Pricing, Promotions, and Labels

Quasar’s pricing system is layered: target margins and tax defaults start at the subdepartment level and flow down to every item in that subdepartment. You can then adjust individual items, run bulk price changes through Price Batches, set time-limited promotions with Promo Batches, create formula-driven pricing rules with Price Calculations, and print shelf labels with Label Batches.

Target Margins: The Subdepartment Foundation

Pricing begins on the Subdepartment Master. The Main tab contains a defaults table where you set pricing parameters per price zone:

How Defaults Flow to Items

When you create a new item in a subdepartment, it inherits the subdepartment’s target margin, allowed variance, tax codes, and tax-inclusion flags. If you change the defaults on the subdepartment later, Quasar asks whether you want to update all linked items — this pushes the change to every item in the subdepartment at once.

Price Zones

Price zones let you maintain different pricing for different markets. For example, you might have a “Downtown” zone with higher prices and a “Suburban” zone with lower prices. Each store is assigned a price zone. See Price Zone Master.

Tax-Included vs. Tax-Added Pricing

One of the most important decisions when setting up pricing is whether your selling prices include tax or whether tax is added at the register. Quasar supports both models, and you can mix them within the same database — different subdepartments (and even different items) can use different approaches.

The Two Models

Where to Set It

The tax-inclusion flags are set at two levels:

1. Subdepartment Defaults — the Price Inc Tax? column in the subdepartment’s Main tab defaults table (see above). When you create new items in this subdepartment, they inherit the setting.
2. Item Level — each item’s Prices tab has its own Price Includes Tax flag, inherited from the subdepartment but overridable per item.

How Quasar Handles the Math

When Price Inc Tax? is checked:

• The price you enter is the customer-facing price
• Quasar back-calculates the base price by dividing out the tax rate
• Margin calculations use the base (tax-exclusive) price
• Reports and GL postings use the extracted base price and tax amounts

When Price Inc Tax? is unchecked:

• The price you enter is the base price
• Tax is calculated and added at the time of sale
• Margin calculations use the entered price directly

Cost-Side Tax Inclusion

The same principle applies to the purchase cost. The Cost Inc Tax? flag controls whether your cost figures include purchase tax. This is important for accurate margin calculations — Quasar needs to compare like-for-like (base cost vs. base price) to compute gross margin correctly.

Deposit-Included Pricing

For items that carry a container deposit (e.g., beverages), Quasar provides separate Price Inc Dep? and Cost Inc Dep? flags. These work identically to the tax inclusion flags:

• When Price Inc Dep? is checked, the shelf price already includes the deposit amount
• When unchecked, the deposit is added separately at the register

The deposit amount itself is configured on the item’s stocking information. The inclusion flag simply tells Quasar whether to extract the deposit from the entered price or add it on top.

Price Batches: Bulk Price Changes

A Price Batch (Inventory → Price Batches) lets you review and change prices for many items at once before executing the changes.

Workflow

1. Create a new Price Batch and assign a price zone
2. Click Add Items to load items by department, subdepartment, brand, vendor, item group, or matrix
3. Optionally enter a Same price for all value to pre-fill every item’s new price
4. Review the list — each row shows the item’s current cost, target margin, current price, and new price
5. Use Calculate Prices to apply formula-based repricing across the loaded items
6. Use Round Prices to round to standard price points
7. Remove unchanged items with Remove Unchanged
8. Click Execute Batch to apply all changes
9. Click Make Labels to generate shelf labels for the changed items

Promo Batches: Time-Limited Promotions

A Promo Batch (Inventory → Promo Batches) works like a Price Batch but adds start and end dates. Promotional prices are automatically active during the promo period and revert when the promotion expires.

The Promo Batch has the same Add Items dialog with matrix filter and same-price-for-all option. See Chapter 9 for details on loading matrix items into a promo.

Price Calculations: Formula-Driven Pricing

A Price Calculation (Inventory → Price Calculations) defines a pricing rule that Quasar applies automatically. Unlike batches (which change the stored price), a calculation overrides the price dynamically at the point of sale and on the Invoice screen.

Pricing Methods

Required Min Amt (Threshold)

Every pricing method supports an optional Required Min Amt field. When set, the calculation only takes effect once the total of qualifying items in the transaction reaches the specified dollar amount. This is most commonly used with Gift/Reward to create “free gift with $X purchase” promotions, but it works with any method (e.g., “10% off when you spend $75 on clothing”). Gifts are added and removed dynamically as the transaction total fluctuates around the threshold.

Limits: Controlling Scope

Every price calculation uses Limits to define which items, stores, and customers it applies to. You can include or exclude by:

• Store or Store Group
• Price Zone
• Customer or Customer Group
• Item, Department, Subdepartment, Brand, or Vendor
• Item Group

Time and Day Restrictions

Calculations can be restricted to specific date ranges, time ranges, and days of the week — making them ideal for happy-hour pricing, weekend specials, or seasonal promotions.

Price Types: Customer and Quantity Levels

Each item can carry multiple prices beyond the regular selling price. These are set on the item’s Prices tab and are also accessible through Price Batches (the Price Type filter in the Add Items dialog).

Customer Pricing in Practice

1. On the Customer Master, assign a Price Level (1–4) to the customer
2. On the item’s Prices tab, enter prices for each customer level
3. When selling to that customer, Quasar automatically selects the matching level price

Quantity Pricing in Practice

1. On the item’s Prices tab, enter prices for Qty Level 1–4 along with the minimum quantity for each level
2. When the quantity sold reaches a level threshold, Quasar applies that level’s lower price to the entire quantity

Discounts

Discounts are defined in the Discount Master (Sales → Discounts). Unlike Price Calculations (which change the price itself), discounts are applied after the price is determined and appear as a separate line or adjustment on the transaction.

Discount Types

Discount Methods

Discount Options

Discount Limits

Like Price Calculations, discounts use Limits to control scope. You can include or exclude by store, price zone, customer, item, department, subdepartment, brand, vendor, or group. Discounts also support date, time, and day-of-week restrictions.

Customer-Linked Discounts

In addition to limit-based scope, discounts can be assigned directly to individual customers on the Customer Master. The customer’s record maintains a list of linked discounts. When that customer is selected on a transaction, their linked discounts are automatically available (or auto-applied, depending on the discount settings).

This is how you implement preferred customer pricing: create a discount (e.g., “VIP 15% Off”), then assign it to specific customers on their Customer Master record. Combined with the customer’s Price Level (1–4), this gives you two complementary approaches:

Pricing Priority and the Best-Deal Engine

Understanding how Quasar’s pricing layers interact is critical for setting up promotions that behave correctly. This section explains the complete pricing pipeline — what takes priority, how competing discounts are resolved, and how the system ensures the customer always receives the best deal.

The Three Pricing Layers

Quasar applies pricing in three distinct layers, each building on the result of the previous one:

Detailed Evaluation Order

When an item is added to a transaction (either in the back-office Invoice screen or at the POS), the following sequence executes:

1. Layer 1 — Base Price Resolution. Quasar evaluates the item’s regular price, customer level price (if a customer is assigned), quantity level price (if applicable), promotional price (if a promo batch is active), and all matching price calculations. The lowest qualifying price becomes the item’s base price. If a multi-deal matches and produces a lower combined total than the individual prices, the multi-deal wins (see Price Calc vs. Multi-Deal Arbitration below). The price calculation’s Discountable? checkbox determines whether further discounts (Layers 2 and 3) can reduce this price.
2. Layer 2 — Line Discounts. Line discounts are evaluated against the base price — but only on items whose price calculation marked them as discountable. By default, a discount’s Allow discount on other discounts checkbox is unchecked (exclusive). This means that once a line discount is applied to an item, no further discounts — including transaction discounts — can be applied to that line. To permit stacking, the user must explicitly check Allow discount on other discounts on the Discount Master.
3. Layer 3 — Transaction Discounts. Transaction discounts are applied last. They only affect lines where the price calculation allows discounts (Discountable? = checked) and any existing line discount also allows further discounts (Allow Other = checked). The system calculates the discountable remainder for each qualifying line (base price minus line discounts) and applies the transaction discount proportionally. When multiple transaction discounts compete, the Best-Deal Tournament runs to determine which one wins. The winning discount is then distributed proportionally across all qualifying lines.

The Discountable Flag

The Discountable? checkbox on the Price Calc Master controls whether items priced by that calculation can receive further discounts in Layers 2 and 3:

Best-Deal Tournament (Transaction Discounts)

When multiple transaction discounts compete for the same items, Quasar runs a three-phase Best-Deal Tournament to ensure the customer always receives the lowest price. This operates identically on both the Invoice screen and the POS.

Price Calc vs. Multi-Deal Arbitration

When a price calculation (e.g., “20% Off Fridays”) and a multi-deal (e.g., “Burger + Fries for $8.99”) both apply to the same items, Quasar compares the resulting totals before applying either one:

• If the multi-deal produces a lower combined total than the individual calculated prices, the multi-deal wins and replaces the calculated prices.
• If the calculated prices are already lower, the multi-deal is skipped.

Low Price Floor

If an item has a Low Price set on its Prices tab (in the Item Master), no combination of price calculations, line discounts, or transaction discounts can reduce the effective price below that floor. The discount amount is automatically capped so the final price equals the Low Price.

Complete Priority Summary

Label Batches: Shelf Labels

A Label Batch (Inventory → Label Batches) generates printed shelf labels. Label batches can be created:

• Manually, by adding items one at a time
• Automatically, from a Price Batch (click Make Labels after executing a price change)
• From the Add Items dialog, using the same filters (department, subdepartment, brand, vendor, group, matrix)

Price Change History

Use the Price Change History to review historical price changes. You can filter by matrix to see all changes for a product group, or by individual item. This provides a full audit trail of when prices changed and what they changed from.

Pricing Strategy Checklist

1. Set up Price Zones for your markets
2. Define target margins and allowed variance on each subdepartment’s Main tab defaults
3. Set tax codes and tax-inclusion flags at the subdepartment level
4. Create items — they inherit subdepartment defaults automatically
5. Set Customer Level prices on items and assign price levels to customers
6. Set Quantity Level prices for volume break pricing
7. Use Price Batches for regular repricing (e.g., after receiving new inventory at updated costs)
8. Use Promo Batches for seasonal and time-limited sales
9. Use Price Calculations for ongoing formula-based rules (cost-plus, percentage off, buy-multiple deals, and free gift rewards with purchase thresholds)
10. Create Discounts for transaction-level and line-level reductions (commercial and statutory)
11. Use Label Batches to print shelf labels whenever prices change
12. Review the Price Change History to audit price movements