Customising Rates for specific customers
For operators using the Zone Pricing Model, the Rate Card Adjustments feature supports Organisation level adjustments to standard Rate card pricing, directly in the Admin Portal.
This article is a guide to using the Adjustments feature to apply dollar or percentage based adjustments to Zone rates for a customer.
Note 🔎 Users must have the Pricing Admin role to access this feature.
In this article:
Viewing and Editing Adjustments
Adjustment Rules and Limitations
Overview
Zone Rate Card Adjustments facilitate individual modifications to the rates in an existing Rate Card.
The feature provides considerable flexibility in customising rates, with variations by adjustment type and other criteria supported. This section explains how different adjustments can be applied.
For full details on the rules and logic for adjustments, see Rules and Limitations.
In this section:
Adjustment Types
There are 3 types of adjustment available. All adjustment types support positive and negative values.
- Base Adjustment: A dollar-based adjustment to the Base Rate.
- Increment Adjustment: A dollar-based adjustment to the Increment (per Unit) Rate.
- Percentage Adjustment: A percentage-based adjustment to the Increment Rate for Weight, Cubic and Unit rates, or the Base Rate for Flat Rates.
Note 🔎 Flat Rate pricing only has a Base Rate, therefore Increment Adjustments are not applicable to Flat Rates.
Adjustment Variations
The following flexibility is supported for creating rate adjustments:
Multiple Adjustment Types
More than one adjustment type can be used when creating a rate adjustment. E.g., a Base Adjustment and Percentage Adjustment can be applied to the same rate simultaneously. See
Service Type
The Service Type must be specified for any adjustment. This allows different adjustment amounts to be applied per Service Type.
Pricing Unit
The Pricing Unit must be specified for any adjustment. This means in addition to customising adjustments for weight vs cubic rates, different freight item types, such as a carton, pallet & half pallet, can also be updated individually without impacting each other.
Site
Generally, it is recommended to apply adjustments at an Organisation level. This keeps it simple for your customers (and you) to understand their Rate cards. However, in the rare cases where distinct pricing based on the Sending Site is appropriate, the system can support a Site-level adjustment. For example:
-> A +$2 Base Adjustment could be created for that Site, reflecting the additional time required for the job.
Date range
The system can hold multiple adjustments for different date ranges at the same time, allowing rate adjustments to be planned and prepared in advance. For example:
-> A discount structure has been offered to a customer as an incentive to choose your service over a competitor’s. This involves an increasing monthly discount on Cubage Base rates over October, November and December.
-> A -$7.50 Base Adjustment is added, with an Effective date of November 1st.
-> A -$10 Base Adjustment is added, with an Effective date of December 1st and End date of December 31st.
Creating an Adjustment
Adjustments are created in the Organisation page Pricing Setup tab.
To add an adjustment:
- Navigate to the Rate Card Adjustments tab.
- Click New Adjustment.
- Select the Service Type (e.g. B2C, B2B).
- Select the Pricing Unit (e.g. Weight, Carton, Pallet).
- Optionally, select a Site. This applies the adjusted rate only to consignments sent from that Site. If no Site is selected, the adjustment will apply to all of the customer’s Sites.
- Select the Effective Date for the adjustment. This cannot be the current date or earlier.
- Enter values into the appropriate adjustment field(s).
The Preview function ensures an adjustment is checked prior to saving, to confirm the intended outcome will be achieved. To preview an adjustment:
- Select a Rate Card for the preview. This should be the Rate Card currently used by the Site(s), or the Rate Card that will be used from the adjustment’s Effective date.
- Select a Preview Date to view the resulting rates from the adjustment at a point in time. E.g., if a future rate update already exists in the rate card, the adjustment can be previewed based on that future rate.
- Click Save to confirm the adjustment, or if required, edit fields and preview again before saving.
Viewing and Editing Adjustments
Adjustments and their resulting rates are reflected in an Organisation’s Pricing Setup tab and Rates tab, respectively.
In this section:
Viewing Adjusted Rates
Configured adjustments to rates are reflected when viewing any Rate Card in the Organisation page; i.e., the Rates tab shows a customised version of the Rate cards for that customer.
To view the adjustments applied to future rates, or view any adjustments effective from a future date, select the Effective date to view the customer’s Rate card for that date.
In this example, a new adjustment on the B2B Pallet rate is effective from 11/11/2024. Changing the Effective Date on the Rates page reflects the adjustment effective on that date:
Viewing Adjustment Details
The Pricing Setup -> Rate Card Adjustments tab provides all the details of any configured adjustments, and the ability to preview those adjustments with any applicable Rate card.
Results can be filtered by Service Type, Pricing Unit and Site, using the filters to the top of the tab. An Effective Date must be selected to view the adjustments. This defaults to the current day.
The results list displays the values defined for each adjustment.
To preview an adjustment:
- Click the👁️icon in the Actions column.
- Select the Rate Card and Date to preview:
- Click View to see the adjustment applied to that Rate card on the specified date:
Making Changes
Adjustments have limited editing capability. The three Adjustment field values, Service Type, Pricing Unit, Site and Start date (Effective date) cannot be edited after creation. To make any changes to these values, a new adjustment must be created.
The Actions column enables the management of End dates and deletion of adjustments.
Managing End Dates
An End date cannot be set at the time of creating an adjustment, but can be added later if required.
End dates are recommended for use only in cases where the adjustment is valid for a specified period; e.g., to facilitate a limited time promotional offer for a new customer before their standard rates become effective.
If an End date has already been set, and the adjustment has not already ended, the End date can be changed or cleared. The End button is only visible on adjustments whose End date can be set.
To set an adjustment End date:
- Click the 🚫 icon in the Actions column.
- Select the End date. This cannot be earlier than the adjustment Start date or the current date.
- Click Save to confirm.
To edit an adjustment End date:
- Click the 🚫 icon in the Actions column.
- Select the new End date.
- Click Save to confirm.
To clear an adjustment End date:
- Click the 🚫 icon in the Actions column.
- Check the Clear End Date box to remove the End date, and click Save:
Deleting an Adjustment
Adjustments can only be deleted if they have not started yet, and if they are the latest adjustment to a rate. The Delete button is only visible on adjustments which can be deleted.
To delete an adjustment:
- Click the 🗑 icon in the Actions column.
- Click Delete to confirm.
Rules and Limitations
In order to avoid conflicting rates, and preserve an accurate history of prices, there are a number of rules in place for Rates and Adjustments.
This section should be used as a reference when working with Zone rate adjustments.
In this section:
General Rules and Logic
General Rules and Logic
-> 5 decimal places are supported for all adjustments. If more than 5 decimal places are provided, values are rounded to 5 places.
-> Increment Adjustment cannot be used for the Flat Rate Pricing Unit, as Flat Rates have no Increment Rate. Only Base $ Adjustment and Percentage Adjustment are applicable, with the Percentage Adjustments applied to the Base Rate.
-> Adjustments are Organisation-specific, not Rate card specific. Any adjustment created applies to all applicable Rate cards for the customer, i.e. any Rate cards which include a corresponding rate for the adjustment. This means that if the Rate card linked to a Site changes for some reason, rate adjustments may require review.
-> Adjustments are not cumulative. Any adjustment made to a rate replaces the previous adjustment for that rate. This rule applies even when a different adjustment type is used. To apply both adjustment types, both values should be added with the same update. For example:
- A +$1 Base Adjustment is created, with a start date of December 1st. No value is entered in the Increment Adjustment or Percentage Adjustment fields.
- Subsequently, a +5% Percentage Adjustment is created, with a start date of December 1st. No value is entered in the Base Adjustment or Increment Adjustment fields.
- The Base Adjustment is deleted, and only the Percentage Adjustment applies to the rate.
-> In the case of both a dollar and percentage adjustment being added, the percentage adjustment is applied first. For example:
- A $5 Increment Rate exists for the Carton Pricing unit.
- An adjustment is added, with a +$1 Increment Adjustment and a +10% Percentage Adjustment.
- The adjusted rate is calculated as: ($5 x 1.1) + $1 = $6.50
Date Constraints and Logic
-> The adjustment Start date cannot be today or earlier. All consignments are priced based on the rates applicable on the Staged date, so rates cannot be backdated.
-> The Start date cannot be earlier than the Start date of a previous adjustment for the rate.
-> The adjustment End date cannot be in the past.
-> The adjustment End date cannot be earlier than the Start date.
-> Only the latest adjustment to a rate can be ended.
-> The End date cannot be cleared if the adjustment has already ended.
-> When a new adjustment is created for a rate, any previous adjustment for that rate will automatically end when the new one begins. The system uses the new adjustment’s Start date to set the previous adjustment’s End date. For example:
- An adjustment exists for the Pallet Pricing Unit, with a Start date and no End date.
- A new adjustment is created for the rate, with a Start date of December 1st.
- The previous adjustment’s End date is automatically set to December 1st.
Deleting Adjustments
-> An adjustment can only be deleted if it has not started.
-> Only the latest adjustment for a rate can be deleted.
For more on Zone Pricing, see the full user guide here.