Design > Discount limitations

PowerDiary offer a means to discount clients, by a percentage or a dollar figure - great! Unfortunately PowerDiary's knowledgebase is very scant on detail when it comes to discounts and there's a few design flaws that need to be carefully considered and actively managed.

The way we get around these limitation is that we recommend that you never use the $ discounts and don't offer clients neat rounded to $5 increment type rates so that the % discounts can be better relied on. We still need to be careful every time books and similar are added but the egregious errors to things like short consults and cancellation rates are avoided. Eg: A conversation with a client might be "if I could discount your sessions by 7% would that make a difference?", $15 type variations on this conversation should be avoided because PowerDiary only allow 2 decimal places on percentage discounts and you may end up discovering that a 6.97% discount takes your $215 rate down to $200.01 or 6.98% comes out at $198.99.

Design flaw 1: Client profile discounts will discount everything

Realistically the conversation with a price sensitive client will be a bit like, "if I could discount your sessions by $X would that make a difference?", But PowerDiary never implemented the word "sessions" in that if you add a discount on the client profile then everything you ever invoice that client for in the future will include a discount - books, initial assessment fees, cancellation fees could go negative - everything! 

Solution: There is none - the work around is to stay switched on and edit invoices so the defaults don't break non-session charges. 

Change request: PowerDiary - Please add a "Discount level" which is applied to the client and a form to manage discount levels where every service item and product can have either a $ or % discount applied separately. Therefore we could say that a "$20" discount is $20 off all sessions but $0 off books or initial assessments etc. 

Design Flaw 2: $ Discounts discount the line not the rate

$ discounts are particularly bad. If I add a $20 discount to a clinician charging $150ph and invoice a standard 50min session I will get an accurate $130. If I invoice a short consult 30 min I should get $78 (($150-20) x 30/50) but instead I get $70 ($150 x 30 / 50 -20)

Solution: Don't use $ discounts

Change request: This is a bug IMHO - it just needs to be fixed.

Design Flaw 3: Percentage discounts have only 2 decimal places

By avoiding the $ discounts we can fix the rate problem so short consults work as expected, (books etc are still a problem but hey its a start). But if you say to a client I can drop your rate to exactly $210 instead of $220 then I should be able to set a % discount of 4.545% right... wrong! I can only choose 4.55% or 4.54% meaning your client's rate would become either $210.01 or $209.99 respectively. 

Solution: Avoid neatly rounded rate promises.

Change Request: PowerDiary - Please allow at least 3 decimal places if not 4 to be safe. Xero does - why not PowerDairy?

Last Updated 31 Aug 2021