Customer-specific pricing: price groups and per-customer pricing across LS Central and Business Central

Pricing · 9 min read

“Why did this customer pay that?” is a hard question when prices live in five different places. Business Central and LS Central between them offer an item price, a per-customer price, a customer price group, a price list, and a store-level retail price group — plus a resolution rule that decides which one wins. This guide maps the layers, gives the setup procedures, and names the rule, so a surprising price can be traced instead of guessed at.

The five layers, compared

Two facts keep this table honest. First, LS Central's pricing mechanism is built on the Business Central price structure: an item can hold multiple prices valid on different dates or times, and different stores and customers can have different prices side by side. Second, the Business Central price lists govern Business Central documents — LS Retail states plainly that its own offers, discounts, and promotions are still handled as before, in LS Central, not in the price lists.

Choose the narrowest layer that fits

• Many customers, same deal → price group. Microsoft's guidance starts with a decision: decide how many groups you want and which customers belong to each. A group price is registered once and picked up by every customer carrying the code.
• One customer, negotiated deal → per-customer price. A line on that customer's prices, for the specific combination of item, unit of measure, minimum quantity, and validity dates. Reserve it for agreements that are truly single-account; a per-customer line for every member of a tier is a price group you refused to build, and it will drift.
• Store difference, not customer difference → retail price group. In LS Central, registering an additional price for different stores requires a retail price group assigned to those stores. Do not fake a store price with a customer group.
• Seasonal resets across many items → price list. In the new pricing experience there is a sales price list per assignment: LS Retail notes the lists let users add products and update pricing from season to season from a central place, instead of item-by-item data entry.

Set up a customer price group: the procedure

1. Decide the groups first. How many groups, and which customers belong to each — before opening the system, per Microsoft's setup guidance.
2. Create the group. Search for Customer Price Groups. Select the group line, or choose New and give the new group a name.
3. Verify the group settings. Check the fields Allow Line Disc., Allow Invoice Disc., Price Includes Tax, and Tax Bus. Posting Gr. (Price) for the selected line — these decide how discounts and tax behave for every price in the group.
4. Register the agreed prices. Choose Navigate → Sales Prices. The Sales Prices page opens with Sales Type set to Customer Price Group. Fill in the Sales Code, then one line per item: Item No., Unit of Measure Code, and the agreed Unit Price. Show the Variant Code column if the price differs by variant.
5. Add the conditions. Fill in Minimum Quantity if the group must buy a minimum to gain the agreed price; Starting Date and Ending Date for the agreement period; Currency Code if the agreement is in a specific currency.
6. Assign customers. Open each Customer Card and, on the Invoicing FastTab, select the code in the Customer Price Group field. A group with prices but no assigned customers prices nothing.

What success looks like: a sales document for an assigned customer prices the item at the group price inside the agreement dates and above the minimum quantity — and at the normal price outside them. Test both sides of the boundary, not just the happy path.

A per-customer price is shorter: open Customers, choose the customer, choose the Prices action, and fill a line for each combination that grants that customer a special price.

How the winner is picked

In Business Central documents, the system calculates a best price. Microsoft defines it as the lowest price with the highest line discount allowed on a given date, calculated when unit prices and line discount percentages are added to document and journal lines. The check runs through: whether the bill-to customer has an agreement or belongs to a group that does; whether the item (or its item discount group) is included; whether the date falls inside the agreement — the Posting Date for invoices, the Order Date for other documents; unit of measure matching; whether a minimum quantity requirement is fulfilled; and currency, where a fulfilled currency requirement wins even if local currency would have given a better price.

At the LS Central POS, resolution follows the Price Overview order: the most specific retail price for the store is found first; a periodic offer that applies is calculated next; only if no periodic offer applies is a customer's special price compared against the retail price, with the customer getting the better of the two; and a Deal overwrites the other offers. The practical consequence surprises people: a customer price does not automatically beat a running promotion at the till — the promotion is evaluated first. Promotions themselves are the markdown layer, not customer pricing; keep the two apart when you troubleshoot.

LS Central notes: retail price groups and the demo pattern

LS Central's own help shows how the layers meet. With the new sales price experience enabled in the LS Central Demo Data Company and Use Default Price Lists disabled, there is one sales price list per customer price group. Updating the Unit Price on the Retail Item card updates the sales price list whose Assign-to Type is Customer Price Group and whose Assign-to matches the Default Price Group on the Retail Setup card — the value “All” in the demo data. An item's price picture is visible from the Item Price Overview in the FactBox, and Sales Prices open from the Prices & Discounts action bar. Treat that as the pattern to recognise in a live system: the item card price, the default group list, and any store retail price groups are three different records, and editing one does not edit the others.

Maintenance traps

• Editing an active price list silently does nothing. With the Allow Editing Active Price toggle off, a price list must be changed to Draft, edited, and reactivated. With it on, an edited line stays in Draft status — and is not considered in price calculation — until the Verify Lines action verifies it against the other lines and it becomes Active.
• Worksheet suggestions are not changes. The Suggest Sales Price and Suggest Item Price batch jobs only create suggestions on the worksheet; nothing changes until Implement Price Changes runs. The Prices Worksheet's Add New Lines flow ends the same way: Implement Price Change compares the new prices against other lists.
• Duplicates create ambiguity. Prices Overview exists to see all prices across lists in one place, and Verify Lines exists to catch duplicates and ambiguity before calculation does. Use both after any bulk change; LS Retail makes the same point — visibility across items, groups, and discount groups in a single table is the feature, not a luxury.
• An item that must never be discounted is protected by absence: leave its discount fields empty and keep it out of every line discount setup. If it appears in a discount setup, the best-price rule will find it.

FAQ

Can a customer belong to two price groups? The setup assigns one Customer Price Group code on the customer card's Invoicing FastTab, so the price group itself is a single assignment. Design the groups as the tiers you actually sell on, rather than expecting to stack two group prices on one account.

Group price or per-customer price for a three-customer deal? If the same terms apply to all three and might apply to a fourth, build the group. Per-customer lines are for agreements that end with that account.

Why did an invoice price differ from the order? Check the date the calculation used: invoices are priced by Posting Date, other documents by Order Date. An agreement that started or ended between the two dates prices them differently — correctly, by the documented rule.

Does a price group change POS prices too? The group feeds the sales price structure LS Central builds on, but POS resolution follows the Price Overview order, where a periodic offer is evaluated before the customer special price is compared. Verify at the till, not just on a sales order.

General information only, based on Microsoft Learn and LS Retail documentation as accessed in October 2026. Pricing behaviour differs between the current and new pricing experiences and by LS Central version — confirm which experience your system runs before following a procedure.