OpenVPMS has a powerful and flexible product pricing system.

Price makeup

Products have two components to their price:

Fixed - this is the fixed component - it is effectively the 'flag fall'
Unit - this is the 'per item' component

Hence if something has a fixed price of $10 and a unit price of $1, then the total price for 4 is $14.

In general things that have no overhead such as cans of food will have no fixed price, and only a unit price. Things that have an overhead - such as tablets where you want to charge a dispensing fee as well as the per-tablet price, will have a fixed price representing the dispensing fee and a unit price for the tablet. You can also use this approach for services, where you might want to set a fixed price for some surgery, and a unit price that represents the per-hour charge for the theatre time. [Note that an alterative to this appoach is to have mutiple fixed prices - see below - so that you have different prices for different length operations.]

Tax

Fixed and unit prices may be entered both exclusive and inclusive of tax.
The exclusive tax price is stored, whilst the inclusive tax price is calculated from the tax-exclusive price and the tax rates associated with the product, product type or practice.

The practice Show Prices Tax Inclusive option determines if fixed and unit prices in Products - Information and during product selection should be displayed inclusive or exclusive of tax.

Price Entry

When setting the price, you can provide:

• a tax-exclusive Cost price and a Markup percentage, and the system will calculate the:
  • tax-exclusive Price using:
    Cost * (1 + Markup / 100)
  • the Tax-inclusive Price using:
    Price * (1 + tax / 100)
• a tax-exclusive Price. The Tax-inclusive Price and Markup will be calculated.
• a Tax-inclusive Price. The tax-exclusive Price and Markup will be calculated.

The Cost and tax-exclusive Price can be expressed to 3 decimal places; the tax-inclusive price is rounded according to Price Rounding below.

Dates

Prices also have from/to applicability dates.  This allows you to keep previous prices for reference purposes. It also allows you to set future prices, ie one that will take effect on some future date.

Templates

A product can have its price set from a 'price template'.  This allows the Fixed price component of a number of products to be set from a standard value.

Multiple Prices

It is possible to set multiple fixed prices for a product, each with its own name. When the product is called up when generating an invoice, the fixed price field will have a pull-down which can be used to show the available prices (with their names) as follows. Note that here the 150/medium price has been set as the default and so is initially displayed.

Service Ratios

Service ratios can be used to apply a multiplier to prices for products of a given product type at a given Practice Location. The multiplier is used when generating charges or estimates. This facility is designed to enable different Locations (such as those used for over-night emergency or house-call operations) to charge more for products of certain types.

Pricing Groups

Prices can be assigned Pricing Groups to enable different pricing for a product at different Practice Locations. If a Practice Location is assigned a Pricing Group, it only sees the Prices that have:

• the same Pricing Group
• no Pricing Group

To use Pricing Groups:

• create a Pricing Group for each demographic that needs to be represented.
• configure Practice Locations to use those Pricing Groups. One Pricing Group may be shared by multiple locations.
• assign Pricing Groups to Prices.

Pricing Groups are similar to Service Ratios in that they both support different prices for a product at different Practice Locations. Whilst Service Ratios are simpler to set up, Pricing Groups enable:

• different pricing of individual products, rather than just types of products
• the ability to enter a rounded price
• product price history
• prices to be exported and imported, per Practice Location

Price Rounding

Tax-inclusive prices are rounded to the default number of decimal places for the currency.

This can be changed by specifying a Minimum Price on the practice Currency.

The practice currency can be selected in Adminstration>Organisation>Practice.

The currency is a lookup, the rounding can be changed by editing the lookup in Administration>Lookups

E.g., to round prices to the nearest 5 cents, specify 0.05 for the Minimum Price.

Tax-inclusive prices will be rounded to the Minimum Price:

• when editing a product, and the Cost, Markup, or Price is changed
• after a Service Ratio is applied during charges or estimates
• a delivery is finalised that triggers an update to a unit price

Note that the Markup and Max Discount may be recalculated after the price is rounded.

Tax-inclusive prices will not be rounded to the Minimum Price:

• if the price is manually entered during charging or estimating
• if they are imported

Negative Prices

You can set as price as a negative amount - although this is not really kosher. Negative prices are used with a product that is in fact a discount. This enables you to have a discount line item on the invoice. For the standard way to apply discounts, see Concepts|Discounts.