Challenges Historically the cost of purchasing or developing and maintaining systems to help manage various aspects of Trade Promotions has been high and becuase of this an acceptable ROI was only achievable by large corporations.

So smaller companies, even many with annual revenues up to a $1 billion, have used collections of spreadsheets for maintaining details on promotions, rebate arrangements, special pricing information and other TPM activities. A number of companies have utilized point solutions to address just one specific issue, such as Deductions. The difficulties when using spreadsheets as the master record for trade spend arrangements amounting to tens of millions of dollars are many. Often chief amongst these is the inability to audit activities, a simple example being the checking on the shipments that were included in a rebate payment, or the promotions that were active for a particular product and customer at some earlier time. Close behind is the question of what is the real truth, as with any collection of spreadsheets having them synchronized is often not possible. Especially when the collection is updated by different people, with each of these people maintaining data regarding their own area of responsibility, all the while attempting to keep their own individual lists of customers, customer groupings, products and product grouping all in sync with the main business system.

The Trade Promotion Management Association’s (TPMA) last survey showed 31% of trade promotional spend still involves some adjustment of the invoice price, so it is little wonder that a quarter of the respondents reported just 4 out of 5 of their invoices were accurate, with the average for all surveyed being only 92% accuracy.

Features

• TPM for Dynamics allows companies to step up from ad-hoc spreadsheets into a system that unifies all aspects of the Trade Promotion process, integrated and embedded as a module within Microsoft Dynamics® AX itself.
• The Flintfox TPM solution for Dynamics has an extremely quick ROI for companies utilizing Trade Promotions and using, or planning to use, Microsoft Dynamics AX.
• The Dynamics menu has a TPM option for all trade specific functions. Dynamics Customer, Item, Sales Order and other screens are extended to include quick access to related TPM functions.
• Dynamics customer and item master grouping characteristics can be used to include customers or products on Price Lists, Promotions, Fees and Rebates.
• Unlimited Date sensitive customer and product attribute memberships enable automated inclusion and exclusion maintenance.
• Rule-based pricing model configuration supports volume-based and percentage discounting. Minimum order quantity bracket (breaks), bundling (free goods), and many other customer-specific adjustments are catered for.
• Price lists as well as Promotions are referenced by the pricing engine during sales order and invoice processing, ensuring all qualifying agreements are taken into consideration.
• Fee and Rebate arrangements are established, then calculations are simply run as a periodic batch job. Once approved, payment by voucher or credit note is also automated.
• Accruing for expected promotional billbacks and lumpsums, and for fees and rebates incurred also involves an automated (normally overnight) batch job, with workflow approval before posting.
• System assisted matching of Claims and Deductions to promotional events, or categorization in case of spoils, unsaleables and other such selling expenses.

Benefits

• Training costs are minimized and time to benefit is substantially reduced with the integrated Trade+ for Dynamics solution
• Virtually any complex pricing requirements are catered for, and the pricing model never forgets to take into account a relevant price list or promotional event.
• TPM for Dynamics accrual and payment processes create the necessary journals, credit notes, debit notes and voucher transactions directly into Dynamics AX.
• All financial information is available, never missed, is accurate and traceable back to the originating transactions.
• Error rates and administrative costs are greatly reduced.
• Enables the whole organization to access a complete set of up-to-date data, rather than pieces from various disparate sources.
• Maintains security and approval controls, and provides for ease of auditing

For further benefits please refer to:

Trade Promotion Planning
Trade Promotion Execution
TPM Advanced Pricing
Trade Promotion Settlement
Trade Promotion Analysis

Next Steps

To find out how Flintfox TPM for Dynamics can meet your specific needs, contact us. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your situation.