Pricing Products – Part 3 – Products

Colin Maitland, 13 August 2012

In my previous blog I commenced a series on pricing products using the features of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Product Catalog. The Product Catalog has the following components:

• Discount Lists
• Unit Groups
• Price Lists
• Products

In this blog I will be writing about setting up Products. Products are accessed by selecting Settings, Product Catalog and then Products.

 

When setting up Products certain other related components must configured first. A Product must be associated with a related Unit Group and Default Unit. In addition, if Pricing and Cost information is to be recorded against the Product, a related Currency must be selected. The Pricing and Cost information will used when the Product is later added to a Price List. 

The following screenshot shows the setup of a Product called Widget with a Unit Group, Default Unit and Currency selected.

 

Products may also be associated with Subjects, Substitute Products, Sales Literature and Competitors.

 

Subjects in Microsoft Dynamics CRM may be used to classify Products, Sales Literature, Knowledge Base Articles and Cases. The use of Subjects for the classification of these record types is a useful feature that can be used for searching, grouping, sorting, charting and reporting on these types of records. When working on a Customer Service/Support Case regarding a particular Product, a search for related Knowledge Base Articles can be completed using the Knowledge Base Articles related Browse by Subject functionality. In addition, the Case Summary Table report can be filtered and grouped by Subject and the Top Knowledge Base Articles report is by default grouped by Subject.

Associated Substitute Products can be viewed and managed from the Substitutes link on the Product navigation pane. Apart from being able to associate and view Substitute Products for a Product, there is no automated functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to invoke or prompt for the search and selection of a Substitute Product when the current Product to be added to a Quote, Order or Invoice is either deactivated for has an insufficient Quantity On Hand. When required, however, these can be searched for and selected manually from the Product Catalog using the standard Product lookup functionality.

Associated Sales Literature can be viewed and managed from the Sales Literature link on the Product navigation pane.  Sales Literature can be any type of attached literature relating to the Product; including Sales, Support, Supplier and Competitor literature.

Associated Competitors can be viewed and managed from the Competitors link on the Product navigation pane. The type of information that may be recorded on a Competitor includes Revenue and Analysis information and related Products, Opportunities, Sales Literature and Notes. Analysis information includes the ability to record Overview information and information on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats related to the Competitor.

The association of Substitute Product, Sales Literature and Competitor information provides sales, service and support persons and teams with a range of information relating to a particular product they are selling, servicing and/or supporting.

With regard to the pricing of Products, the use of the following fields is important:

• Default Price List
• Decimals Supported
• List Price
• Standard Cost
• Current Cost

 

The use of the List Price, Standard Cost, and Current Cost fields is not required at the Product level, but depending on how any related Price List items are setup when the Product is added to a Price List, one or more of these may need to be used.

In my next blog I will be writing about the setting up of Price Lists and Price List Items and how Price List Items relate to use the List Price, Standard Cost and Current Cost fields on the Product.