Implementing promotions, discounts, and bonus programs is not just a trend, but a necessity for stimulating sales and retaining customers.
However, business owners often face situations where sales are active, the product range is decreasing, but the expected profit is not in the cash register. At such moments, the following questions may arise: «Did this promotion really bring us profit, or did we sell the product at a loss?», «Which products are most often paid for with bonuses?», «Which salespeople most often give manual discounts at the checkout at their own discretion?» and «Why have abnormally large amounts of bonuses accumulated on the accounts of certain customers?».
To provide accurate answers to these questions, check the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and prevent financial losses, Torgsoft includes two powerful tools: «Discount Usage Analysis» and «Bonus Movement Analysis».
Discount Usage Analysis: controlling promotion profitability and salesperson discipline
The «Discount Usage Analysis» mode, located in the menu item Analysis - Discount Usage Analysis, is designed for a detailed audit of all operations where the selling price differed from the initial retail list price. This tool allows you not only to evaluate promotion results, but also to control staff actions.
How to check the effectiveness of promotions and whether they brought profit?
To understand how justified a discount was, the analysis includes clear color indication: sales that brought product profit are displayed in black, while those that did not bring profit or generated a loss are displayed in brown. In addition, the report contains the «Discount Loss Amount» column, which shows the difference between the retail price and the actual selling price. By analyzing these indicators together with the «Cost Price» and «Product Profit» columns, the owner can clearly answer the question of whether the promotion was economically reasonable. You can filter the data by a specific promotion, product discount, fixed customer discount, or birthday discount to see the results of each separate marketing activity.
How to detect abuse or excessive manual discounts by salespeople?
One of the most common questions from business owners is how to check whether salespeople are giving discounts to «their own» people. For this purpose, the analysis has two key columns: «Discount %», the actual percentage at which the product was sold, and «Automatic discount %», the percentage calculated by the program automatically according to the active rules and discount cards. If the values in these columns do not match, this means that the salesperson applied a manual discount or adjusted the receipt amount manually. The program allows you to filter such suspicious receipts using filters: «Discount % was changed», «Amount adjustment (rounding)», «Overstated discount %», and others. This makes it possible to quickly identify which employees make the most discounted sales on their own initiative.
Bonus Movement Analysis: tracking products and finding anomalies
If the loyalty program is based on a bonus system, it is important for the business owner to understand the life cycle of bonuses: what they are accrued for, what they are spent on, and why discrepancies occur. For this purpose, «Bonus Movement Analysis» is used, located in Analysis - Bonus Movement Analysis.
Which products are most often paid for with bonuses?
The report allows you to see the full picture of bonus usage by date and by specific product. The table displays detailed information: product name, article number, barcode, document number (sale), accounting center, and which employee performed the operation. This gives the business owner a clear understanding of which assortment items customers prefer to take «for free», that is, using accumulated points. This may become a reason to adjust the bonus system rules, for example, by setting restrictions on paying with bonuses for certain product groups. For convenience, the report uses special icons that visually separate accrual during sale, write-off, conversion of bonuses into cash, or return.
Where do abnormal bonuses come from and how can they be checked?
Sometimes business owners encounter unclear bonus amounts on customer accounts: the balance suddenly increases or, on the contrary, goes negative. Bonus Movement Analysis helps quickly investigate such anomalies:
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Manual adjustments. If bonuses were accrued or written off manually, rather than automatically during a sale, there will be no corresponding document icon next to such an operation in the analysis, which immediately draws attention during verification.
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Fraud with the «Refer a Friend» promotion. If customers or staff try to «inflate» bonuses by buying a product through a recommendation, receiving a reward, and then returning the product, the program records this. On the separate «Refer a Friend» tab, each fact of canceled bonus accrual is displayed as a separate row with the return document specified, which eliminates the possibility of fraud.
A comprehensive approach to marketing analytics
To get the most complete picture, business owners should combine these analyses with the «Customer Activity Analysis» form. Thanks to the ability to display the «Customer discount %» column and sort the customer base by it, the business owner can compare how a high discount percentage correlates with the frequency and amount of real purchases.
Regular use of in-depth analytics for discount usage and bonus movement makes it possible to turn loyalty programs from an uncontrolled expense item into a predictable and manageable tool for stimulating profit.
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