Price Planning

Putting your prices up is a chore. You have to remember to do it, do it on the right day, and do it to every schedule that uses the service — and if you do it early, you have overcharged somebody.

Price Planning takes the remembering away. You set it up once, today, with the date you want it to happen. Then you leave it alone.

The one thing to understand first

A planned price change does nothing until its effective date arrives.

This is deliberate, and it is the single most common source of confusion, so it is worth being blunt about it:

You plan a rise from $45 to $50 effective 15 October.
Between today and 14 October, nothing changes. Your schedules still say $45. Your upcoming visits still say $45 — including the ones dated after 15 October.
On 15 October, the app applies the change by itself. The schedule becomes $50, and your uncompleted visits are repointed at $50.

So if you have just planned a change and you are looking at next month’s visits wondering why they still show the old price — that is correct. They will change on the day, not before.

You can see that it is waiting: a Pending badge appears on the row, reading something like → 50 on 15 Oct.

Planning a change

Price Planning is the Price tab on the Planning page. It is Admin only.

Choose the item. Everything on this tab hangs off one price-list item, because a price rise is normally “put the Weekly Home Visit up”.
Review the rows. Two groups appear: the schedules that use the item, and the customer default rates for it. Each row shows its current price.
Tick what you want to change. There is a select-all for each group when you are doing the lot.
Set the new price. Same price for all puts one number across every ticked row. Price per row lets you set each one individually — useful when different customers are on different deals.
Set the effective date. Today is allowed, and so is any date in the future. There is no upper limit — you can plan next quarter’s rise, or next year’s, and leave it.
Update, then confirm.

The confirmation tells you how many schedules and how many default rates you are about to change, and warns you when you are replacing a change that was already pending.

If you set the date to today

The change applies immediately, as part of pressing the button. You will see a count of the upcoming visits it updated.

What actually changes on the day

Two things get the new price:

The schedule’s rate, so every visit generated from then on uses it.
The customer’s default rate, if you ticked that row, which covers work priced from the customer default rather than from a schedule.

Then the app repoints your existing upcoming visits at the new price. A visit is repointed only if all of these are true:

it has not been completed,
it has not been charged or invoiced yet,
and its price has not been overridden by hand.

Anything you have already completed, charged or invoiced is left exactly as it is. A price change never reaches back into your accounts.

Uncompleted visits get the new price whatever their date

This one surprises people, so it is worth saying plainly.

When the change applies, it repoints every uncompleted, unbilled visit on that schedule — not only the ones dated after the effective date. An old visit from July that nobody has completed yet will pick up October’s price.

That is intentional. The price is decided by when the visit is completed, not by when it was scheduled. A visit you complete in October bills at October’s price, because that is when you did the work.

If you have stale uncompleted visits on the books, tidy them up before a price change applies, or expect them to be repriced.

There is no undo

A price change cannot be backed out. Once it has applied, the old price is gone from the schedule.

If you get it wrong, plan another change. The most recent change always wins, and the history keeps the full trail. To put a mistake right on the same day, plan a corrective change effective today.

Every row has a History link showing what was changed, to what, and when it takes or took effect.

Tell your customers about a price change

After you plan a change, you can email every customer it affects. Each customer gets one email that lists all of their changes on that date.

Click History at the top of the Price tab.
Under Effective date, choose the date of the change.
Click Email customers next to the History title.
The Send Email to Contacts panel opens. The contacts of every property with a change on that date are already ticked, and your Price change letter is filled in.
Check the email, untick anyone you want to leave out, then click Send Emails and Confirm.

You can also choose Send later, attach files and tick Send me a copy, exactly as for any other email. See Sending Emails to Your Contacts.

Good to know:

The table in the email shows each item with its current rate and its new rate, in your company’s currency.
A change that was Skipped is never included.
A property with no change on that date gets no email, even if you tick its contact. The status email tells you who was skipped.
To change the wording, edit the Price change letter template in Manage Lists → Email Templates. See Email Templates.

Frequently asked

I planned a change. Why is nothing different? Because its date has not arrived. Look for the Pending badge on the row. The app applies it on the effective date, automatically — you do not need to come back and do anything.

My visits after the effective date still show the old price. Is it broken? No. Those visits already exist, and they keep the old price until the change applies on its date. They are updated for you then.

When during the day does it happen? A scheduled job runs once a day at 09:00 UTC — early morning across North America — so the new price is in place before the working day starts.

How far ahead can I plan? As far as you like. The only rule is that the date cannot be in the past. A change dated a year out simply sits as Pending until that day arrives.

What if the date is further out than my visits are created? That is fine. On the effective date the schedule’s own price changes, so every visit created from then on uses the new price automatically — there is nothing left for you to do.

Does it change an invoice I have already sent? Never. Invoiced charges are untouchable.

Does it change a visit I have already completed? No. Completed work keeps the price it was done at.

Can I put one customer up and leave the others alone? Yes. Tick only that customer’s rows, or use Price per row to give each row its own number.

Can I cancel a pending change before its date? Plan a replacement over the top of it — a change back to the current price, effective the same day. The confirmation will tell you it is replacing the pending one.

Do customers with two schedules get two emails? No. Each contact gets one email that lists every change for their property on that date.

Who is allowed to do this? Admins only. Everyone else with rate visibility can see the other Planning tabs but not this one.