RSMUS.comDynamics AX accelerator for retailers.
In a retail environment, manufacturers and/or vendors will often provide funding for the retailer to put an item on discount. The retailer will sell the item at a discount, determine the amount of product sold using the vendor funded discount, and then claim a credit from the manufacturer. The challenge is figuring out how much product was sold using the promotion, and how much should be claimed from the manufacturer.
RSM has developed a Dynamics AX accelerator for retailers that ties a retail point of sale transaction and the discount used back to a vendor funded discount. This will also quantify the amount to be claimed from the manufacturer, even if it isn’t the full discount amount. The accelerator then generates an invoice to the manufacturer which consolidates all of the manufacturer’s funded coupons into a single invoice. There are two ways this can be accomplished: Scan-backs, and Vendor funded coupons. Conceptually, they are similar, but with some slight differences.
Creating the Scan-back
A scan-back record will be created. This record will contain the manufacturer (or vendor), the item(s), the discount amount, and the vendor discount reimbursement amount (Scan-back amount), as well as the invoicing offset accounts.
Figure 1 – Scan back details overview
After the scan-back is created, it can be marked as “Confirmed” and then “Approved”. These buttons can be controlled via security to add an approval layer to the process.
Figure 2 – Approval buttons
After the scan-back is approved, a retail point of sale discount can be created. If the retail POS discount is a simple price or percentage discount, the majority of the discount information will be pre-populated using the scan-back data. More complex discount types will use the scan-back information available, but will still need the user to finish the discount setup.
Figure 3 – Discount creation buttons
Discount Usage
The created discount will look and behave like a standard retail POS discount, but it will contain a link to the scan-back record.
Figure 4 – Sample discount with scan back ID
The discount ID will be tied back to the retail transaction when it is used at the point of sale with the item.
Figure 5 – Sample retail discount transaction
Invoicing
After the retail transactions are posted, a periodic job will capture all retail transactions using the scan-back discount, and the information will be placed in the scan-back workbench transactions. After the scan-back transaction records are generated, another process will run and generate an invoice for each manufacturer across all scan-backs with open transactions. Both, the scan-back transaction generation and the manufacturer invoice operation can run across multiple companies. The amount the manufacturer is invoiced will relate to the scan-back amount on the scan-back line for the item sold using the discount.
Figure 6 – Sample scan back transactions
Figure 7 – Sample manufacturer free text invoice
Key differences between scan-back and vendor-funded coupon
The processes above describe the creation process for scan-back creation, POS transaction capture and manufacturer invoicing. Vendor-funded coupons are very similar to scan-backs, with a few key differences:
- Sales tax can be configured to be calculated on the discounted amount, thus a Vendor-funded coupon is essentially treated as a method of payment.
- Vendor-funded coupons are treated as a separate discount type, so when a retail discount of type “Vendor-funded coupon” is created, no additional manual step is needed to create a vendor-funded coupon agreement, because it is all part of the retail discount creation.
- A barcode must be entered into the POS to declare the coupon.
- The manufacturer coupon will appear on the retail transactions table as a service item with a negative cost based on the vendor-funded coupon discount. If there are multiple items on the vendor-funded coupon discount and the retail transaction, the manufacturer coupon’s relationship to a specific line will be ambiguous.
The manufacturer invoice amount for a vendor-funded coupon will always equal the discounted amount at the point of sale.
Figure 8 – Manufacturer coupon information on discount
Summary
Scan-backs and vendor-funded coupons are able to fill a gap many retailers using Dynamics AX face internally in the system without a manual reconciliation process. This allows for seamless end to end integration for merchandising, retail and accounts receivable teams.
If you’d like more information about getting the most out of your Dynamics AX solution, contact our experts at RSM 855-437-7201. Subscribe to our Microsoft Dynamics Community News publication.
by Curtis McDonald for RSM
