The Simple Salon customisable Advanced Discounting feature will help you set up and keep track of all your discounts. You can create special discounts for your clients such as a "limited time" offer, or as part of a broader marketing campaign, for targeted client groups - the choice is yours!
- Enabling Advanced Discounting
- Creating Discount Types - Item Discounts and Whole Transaction Discounts
- Apply Discount Type to Specific Products, Services or Packages
- How to Add Discount Types in POS
- Keeping Track of Applied Discounts
Enabling your Advanced Discounting Feature
To turn on this great feature, go to your Settings page (click the icon on the top right corner):
Then click on Cash Register Settings. Tick Enable Advanced Discounting and Save.
Creating Discount Types - Item Discounts and Whole Transaction Discounts
Next you'll need to create your Discount Types. To do that go to your Admin page, select your Lists tab, and click Discount Types (this example shows some discount types have already been created).
To create a new discount type select New.
Under Discount Type Details, you'll see you have your Standard Options and your Advanced Options:
First you'll fill in the details for your discount under Standard Options:
With Advanced Discounting, you can create a discount that's for individual items in POS, or you can create a discount that's for the whole transaction.
Under Applied To, you'll select either Items or Whole Transaction:
Note: You can still apply an Item discount to individual Services, Products, Packages etc in POS—even when there is a discount already applied to the whole transaction.
Next you'll give the discount a Name, and choose between creating a Percentage discount (e.g. 10% off) or your can create a Dollar discount (e.g. $10 off):
Note: You can also enter in a negative number in the Amount section if you'd like to create a surcharge instead of a discount. For example, if you put -2 into the Amount section, this will mean you can apply either a $2 Surcharge, or a 2% Surcharge to the sale.
At this point you can Save, but if you wanted to go a step further you can click on Advanced Options:
You will see a selection of additional options which can be applied to the discount.
These powerful options allow you to restrict the discount to apply only to certain days of the week, or for a limited period of time (Limited Date Range).
In addition, the discount might apply to special Client Categories, and you can set the discount so that it is applied automatically at POS when the criteria you have set is applicable.
For example, if you wanted a discount to be applied everyday, you would select Week and Weekend under Available On, and you'd ensure Apply Automatically is ticked.
Once you have created your discount, click Save.
Apply Discount Type to Specific Products, Services or Packages
You can also make Discount Types apply to specific products, packages and/or services, by simply clicking the Items link next to the discount type.
Note: The Discount Type needs to have been created as an Item discount, rather than a Whole Transaction discount:
Then click the New option to start adding the products, services and/or packages to the discount type from the right side panel:
Note: If you decide to assign specific discount items to this discount type, then you won't be able to choose this discount type in POS. You will need to create a second discount type which doesn't have items attached so that it can be applied to any item in POS.
How to Add Discounts Types in POS
If you don't tick the Apply Automatically box when creating your Discount Types, you can apply the discount at POS.
To apply a discount to an individual item, simply click the row the item/service is on to bring up the Edit Service Item window:
Then you can use the Discount Type dropdown menu to select your chosen discount as shown above, and then Save. You'll now see that the discount has been applied to the item.
If you want to apply a discount to the whole transaction, you can click the Discount link at the bottom of POS:
Any Discount Type that was created for the Whole Transaction can be found here. Simply select your discount from the Add Discount To Sale dropdown menu, and then click Apply:
Great! The discount has now been applied to the whole transaction. You can also apply a discount to individual Services, Products, Packages etc, even when there is a discount already applied to the whole transaction:
Keeping Track of Applied Discounts Types
So now you have created your discount, how do you track how many times the discount has been used? Or if you are running a special discount promotion, how popular it is?
Simply go to your Reporting Section and click on the Report Lists Tab, and open the Advanced Discount Report.
Here you will be able to select a date range and see how popular a particular discount promotion has been and which operators are using it.
Click Show Details next to any Discount Type to view more information such as Clients or Items:
This is a fantastic way to keep track of an advertised discount, possible as part of an email or SMS campaign as you will be able to see the take-up rate and how popular it's been with bringing in new or reoccurring business.
Use your Advanced Discounting feature and start promoting your special discount offers today!
If you have any questions, please send them to us via the Submit a Request option in your Help & Support page.