Price leakage
Thousands of line items. One person's memory.
A fastener catalogue runs into thousands of size, grade and coating combinations, so nobody can hold the right rate in their head. Slab-based price books per family, with approval gates below the book, replace memory with a rate anyone can quote confidently.
In short
A fastener catalogue runs into thousands of size, grade and coating combinations, so nobody can hold the right rate in their head. Slab-based price books per family, with approval gates below the book, replace memory with a rate anyone can quote confidently.
The cost
What the gap takes every month.
2 to 4%
Average realisation lost on mixed-item orders
One or two wrongly priced lines in a fifteen-line order rarely get noticed.
Every order
Where slab pricing is most often missed
Quantity slabs are applied inconsistently when quoting under time pressure.
One ordinary week
How it actually happens.
A buyer asks for fifteen items across three grades. Your executive prices ten from the sheet and five from memory, applying a slab that no longer exists.
The order is won and produced. The five improvised lines carry almost no margin, and because the order as a whole looks healthy, nobody investigates.
When each family carries its own slab table, the fifteen lines price themselves, and the executive spends their attention on delivery and terms instead.
The fix
Three steps, in this order.
01
Publish one approved price book
Rates by product, customer class, region, quantity slab and delivery basis, in one place everyone quotes from.
02
Make below-book rates an approval, not a habit
A quotation under the book cannot be issued until a named approver says yes, with the reason recorded.
03
Review deviations monthly
The pattern of approvals shows which products are mispriced and which customers always push.
Straight answers
What owners ask us here.
Can the book handle coating and grade variations?
Yes, the rate is defined against the specification fields that actually change cost: grade, size, coating and finish.
What about customers with a negotiated annual rate?
Rate agreements sit above the book for that customer and expire on their end date, so an old agreement cannot be quoted forever.
Who should approve a below-book rate?
Set bands: the sales head for a defined slab, the owner below that. What matters is that it is recorded, not who signs it.
Questions people ask
Straight answers, no sales talk.
System of Marketing & Sales
Put enquiry to dispatch on one governed line.
Tell us how your plant sells today. We'll show you where the line breaks and what it takes to close it.