Price lists and contract rates: pricing when you make and distribute

Once a manufacturer sells through more than one channel, one selling price per item stops working. The counter buys one box at a time, the distributor buys by the carton and expects 20% off, and a hotel chain negotiated a rate in April that is not on any list. If the item master holds a single price, the sales desk keeps a spreadsheet of "real" prices beside it, and every quotation is a copy-paste exercise with a margin error waiting inside.

What is a price list?

A price list, called a price level in Tally, is a named set of rates: Retail, Wholesale, Distributor, Export. Each list holds a rate for some or all items. An item that is not on a list falls back to its standard selling price, so you only enter the rates that differ. A customer is assigned to one list, and that list proposes the rate whenever the customer is picked on a quotation, order or invoice.

What is a contract rate?

A contract rate is narrower: a rate for one item for one customer, usually negotiated for a period. It sits above the price list. If the hotel chain pays ₹212 a box while every other wholesale customer pays ₹230, that ₹212 is a contract rate; the hotel still gets the wholesale rate for every item without a contract.

Three layers, one resolution order

The order matters more than the data. On every quote, sales order and invoice, the system should look for a contract rate first, then the customer's list, then the item's standard price, and prefill the line with the first hit. Everyone on the sales desk can then predict the number before it appears, and an unexpected rate is a data problem to fix in a master, not a judgement call on each line.

Where MRP fits

For pre-packaged goods sold to consumers, the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 require the maximum retail price to be printed on the pack and prohibit selling above it. That makes MRP a ceiling, not a price. The practical rule in your system: the standard selling price, every list rate and every contract rate must be at or below the item's MRP, and the software should refuse to save a rate above it. Wholesale and distributor rates will be well below MRP anyway; the check catches the typo that puts ₹2,300 where ₹230 belonged.

What to store on the invoice

Nothing about the list. The invoice line carries the rate that was actually charged, the same way it did before you had price lists. That rate may have come from a contract, a list, the standard price or an edit by the sales person; the GST return, the ledger and the customer's statement only care what was billed. Keeping the lists out of the document means turning the feature on or off later changes nothing you have already issued.

Four rules that keep it tidy

1. One default list. Mark one list as the default for customers with no list of their own. New customers get a sensible rate from day one.
2. Rates are proposals, not locks. The prefilled rate stays editable. A system that forbids edits pushes people back to the spreadsheet.
3. Re-price only untouched lines. When the customer on a half-built order is changed, lines still at the rate the system filled in should move to the new customer's rate; a line someone typed over should stay. Otherwise a customer swap silently undoes negotiated edits.
4. Review contract rates on a date. A contract rate without a review date becomes a permanent discount. Put the renewal in the calendar even if the software does not enforce validity dates.

Coming from Tally

Tally's price levels map one-to-one onto price lists: each level is a list, the price list under each level is the rate sheet, and the ledger's default price level is the customer's assigned list. What Tally does not have is the contract rate per customer per item; those were typically handled as a separate level per large customer, which does not scale past a handful. Quantity slabs (a lower rate above 100 units) are the one Tally feature not covered by this three-layer model; if you depend on them, check before you move.

How Dravyaa does it

In Dravyaa's sales module, price lists live under Masters once the feature is switched on in Inventory settings. Each list holds a rate per item with an MRP check on save, one list can be the default, and a customer is assigned a list on their master. Contract rates are entered on the customer. On every quotation, sales order and invoice the item search is priced for the chosen customer, so the line prefills with the resolved rate and shows where it came from; a customer change re-prices only untouched lines. The purchase side, point of sale (which prices at MRP) and accounting are unaffected.