Update Invoices when Product Prices Change (Lock Price)

Paul Nieuwelaar, 20 November 2012

In Dynamics CRM 2011, when you create an Invoice using Existing Products as the line items, these line items use the price from the related Product. If the price on the product changes, the Invoices that include the product will automatically be updated to include the new price. Note that this behaviour only occurs if the pricing on the Invoice has not been ‘locked’ – which means the prices are fixed (or confirmed), and so any changes to the product catalog will not modify this invoice.

This functionality of updating invoice products also applies to both Quotes and Orders, in that the line items using existing products will be automatically updated if the price list items change. Like invoice, these also have methods of ‘locking’ the pricing, which differs slightly for each.

QUOTE

While a Quote is in a draft state (as in, has not been ‘activated’), changes to a products price will automatically update the line items. Once the Quote has become ‘active’, changes to the product prices will no longer effect the quote line items.

If the Quote is ‘revised’, the status changes from Active back to Draft, and the quote line items will be updated to the latest product prices. Any product price changes will affect the line items again while the quote is draft.

ORDER

An Order that is created from a Quote will automatically be ‘locked’, however one that is created manually from scratch will start out unlocked. As with the quote, any product price changes while the order is not locked will automatically update the line items.

To lock the pricing on an Order, click the ‘Lock Pricing’ button on the ribbon. Once the pricing has been locked, it can be unlocked again by clicking the ‘Use Current Pricing’ button. Similar to the Quote, when you use current pricing on an Order, the prices for all related line items will be updated to the current product pricing.

In the Totals section of the Order, you will see a check box called ‘Prices Locked’, which indicates whether the Order pricing is currently locked or not.

INVOICE

When an Invoice is created from an Order, the ‘Prices Locked’ setting will NOT be mapped across. If the Order pricing was locking, the new Invoice pricing will not be locked by default.

The pricing can be toggled using the ribbon (just like the Order), there is a button to ‘Lock Pricing’ when the invoice is not locked, and a ‘Use Current Pricing’ button when the invoice pricing is locked. Like the Order, this will update all line items to the new prices.

Once an Invoice has been completed or paid, the prices will no longer be affected by product price changes.

While this feature can be quite useful if your product prices are constantly changing, it can be potentially dangerous as it can mess up your data if you forget to lock pricing on your existing quotes/orders/invoices. If you are ever modifying product prices, just be aware of this, and how it may affect your existing records.