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Promotions & Discounts

Promotion types, setup, and manual discounts.

Maintained by , Founder · Updated

Sometimes you want to run a sale or bundle offer. EVRST has built-in promotion rules to handle this.

Types of Promotions

  • Buy 2 Get 1 Free - Classic BOGO

  • Buy X Pay Y - e.g., "Buy 3, Pay for 2"

  • Percentage Off - % discount on a category

  • Fixed Discount - Flat amount off

Setting Up a Promotion

  1. Go to Settings > Master Data > Promotions

  2. Click Create Promotion

  3. Define the trigger (which items or categories qualify)

  4. Define the reward (free item, % off, fixed amount)

  5. Set dates if it is a limited-time offer

  6. Save

Promotions apply automatically at checkout. The customer sees the discount calculated.

Manual Discounts

You can also manually discount individual lines on any invoice or quotation:

  1. Open the invoice

  2. Click the discount icon on a line item

  3. Enter a percentage or fixed amount

  4. If it exceeds a configured threshold, request supervisor approval

  5. Save

This is handy for negotiated prices or loyalty adjustments.

A Negotiated Amount off the Whole Invoice

Some prices get agreed at the counter. The bill comes to 5.900, you and the customer settle on 5.500, and you want 0.400 off the invoice rather than editing five lines one at a time. A discount code cannot do this, because the figure is different for every customer.

Turn it on under Settings > Modules & Features, just above Discount Codes: Allow a manual discount on the invoice total. The box then appears on the invoice form, and on the POS cart if you switch that on too.

To use it, type the amount, check the New total line that appears underneath, and click Apply. The total on screen is what the customer will pay.

What the amount means (read this once if you charge tax)

A whole-invoice discount comes off the price before tax, then tax is recalculated. That means a 0.400 discount does not reduce a tax-inclusive total by exactly 0.400 unless the software converts it for you. It does, by default.

Under What the typed amount means you choose:

  • Reduction of the invoice total (recommended, and the default) - type 0.400 and the total drops from 5.900 to exactly 5.500. This is what a shopkeeper means by "0.400 off".

  • Reduction before tax - type 0.400 and 0.400 comes off the pre-tax value, leaving 5.460. This behaves exactly like a flat discount code.

The printed invoice shows the discount before tax, so in the example above it prints 0.364 rather than 0.400. That is correct and required: Subtotal, Discount, Taxable, Tax and Total have to add up on a tax invoice. The figure the customer cares about, the grand total, is exactly the 5.500 you agreed.

Keeping control of it

The same screen sets the limits:

  • Staff max % - how much anyone can give without approval

  • Hard cap % - the absolute ceiling, refused even with approval

  • Max amount - a money ceiling on what comes off the total (0 means no limit)

  • Require supervisor above the staff max - the band in between prompts for the supervisor password

  • Require a reason - the person giving the discount must type why

Every manual discount is recorded: the amount agreed, the reason, and whether a supervisor authorised it. You can see them all in Reports > Sales > Register, which now shows a Discount column and a running total split between discount codes and amounts keyed by hand.

The split is the number to watch. A discount code is a policy you set. A hand-keyed discount is a decision somebody made at the counter.

Changing it later

Open the invoice for editing and the discount box is there, filled in with the amount that was agreed. Change it, or clear it, and save. The figure is worked out again from the amount you typed, so if you also changed the lines, "0.400 off the total" still means 0.400 off the new total rather than the old one. The same limits and approvals apply as when it was first given.

One limit worth knowing: an invoice carries either a discount code or a manual discount, never both. Discount codes themselves cannot be changed on an existing invoice - if a coded invoice is wrong, void it and issue it again.

Frequently asked questions

What types of promotion can EVRST run?

EVRST supports Buy 2 Get 1 Free, Buy X Pay Y such as buy 3 pay for 2, a percentage off a category, and a fixed amount off.

Do promotions have to be applied manually at checkout?

No. Promotions apply automatically at checkout and the customer sees the discount calculated. You can still discount individual lines by hand, which may require supervisor approval if it exceeds a configured threshold.

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