Checking the last invoice to find a price
A café orders three kilos of the house espresso. What do they pay? The quickest way to find out is to open their last invoice in the accounts package and copy the price. That is fine until the last invoice itself was wrong, or the café was promised a better rate from next month, or they switched to a new espresso and nobody decided what that costs them.
When green prices rise and you need to put wholesale prices up, you discover that there are almost as many prices as there are cafés, and no list of them anywhere.
How every café ends up on its own deal
Each deal made sense when it was made: a lower price for a café buying more, a discount for one that took a grinder but not a machine, a launch price that was meant to end. None of this was recorded as a rule. It lives in invoices and in the memory of whoever did the deal.
- Prices are copied from the last invoice.
- Volume discounts were agreed but never reviewed against volume.
- Introductory prices never ended.
- New coffees are priced ad hoc per café.
- Nobody can list all current wholesale prices.
Where the margin goes
Inconsistent pricing costs you in two directions. Some cafés pay less than their volume justifies, and nobody notices because the discount was agreed years ago. Others get a price rise applied inconsistently, which causes disputes. Invoice errors creep in when someone picks the wrong line. And a price increase, which should be a planned business decision, becomes a week of editing invoices and apologising for mistakes.
Pricing that the invoice follows
- We gather every current price from your recent invoices and agreements, and list them per café and coffee so you can see the real picture.
- You define a small number of tiers, for example by monthly volume, and each café is placed in a tier.
- Special terms are recorded as exceptions on the account, with a reason and an optional end date, so a launch price ends on time.
- Every wholesale order and draft invoice takes its price from the tier and exceptions, never from the last invoice.
- Volume is reviewed against tier each month, and cafés that have moved up or down are listed for you to decide.
- A price change is made once, previewed across every account, and applied from a date you choose, with an email to each café generated for you to send.
| Pricing situation | How it is handled now | With tiers and exceptions |
|---|---|---|
| Standard café | Last invoice price | Tier price |
| High volume café | Old verbal discount | Higher tier, reviewed monthly |
| Launch offer | Never ends | Exception with end date |
| New coffee | Priced ad hoc | Tier price for that coffee |
| Price increase | Edit invoices one by one | One change, previewed first |
Knowing what every café pays
You have one list that answers what each café pays for each coffee and why. The person taking orders never has to go looking for a price. Price increases become an afternoon of reviewing a preview rather than a week of edits. And account reviews can look at whether a café's price still matches its volume, which is useful information when talking to them.
Could this be your wholesale price list?
- Prices are found by looking at the last invoice.
- You could not list every café's current price.
- Some discounts were agreed years ago and never reviewed.
- Price rises lead to invoice errors or disputes.
- New coffees are priced differently each time.