Price Calculations for Generic Articles and Variants
Use
Generic articles and variants save you a lot of work when you are maintaining master data for articles that are basically identical except for one or two characteristics.
This simplified process can also be used for maintaining sales prices. This involves the variants of a generic article inheriting the sales price of the generic article or that of another variant. If a variant inherits a sales price, you cannot create a separate sales price for it in a sales price calculation.
As with single articles, however, you can calculate a sales price for a variant that differs from its regular price.
Prerequisites
You must make the following settings in the master data of the generic article and the variants.
Variant Article Master
Whether and how a sales price is to be copied to a variant is controlled by the Pricing reference article field in the master record for each variant.
The pricing reference article can be specified in the basic data view or the sales view of the variant’s master data. If the pricing reference article is changed in the basic data view, this change is transferred automatically to the sales view for the distribution chains maintained.
In the article master of the variants, you can enter the article number of the generic article or that of another variant in the pricing reference article field. The sales price valid for the article entered in this field is then adopted in the sales price calculation for the variant. The inherited sales price cannot be changed in the pricing table.
If the pricing reference article field is empty or contains the variant’s own article number, the sales price for this variant must be calculated separately.
Article Master of the Generic Article
In the master data of the generic article, you can use the Pricing profile field to generate default values for the pricing reference article field in the master data of the variants. This makes it easier for you to maintain the pricing reference article field when creating or changing generic articles.
The pricing profile field can have the following entries:
Pricing profile |
This means: |
(blank) |
The system leaves the Pricing reference article field for the variants blank. If variants are to inherit sales prices, the user has to make the necessary entries. You choose this profile if you wish the majority or all of the variants to have their own sales prices. |
1 |
For each variant, the system suggests the generic article number in the Pricing reference article field. If variants are to have different sales prices, however, you can change this default value. You choose this profile if you wish the majority or all of the variants to inherit their sales prices from the generic article. |
2 |
The Pricing reference article field contains the generic article number for all variants. The default value cannot be changed as the Pricing reference article field is not ready for input. |
If the value in the pricing profile field is changed from value ‘1’ to blank, note that it is possible that no sales price is created in the system for variants that do not inherit a sales price (that is, variants for which the pricing reference article field is empty). If you make a change in this case, a warning message is displayed.
A change in the pricing profile from ‘2’ to ‘1’ is less problematical, as this only results in the pricing reference article field being ready for input. The value in the field remains unchanged.
Features
If you defined in the article master of a variant that the variant is to inherit a sales price, this affects sales price calculations for the variant as follows:
No separate sales price can therefore be created for this variant in a sales price calculation.
The pricing reference article function can also be used for single articles. However, the system does not support the full range of functions for single articles. If, for example, the sales price of a pricing reference article is changed, this price change is not taken into account at POS outbound for the dependent articles. A new sales price is not downloaded for these dependent articles.
Example
A specific shirt comes in several variants: blue, red, or green, all of which are normally sold at the same price.
In this case, you can enter the shirt as a generic article and maintain the master data in the article master so that the different colored shirts all inherit that same sales price from the generic article.
The advantage is that you only have to do one price calculation at generic article level. If the sales price of the generic article changes at some future date, the sales prices for all the variants will automatically change as well.
See also:
Articles: Generic Articles and Variants
