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Pricefield

How to charge different prices to different customers in Xero

Updated · By the Pricefield team

Short answer

Xero keeps one sale price per item, so it can't automatically charge one customer one price and another customer a different one. People work around it by duplicating items per customer, checking the customer's last invoice, or keeping a spreadsheet. A customer price list add-on such as Pricefield stores customer-specific pricing and fills it in when you raise the invoice, while the invoice itself is still created in Xero.

Can Xero remember a different price for each customer?

No. In Xero, an item has one sale price. When you add that item to an invoice, Xero fills in that price whoever the customer is. If a customer pays less (or more) than your standard price, you change the unit price on the invoice by hand, every time.

That is fine for a business with one price for everyone. It breaks down when you sell to a mix of customers: trade accounts on a discount, a few large customers on negotiated prices, and walk-in customers at list price. Every invoice then depends on someone remembering the right number.

What Xero offers today

  • One sale price per item in Products & services.
  • No customer price lists. The Xero Product Ideas thread “Create custom (tiered) price lists for contacts” was opened in 2012, has 135 votes, and is marked “Not in pipeline”. Xero's response on 13 March 2023 pointed users to inventory apps in the Xero App Store.

Workarounds people use

One Xero community member summed up the most common one:

“I'm constantly checking their previous invoice to see how much to charge them”
  • Checking the customer's last invoice before typing a price. It works, slowly, and it copies forward any mistake on that last invoice.
  • Duplicating items with a customer prefix in the code, for example IPS-Widget for one customer's price on a widget. Each duplicate has its own sale price, so the right price fills in. The cost is an item list that grows with every customer, and every price change has to be made in several places.
  • A spreadsheet or Excel macro that holds the customer price list next to Xero. It keeps the prices in one place, but someone still has to look them up and type them in.
  • A full inventory suite, typically $69 to $359 a month. These include customer pricing among many other features, which is more than many service and trade businesses need.

How Pricefield sets a price for each customer

Pricefield is a Xero add-on built for exactly this. It keeps your prices outside Xero's item list, so your items stay as they are, and resolves each customer's price when you create an invoice. For every line it uses the first of these that exists:

  1. Customer price: a per-customer override for that item.
  2. Tier price: a fixed price for that item on the customer's tier.
  3. Tier discount: the tier's % off your Xero list price.
  4. Xero list price: the item's sale price in Xero.

The invoice screen shows which of these each price came from, and you can still edit a price on a line. When you save, the invoice is written to Xero as a draft or approved, depending on what you pick. Xero stays the system of record, and Pricefield never changes your item prices in Xero.

Setting it up

  1. Connect Xero. Connect your Xero organisation to Pricefield. Your contacts and items sync across, including each item's Xero sale price.
  2. Create price tiers. Create tiers such as Retail, Trade and Wholesale. Give each tier a % off your Xero list price, a fixed price per item, or both.
  3. Assign customers to tiers. Put each customer on a tier, one at a time or in bulk. Customers without a tier use your default tier.
  4. Add per-customer overrides. Where one customer has a special deal on one item, set a customer price for that item. It beats the tier price.
  5. Create the invoice. Pick the customer in Pricefield and add items. Each line fills in at that customer's price, labelled with where the price came from. The invoice is written to Xero.

If your customers fall into groups, start with tiers; see tiered pricing in Xero: wholesale, trade and retail. Use per-customer overrides for the exceptions.

Finding past invoices with the wrong price

Once your price book is set up, the price audit checks your existing Xero invoices against it. It scans the last 30, 90 or 180 days, lists every line charged differently from that customer's price, and totals what was undercharged and overcharged. Each row links straight to the invoice in Xero, so you can decide what to do about it.

Pricefield costs $29 a month after a 14-day free trial, with no card needed to start. It can also add custom fields to your invoices.

Questions

Can Xero have a price list per customer?
No. Xero stores one sale price per item in Products & services. The Xero Product Ideas request for custom (tiered) price lists for contacts was opened in 2012, has 135 votes and is marked "Not in pipeline".
What did Xero suggest instead?
In its response on 13 March 2023, Xero pointed users to inventory apps in the Xero App Store.
Does Pricefield change my item prices in Xero?
No. Pricefield never edits your items or their sale prices in Xero. It applies each customer's price when you create an invoice, and writes that invoice to Xero through Xero's API.
Can I check whether past invoices used the right price?
Yes. Pricefield's price audit compares every line on your Xero invoices from the last 30, 90 or 180 days with each customer's price, and totals what was undercharged and overcharged.