The heading of a fine and discount ladder: a named rule such as "Rent: 3 percent early payment, 10 percent late" that decides what is added to or taken off a bill depending on when the customer pays.
When to use it
When you set the property up, and whenever the terms for early or late payment change. You create one policy for each set of terms, then add the rungs of the ladder underneath it.
Before you start
- The Service the policy applies to should already exist.
- Plan the rungs first: how many days after the due date attract what percentage.
Where to find it
Masters > Rental > Discount Policy.
The fields on this screen
| Field (on screen) | What to enter | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Policy Name | Name of this fine and discount ladder, as it reads when you assign it to a customer. | No |
| Service | The service this ladder is written for, such as Rent or Electricity. | No |
| Default Percentage | (not explained yet) | No |
| Default Days | (not explained yet) | No |
| Active | Untick to switch this ladder off. Its fines and discounts then stop applying to every customer on it. | No |
How it works
- Save the policy here. On its own it does nothing yet, because it is only a heading.
- Add its rungs on Discount Slab. Each rung is a number of days and a percentage. A negative percentage is a discount, and a positive one is a fine.
- Say who it applies to on Policy Assignment, which pairs a customer and a service with a policy. You can also set one workspace-wide default policy for pairs that have no assignment of their own. An explicit assignment always wins over the default.
- When a payment is settled, the days are counted from the due date to the day it is paid. The first rung that covers that many days decides the percentage. Paying on the due date counts as day one. Paying later than the last rung takes the last rung's percentage.
- Active is respected. Untick it and the whole ladder stops taking effect for everybody it is assigned to.
Tips and common mistakes
- The rungs are what count. The percentage and days on this screen are kept for reference only. The figures that decide a fine or discount are the ones on Discount Slab.
- Enter the rungs in rising order of days and cover the whole range. If there is a gap, a payment in the gap falls into the next rung up.
- Watch the sign. A discount must be entered as a negative percentage.
- Unticking Active switches the ladder off for every customer it is assigned to, not only new ones.
Related guides
- Discount Slab (the rungs), Policy Assignment (who gets which policy), Service, Bill Generation.