Sales prices & discounts based on categories

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Posted on by xmp

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Hi all

So we are tring to setup sales prices for our items, but we are finding it difficult to make it work the way we want.

We basically follow a hierarchical model based on different attributes or categories of the item. For example, we have the item Chicken (family = animal || subfamily = farm). The chicken is sold at 5€, and we want to create a discount of 10% for all items with family = farm. This seems to be easy to accomplish creating items discount groups. The problem is that we would need many discount groups, because at the same time we have this 10% discount for family = animal, we also want to give a 12,5% discount for subfamily = farm. Our hierarchy is:

Special price for the product
Discount for the product
Discount for the family
Discount for the subfamily

So as this product has no special price, neither a discount for the specific item, the discount for family = animal should apply, meaning the final price would be 0,95 * 5€. If we then set a special price for the product for the current month at 3,5€, the final price should be 3,5€ as it is higher up in our hierarchy. So no discount this time.

I understand it's quite a weird requirement but giving discount to products based on different categories seems pretty basic to me. If anyone has any advice or can provide a little guidance on this matter that would be much appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance!!

Kind regards,

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Dynamics 365 Business Central

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Mansi Soni 8,951 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hello,

In Business Central, handling item pricing and discounts based on a hierarchical structure like yours (special price > item discount > family discount > subfamily discount) requires a combination of standard functionality and strategic setup. While Business Central supports Sales Prices and Sales Line Discounts (including by customer, item, or item discount group), it doesn't natively support complex hierarchical pricing based on custom attributes like family or subfamily out-of-the-box.

To achieve your desired behavior - where the system applies the most specific applicable discount or price - you would typically need to create custom fields (e.g., Family, Subfamily) on the Item Card and then implement custom logic via AL extensions or use discount group mapping creatively. One common approach is to assign items to Item Discount Groups corresponding to categories (e.g., FAMILY_ANIMAL, SUBFAMILY_FARM) and then define discounts per group.

However, since Business Central applies only one discount based on the matching rule and doesn't evaluate discount precedence automatically, you would need to customize the logic to check the hierarchy and apply the most specific price or discount (e.g., prioritize special prices over category discounts). This can be done through code customization where the pricing engine evaluates the item’s category metadata and chooses the correct pricing tier.

Hope this answer will help you!

Regards,
Mansi Soni

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Sohail Ahmed 11,169 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi,

This type of hierarchical pricing logic isn’t fully supported in standard Business Central.

What you can do with standard features:

Sales Prices – You can set special prices per item, per customer, or for customer price groups. If a special price exists, it will override any discounts.

Sales Line Discounts – You can use Item Discount Groups to apply a percentage discount for a group of items assigned to a customer or customer group.

Best Match Logic – Business Central will automatically pick the best applicable price or discount, but it does not combine or prioritize them hierarchically. It won't apply “Family discount unless a Subfamily discount exists,” for example.

Limitations:

Discounts are not layered.

There is no built-in logic to check category levels (family, subfamily) in a defined order.

You would need to manually maintain a large number of discount groups to represent each category combination, which is not scalable.

Recommended approach:

If you require a strict pricing hierarchy like:

Special item price

Then item-specific discount

Then family discount

Then subfamily discount

...this would require a customization.

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YUN ZHU 99,084 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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As far as I know this is not possible in the standard, you can contact your partner to discuss custom requirements.

But please note that there is a new module for Sales Price. If you want to customize it, it is recommended to make changes on the new module.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/across-prices-and-discounts?tabs=new-experience

Thanks

ZHU

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xmp 187 on at

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Hi

OK, got it. We will develop an extension to accomplish this.

Thank you all for your responses.

Kind regards,

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Khushbu Rajvi. 22,130 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Adding more deatails: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/sales-how-record-sales-price-discount-payment-agreements?tabs=current-experience

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/across-prices-and-discounts?tabs=current-experience

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