Offers: discounts the till applies by itself

An offer is a rule you write once. The till applies it by itself, shows the customer what came off, and remembers which offer did it, so at the end of the month you can total up what you actually gave away, by offer.

A new offer opens on its name, its kind and the discount. Where it applies and a minimum spend sit under Conditions, the start and end under Dates, and whether it stacks with another offer under Stacking. A section opens by itself once it holds something.

The three kinds

• Percentage off: 10% off, 20% off. You can add a ceiling, which is what a sign reading 20% off, up to ₹500 actually means.
• Amount off: ₹100 off. It never takes more than the bill: a ₹500 voucher against a ₹200 basket takes ₹200, and the rest is not change owed.
• Buy X get Y free: buy 2 get 1. The cheapest items are the free ones, which is what every shop's own signage means by it. Quantity counts across the whole basket, so three of one thing is three units.

Slabs and combos (retail counter shops)

When your workspace has the retail counter pack, a new offer can be one of three more kinds. Each takes either a percentage or an amount off, never both.

• Quantity slab: 10% off when you buy 3 or more. The pieces are counted across the products the offer covers.
• Bill slab: ₹50 off on bills over ₹500. The amount you set is measured against the whole bill.
• Combo: ₹40 off atta and tea together. Pick at least two products. The offer comes off only when every one of them is on the bill, and only from those lines.

With the same pack, an offer can also cover some categories or some products instead of the whole shop. A category is the one set on the product, which is what the till matches. An offer comes off only the lines it covers, so the GST on the rest of the bill is unchanged.

With a code, or without one

An offer with no code applies automatically to any bill that qualifies, so nobody has to remember it.

Give it a code when the offer is meant for someone in particular: one customer, a win-back, your own staff. A coded offer never comes off a bill on its own. At the till the cashier types it into the Coupon code box under the totals; in your online shop the customer enters it in the basket. Either way, nothing happens until somebody enters it.

Codes are matched ignoring capitals and any spaces at the ends, sodiwali10 finds DIWALI10. Spaces and hyphensinside a code are part of it: DIWALI-10 andDIWALI10 are two different codes. Pick one spelling and print that.

If a typed code matches no offer that is running today, the till says so rather than leaving the total unchanged and unexplained.

Two offers cannot share a code in one workspace. A cashier typing one and getting the other is worse than the offer not existing.

What happens when two offers both apply?

By default they compete, and the customer gets whichever single offer saves them the most. That is almost always what a shop means: two unrelated promotions landing on one bill is usually an accident of timing, not generosity you planned.

Turn on Can run alongside other offers for the ones you do want to combine. Stacking offers are added on top of the best competing one.

Minimums are about the whole bill

₹100 off above ₹999 is a claim about the basket somebody is holding, so the minimum is measured against the whole bill, even when the offer itself only covers some of it.

Switching one off

Offers are switched off, never deleted. A discount already given keeps the offer's name on it, so the record of what you gave away survives the offer that gave it. That is what makes “what did we spend on discounts last month, and on which offer” a question with an answer.

Dates

Both ends are inclusive, and both are optional. An offer with no dates runs until you switch it off, which suits an everyday discount with no season behind it.

Offers are different from loyalty points: an offer comes off the bill for anybody who qualifies, while points are earned by a named customer and spent later.