Configure the parametric price engines

1. Go to Sales › Configuration › Price Engines and click New.
2. Enter a Name that says what it prices, for example Volume Discount — Aluminium Profiles. Sequence orders the list, and Company pins the engine to one company: an engine can never price a line belonging to a different company.
3. On the Formula tab, type the expression. Write each input as {{name}}, for example {{product_price}} * (1 - {{discount}} / 100).
4. Open the Variables tab. Every {{name}} you typed is already listed — map each one to a field, or to a fixed number, and give it a Sample Value.
5. Click Test Formula. The Test Result under the formula shows what the sample values produce, or the error that stops it.
6. Optionally restrict the engine to a date window or to named customers on the Restrictions tab.
7. Click Submit for Approval, then have the approver click Approve. Only approved engines can be selected on an order line.

The formula is one expression that must produce a number — the unit price. It is not a script: there are no loops, no assignments and no access to records beyond the variables you mapped. Anything outside the list below is refused when the formula is checked.

Under the editor, Formula Preview reprints the expression in monospace so long formulas stay readable, and the Formula Examples tab keeps a quick reference next to the form while you write.

Variables are detected from the formula text, so the list fills itself; you cannot add or delete rows here, only configure them. Click a row to open it.

• Label — a readable name for the variable, for the benefit of whoever reads the engine next.
• Type — Field reads a live value from a record, Fixed is a constant you type once.
• Model and Field — for a field variable. Only models on the Allowed Models list appear, and only numeric fields (integer, float, monetary) can be picked, because the result has to be arithmetic.
• Sample Value — used by Test Formula only. It never affects a real order.
• Field Path and Field Location — show where the value is actually read from, so a mis-mapped variable is visible without opening an order.
• Tracking Type — set by the system, see the table below.

Where a variable's field lives decides when the price refreshes:

Conditional rules let one engine price different situations differently, without maintaining a separate engine for each. Each rule is a single condition plus its own formula; rules are checked in Sequence order and the first one that matches is used. If none match, the base formula on the Formula tab is the fallback.

A rule is built from four things:

• Model and Field — what to look at. Sale order, sale order line, product, product template and contact fields are available, subject to the Allowed Models setting.
• Operator — is equal to, is not equal to, is greater than, is greater than or equal to, is less than, is less than or equal to, contains, does not contain, is one of, is not one of, is set, is not set.
• Comparison Value — text, number or yes/no, matched to the field's type. Rather than typing a technical value, click Pick Value to choose from the real data behind that field.
• Formula — the expression to use when the rule matches, written exactly like the base formula and using the same variables.

Date-Based Pricing — Date From and Date To bound the period in which the engine may be applied, and the Date Status badge reports where today falls: Always Active when no dates are set, Upcoming, Currently Active, or Expired. Outside the window the engine simply is not attached and the product's ordinary sales price is used, which is what makes a seasonal or promotional price expire by itself.

Customer-Specific Pricing — leave Apply to All Customers ticked for a general engine, or untick it and list the Customers it applies to: contract rates, distributor pricing, one negotiated account.

An engine moves through three states shown in the status bar. In Draft it is editable and invisible to sales. Submit for Approval moves it to Pending Approval; every variable must be mapped first, or the submission is refused. Submission also re-checks the base formula and every active conditional rule against the sample values, so a rule that cannot evaluate is caught here rather than on a customer's quotation. The approver — any Price Engine Manager, or the user named as approver in Settings — clicks Approve, which stamps Approved By and Approved Date.

Only Approved engines can be chosen on a sale order line. Reset to Draft pulls a live engine back for editing; changing the formula or the rules of an approved engine records a version snapshot first (see below). All state changes are tracked in the chatter with who did what and when.

One product at a time: open the product, and set Default Price Engine — it sits just under Product Category on the product form.

Many products at once: open the approved engine and click Apply to Products. The wizard can target a manual selection of products, every product in chosen product categories, or the whole catalogue. This overwrites the default engine on the products it touches, so review the selection before confirming.

Distribute Amount solves the opposite problem: the total is agreed with the customer and the lines have to add up to it. Enter the Target Total; the wizard shows the current total, the difference and the difference as a percentage, then rewrites every line's unit price proportionally.

Rounding is done by largest remainder, so the distributed lines sum to the target exactly rather than landing a few units away from it.

Each run is recorded on the order's Price Distribution tab: date, user, original total, target total, difference, percentage, and the per-line detail — a read-only audit trail next to the chatter note.

Before an engine touches live pricing, open it and click Price Simulation. Choose a date range, optionally filter by customers, products and order state (draft, confirmed, or all), and run it. The result is a line-by-line comparison of the current price against what the engine would produce, with the matched rule and any error shown per line, plus the total impact of the change.

Reading a simulation before approval is the cheapest way to catch a rule whose sequence is wrong or a variable mapped to the wrong field.

For fabricated openings, the design itself supplies the number to price on. When a WebCC design is analysed, it writes Design System Amount onto the sale order line: the sum, for one unit of that design, of each frame's area multiplied by the price rate per m² of the profile system (and colour) that frame resolves to. Those rates live on the profile system and on its colour mappings as Price Rate (per m²).

Because it is a numeric field on the order line, it can be mapped as a variable and used like any other:

Engines, rules, versions and distribution history are all company-scoped, so a multi-company database keeps each company's pricing to itself.