Administration

Promotional Matrix

The Promotional Matrix makes discounting your customers easy. This article explains each type of promotion, how to apply them, and explains compatibility across the system.

What is the promotional matrix?

It’s more than likely you have agreements with your customers giving them a certain discount. Perhaps you sell a specific product to a customer at a negotiated price, or perhaps you’ve agreed that the customer receives a percentage discount off an entire category.

It's often difficult to remember what discounts were given to which customers - which is why Cin7 automates this process using the Promotional Matrix.

In combination with Price Columns, you should be able to replicate any discount structures you currently have. This will make applying discounts to orders easy for you and your team.

This article outlines the different promotions you can create and explains how to apply them correctly. There is also an FAQ at the bottom of the page that answers common questions related to this topic.

Customer Promotions

With a customer promotion applied, choosing a specific customer in a sales order will apply a discount to the order, based on certain conditions. These are commonly used when you have negotiated a particular price for a customer.

To apply a promotion to a customer, first make sure the Promotional Matrix has been enabled for the CRM module.

To enable the promotional matrix:

1. Hover over your username at the top right and click on Settings.
2. Click on CRM settings.
3. Change Show Advanced Promotional Matrix option to Yes.
4. Click Save.

Once this has been done, you can then apply a promotion to a customer by following the instructions below.

To add a promotion to a customer:

1. Select the CRM Module from the left navigation.
2. Search for your customer, then click the customer's name.
3. In the Promotional Matrix area, select the type of promotion from the dropdown then Click the Add Promotion button.
4. This will insert a row of fields you can edit to create your new promotion.
5. Click Save to apply the new promotion.

There are four different types of Customer Promotion:

Example

The screenshot below shows four different examples of promotions. They are explained in detail underneath the image. 

Product Promotions

A product promotion will apply to all sales of a specific product. This is useful if you are selling a product at a specific price for a period of time.

To apply a promotion to a customer, first make sure the Promotional Matrix has been enabled for the CRM module. 

To enable the promotional matrix:

1. Hover over your username at the top right of the screen and click on Settings
2. Click on Product settings
3. Change Show Advanced Promotional Matrix to 'Yes'
4. Click 'Save'

Once this has been done, you can then apply a promotion to a customer by following the instructions below. 

To add a promotion to a product:

1. Select the Products module from the left navigation.
2. Click Update on the product to which you want to apply a promotion.
3. In the promotional Matrix area, click the Add Promotion button.
4. This will display a set of fields you can update to create your new promotion.

Examples

The screenshot below shows four different examples of promotions. They are explained in detail underneath the image. 

Field Descriptions

The following table outline the different field headings in the promotional matrix and their uses.

Category Tagging

When you apply a customer promotion that is to be applied to a whole category, you must first 'tag' a category with a group name.

In order for the promotional matrix to appear against category the Promotional Matrix needs to be switched on for the products module - see above.

To tag a category with a group name:

1. Select the Products module from the left navigation.
2. Click on the folder icon next to the Category you'd like the promotion to apply, then navigate to the lowest level category.
3. Enter the tag into the Promotional matrix.

A promotion will only work when it is applied to the lowest level category, which could be thought of as the 'bottom-most level' or the 'sub-sub-category'.

For example if I have a category 'Computers' that has two sub-categories 'Accessories' and 'Hardware', I will need to apply the promotional matrix to the two sub-categories for the promotion to take effect.

If I have two further sub-categories under 'Accessories', then I would need to apply the promotional matrix to those lowest level categories instead of applying it to 'Accessories'.

Inserting a promotion line into top level categories will not have any effect.

You can also tag multiple categories with the same tag. You could, for instance, tag a number of categories with 'All' so that a promotion applies to each product in these categories.

See the screenshot below for an example of a category tagged with two groups 'Accessories' and 'All'.

Category Promotions

You can apply Promotions to a whole category - which will discount items for all sales of products in a particular category.

To add a promotion to a category of products:

1. Select the Products module from the left navigation.
2. Click on the folder icon next to the category you'd like the promotion to apply, then navigate to the lowest level category
3. Enter the promotion into the Promotional matrix.

A promotion will only work when it is applied to the lowest level category - see Category Tagging above for an explanation of how this works.

Category promotions follow the same logic as product promotions, see above.

Compatibility Across Modules

Certain Promotions do not work in all areas of Cin7. The table below explains in which module each promotion works.

Please note promotions are not currently compatible with the API.

* This only works in lots of three. If you buy four, it does not split into a lot of three and one by itself.

~ This works on v3 of the POS only.

† This works but does not show on list page, only in the product details page.

‡ This only works at an individual level, it does not combine separate products within the same category.

^ This works even with a combination of products within same category.

FAQs