll not only attract customers with competitive prices but you’ll also benefit from less resources spent on customer collections, transport administration, …

Discounts in Dynamics AX – how does it work?

In our sector specific ERP, MILAS AX (based on Microsoft Dynamics AX), we created a module (V04 - Sales pricing) that gives professional IT support for managing discounts.

We start from one base price and let the system evaluate all possible discounts. Discounts can be grouped together and, by adding priorities, MILAS AX can decide which discounts will be granted and in which sequence they will be calculated. Discounts can be hidden and incorporated in the unit price on the invoice or made visible and printed separately. Together with a huge variety of calculation bases (ordered quantity, delivered quantity, invoice amount, …) the possibilities are endless.

Discounts in MILAS AX – what are the advantages?

Apart from delivering a comprehensive solution to manage discounts, our main challenge was to offer the same impeccable usability like other modules in MILAS AX. This makes maintaining and setting up complex discounts a piece of cake. The same user friendliness is applied during order entry, where the sales administrator (taker) can immediately see the final unit price. The information of which discount is and isn’t used is instantly available to give the user the opportunity to communicate this to the customer. He can also advise to add an extra pallet to benefit from a higher discount, etc.

At any time during the sales process the full order details, with all applicable discounts, are available to provide an overview of how the sales price is built. This makes the invoicing process quicker and more transparent to result in faster customer payments.