Applying Discounts to Quotes and Invoices
Trade2Base supports two types of discounts — line item discounts on individual parts or labour lines, and an overall discount applied to the whole quote or invoice subtotal. Both show clearly on the customer PDF and portal.
The two discount types
Line item discount
Applied to a specific line — for example, 10% off a particular part or a £20 reduction on a labour charge. Useful when you want to discount one item while keeping everything else at full price.
Overall quote / invoice discount
Applied to the subtotal of the entire quote or invoice. Useful for loyalty discounts, bulk job reductions, or promotional offers across the whole job.
Applying a line item discount
Open the quote or invoice
Navigate to the quote or invoice and click Edit.
Find the line you want to discount
Click the three-dot menu on the right of any line item and select Add discount.
Choose % or £ amount
Enter a percentage (e.g. 10%) or a fixed pound amount (e.g. £25). The line total updates instantly.
Save
The discounted line shows the original price struck through and the new reduced price, both on your internal view and the customer-facing PDF.
Applying an overall discount
Open the quote or invoice and click Edit
Scroll below the line items to the totals section.
Click “Add discount” in the totals area
This adds an overall discount row to the subtotal.
Enter the discount value
Choose % (e.g. 5% off the whole job) or £ (e.g. £50 off). The new subtotal, VAT, and total update automatically.
Optionally add a discount code
If this discount relates to a named code (see below), enter it in the Discount code field for tracking purposes.
How discounts appear to customers
Discounts are shown clearly on the customer-facing PDF and in the customer portal. Line item discounts display the original price with a strikethrough and the discounted price in green. Overall discounts appear as a separate discount row in the totals section, labelled “Discount” with the code name if you used one (e.g. “Loyalty discount”). The customer sees exactly how much they are saving.
Creating named discount codes
Named codes let you track which promotional offer drove each discount. Create them in Settings → Discounts:
Go to Settings → Discounts and click New discount code.
Give it a name (e.g. SPRING2026, Loyalty10, REFERRAL) and an optional description.
When applying a discount on a quote or invoice, enter the code name in the Discount code field.
Discount codes appear in the Discounts report so you can see how many times each code was used and the total value discounted.
Reporting on discounts
In Reports → Discounts you can filter by engineer, discount code, and date period to see total discount value given, number of discounted quotes and invoices, and average discount percentage. Use this to identify if discounting is concentrated with particular engineers or campaigns, and to measure the revenue impact of promotional activity.
Limiting discounts by engineer role
To prevent over-discounting, you can set a maximum discount percentage per engineer role in Settings → Permissions:
Engineers — can apply up to X% discount (you set the cap).
Supervisors — can apply up to Y% (typically higher than engineer).
Admins and owners — no cap by default.
Attempts to apply a discount above the cap are blocked with a message explaining the limit.
Discount reason and audit trail
When applying a discount you can optionally enter a reason (e.g. “Long-standing customer,” “Repeat booking,” “Complaint resolution”). This reason is stored in the discount audit trail accessible from the quote or invoice activity log, giving you a clear record of why each discount was applied — useful for management review and accounting.
Tip
Make filling in the reason field mandatory for your team by enabling Require discount reason in Settings → Permissions. This keeps your audit trail clean without relying on engineers to remember.
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