I have been a QF user and advocate for a long time.
I understand that this issue has been raised on many other
occasions. I also understand that the QF team have indicated that a fix is not
easily instigated.
However, if QF is to be a 21st century system it is time
this is addressed. It seems ridiculous that I have staff that are raising
invoices and then applying discounts using a calculator to work out the £
amount and then introducing a negative ‘line item’ for this amount to achieve a
discount. Not only is this amateurish, it is only a matter of time before an
error occurs that will cost money.
I know nothing about nor understand programming, however if
other basic accounting and invoicing systems are able to achieve an applied %
discount system (in fact I cannot bring to mind one that does not have this
facility) it cannot be that difficult.
I love QF (My accountant does not, but will not say why),
and have recommended it to many others.
I’m not aware of this being an issue that is raised often? This appears to be the first post requesting such a feature, I scanned all feature requests made in the last year? We do see the occasional post asking how to apply discount to an invoice, although I haven’t seen much (if any) opposition to the suggested method of entering a negative line?
Applying discounts as negative lines allow users to precisely control the nominal code to which the discount is posted, along with the exact rate of VAT. This is useful for those posting to multiple nominals or applying differing VAT rates across multi-line invoices.
I do however agree that if you’re regularly discounting invoices it shouldn’t be necessary to pull out a calculator every time. It would be fairly straight forward for us to add a discount box that performs all the calculations and adds the line dynamically. I’m sure that would be a big time-saver for those routinely applying discounts to invoices, what are your thoughts on this?
I agree also it would be beneficial, i have 5 different types of customers that i apply different pricing to, this depends on what type of business they are and the volume they purchase through me, and i must also admit that without the about, errors are quite easily made when applying discounts by using a calculator, even more so when it involves VAT, being able to apply a discount more automated and less error prone would be better for me as a supplier and faster.
each of the five customer groups i have, they are all charge a different discount percentage of the standard price
i.e.
5%, 15%, 25% etc etc
like i said above also involving Gross, net & VAT amounts it can be prone to errors.
Prior to the current message board system, in the earlier days of QF over a year ago, this matter was raised and the reply was given that it was too difficult and was not in planning. I just stoppeed bleating about it.
I sell media and unfortunately discounting is a way of life.
Having the ability to add a discount line that auto calculates the discount and adjusts the VAT and final total would be a real bonus. I have experienced other systems that allow you to (set and) select discount %ages, say 5, 10 15, 20 or whatever. The by selecting that discount, as you would for an inventory item, it would apply the discount to the invoice
and recalculate. It may need a subtotal if there were to be more than one item on the invoice.
OK, I’ve answered a few thousand posts since then, so it’s not going to be something that sticks out in my mind.
We are planning (short-term) to add a discount box to the invoice. This will allow you to add a global percentage discount to the whole invoice. At this stage we don’t plan to add line level discount percentages, so it’s not something that would allow you to set specific discounts against inventory items.
I expect this feature will be available to use within about 2-3 weeks.
I am not sure what you mean by global, but thanks for a move in the right direction. The discount feature, to be truely functional, needs to have a range of discounts available … i.e. 5%, 10%, 20% etc.
Anything less sort of leaves us in the same boat of having to manually calculate discounts.
The discount function need not operate on a line by line basis, but it does need to be and “item”. That is there needs be an ability to select a discount to apply albeit 5%, 10% 20% and so on that is appliad to the total invoice or a subtotal within the invoice.
OK I think we’re on the same page with this! By global I just meant that it would allow you to enter a percentage (any you like) and the software will apply the discount to the entire invoice.
So if you have the following:
Line 1 - £100
Line 2 - £50
Line 3 - £25
A box would allow you to enter a discount % against the total (£175). Initially it wouldn’t allow you to say set the discount % only against Line 1 and Line 2 however we could look at this in future iterations.
We have now updated the invoice creation page to simplify the entry of discount percentages on your sales invoices. You will now see a box to enter your discount percentage, this will be applied to the total invoice and displayed in the footer section.
You can still use individual negative line entries if you need to discount a subset of invoice lines or control the nominal code where the discount is posted to.
