New promotion
Create a seasonal sale
Set the policy dates and Statistical Period, import the Item Codes with their sale prices and save the policy.
Manage Sale Seasons
Sale Seasons define time-based merchandise sale policies in IMS. A policy has a name, Statistical Period, Start Date and End Date, plus an item list containing each Item Code's original price and sale price. When a sale is active, IMS applies the configured sale price and sale state to those items.
Open the screenManage → Sale Seasons
Sale Seasons screen
Browse Sale Seasons
The Sale list on the left can be filtered before loading the policy details.
| Control | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Active | Shows policies whose End Date has not passed. This includes a sale currently running and a future sale that is already scheduled. |
| All | Shows all Sale Seasons, including expired policies. |
| Filter | Searches the Sale Season list by policy Name/Description. |
| Offers count | Shows the number of policies matching the current All/Active and text filters. |
Sale Season details
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Policy ID | Unique Sale Season identifier. New policies receive the next available ID. |
| Name | Required Sale Season description, for example Summer Sale-Final. |
| St. Period | Statistical Period ID and Season label from Manage → Statistical Periods. |
| Start Date | Date on which the sale becomes applicable. |
| End Date | Last date of the sale policy. |
| Return items to original price after sale end | When selected, the policy is registered for the automatic return-to-original-price behavior after the sale ends. |
Statistical Period lookupEnter a valid St. Period ID and IMS displays its Season label beside it. The Sale Season cannot be saved without a valid Statistical Period.
Items Details
The right-hand grid shows the exact merchandise included in the Sale Season.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| SupplierName | Supplier assigned to the Item master. |
| BrandName | Brand assigned to the Item. |
| Item Code | IMS Item Code included in the policy. |
| S.Period | The item's own Statistical Period. |
| Description | Item description. |
| Style | Item Style/Article. |
| Color | Item Color Code. |
| Size | Item Size. |
| Before | Original/full item price. |
| After | Sale price assigned by this Sale Season. |
| Discount | Calculated discount percentage: 1 − After ÷ Before. |
Load and search sale items
In View mode, IMS does not need to keep every policy's item list permanently loaded. Select a Sale Season and click Load Items to retrieve its detailed merchandise list. The status below the grid shows the number of records loaded.
After the items are loaded, Search opens the Sale Season item-search window for the selected policy, allowing the user to locate sale merchandise by Item Code or Style.
Create a new Sale Season
- Click New. IMS assigns the next Policy ID.
- Enter the Sale Season Name.
- Enter a valid St. Period.
- Select the Start Date and End Date.
- Choose whether items should Return to original price after sale end.
- Click Import Items and select the sale-item text file.
- Review the imported Items Details, including Before, After and Discount.
- Click Save.
IMS requires a Name, a valid Statistical Period, at least one sale Item, and an End Date that is not before the Start Date. A newly created policy cannot be created with an End Date already before the current server date.
Import Items file
The Sale Season item list is loaded from a tab-separated text file. IMS skips the first row as the header and expects each following row to provide:
| Column | Value |
|---|---|
| 1 | Item Code |
| 2 | Sale Price |
Before accepting the import, IMS validates each row against the Item master:
- The Item Code must exist.
- The item's original price must be greater than zero.
- The Sale Price must be a valid number.
- The Sale Price cannot be negative.
- The Sale Price must be lower than the Original Price.
If validation fails, IMS creates a -ErrorLog.txt file beside the import file with the source row number and validation message.
Editing an existing policyChoosing Import Items while editing asks for confirmation because the imported file rebuilds the existing Sale Season item list.
How the sale price is applied
Each policy keeps the Item Code and its sale price separately from the Item master. When the policy is active, IMS updates the affected items so their current selling price becomes the policy's After price and their Item State becomes Sale.
If a new Sale Season starts today or has already reached its Start Date, those prices are applied when the policy is saved. Future-dated policies remain defined with their dates and sale-item list until their scheduled sale workflow applies them.
Ending a Sale Season
The Return items to original price after sale end option determines the intended end-of-sale pricing behavior:
| Setting | End-of-sale behavior |
|---|---|
| Selected | Registers the Sale Season for the automatic return-to-original-price process after the End Date. |
| Not selected | The policy does not use the automatic return-to-full-price registration; the merchandise can remain on the sale price according to the policy's end-state workflow. |
While editing an existing policy, setting its End Date before today is treated as stopping the sale and IMS asks for confirmation.
Edit a Sale Season
- Select the policy.
- If required, click Load Items to review the current item list.
- Click Edit.
- Change Name, Statistical Period, dates or the return-to-original-price option.
- Use Import Items only when the policy's item list and sale prices need to be rebuilt.
- Click Save.
Click Cancel to leave Edit mode without applying the changes.
Delete a Sale Season
Select the policy and click Delete. If the selected sale is currently within its Start/End date range, IMS asks whether the affected items should be returned to their original prices before the policy is deleted.
Deleting the policy also removes its stored sale-item list and its automatic return-to-price registration.
Export → Sale Prices
Export → Sale Prices creates the sale-pricing file for the selected policy in a folder chosen by the user. The exported data is built from the Sale Season item list and contains the item's Barcode, Item Code, Original Price and Sale Price in the format required by the IMS sale-price export workflow.
Relationship with Manage Items
Sale Seasons rely heavily on Manage → Items. Supplier, Brand, Description, Style, Color, Size, Statistical Period and Original Price shown in this screen all come from the Item master. The Sale Season adds the temporary/seasonal After price and resulting discount.
Price history versus Item masterA Sale Season changes the current item selling price used by sales operations. Historical sales reports continue to report the transaction values that were actually recorded at the time of sale.
Sale Seasons or Special Offers?
Use Sale Seasons when a defined set of Item Codes should have explicit After prices for a scheduled period. Use Special Offers when the benefit depends on transaction conditions such as quantity, receipt total, customer category, Buy/Get, bundle, Cash Back or tiered discount rules.
How Sale Seasons affect reporting
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Main Sales ReportSale-season prices result in discounted transactions, which are reflected in Full/Discount quantities and amounts. The Items tab can also use the current Item State and retail-price criteria.
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Manage ItemsSale Seasons apply the policy price and Sale state to the affected Item Codes while the sale is active.
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Manage Statistical PeriodsEvery Sale Season references one Statistical Period master record.
Permissions
New, Edit and Delete are protected by the IMS Manage Sales Settings access policy. The screen also respects the normal IMS database-connection, maintenance-mode and automation-blocking checks before protected changes are performed.
Common tasks
Review
Check the effective discount
Load Items and compare Before, After and Discount for each SKU.
Sale end
Restore original prices
Enable Return items to original price after sale end for policies that should automatically return to the normal full price.
External pricing
Export sale prices
Use Export → Sale Prices to create the policy's barcode/item pricing file.