Overview
This article explains the purpose and behavior of the setting “Logical order of the applied agreed discounts” (“Financial Settings > General Financial Settings > Reductions, Discounts and Loans > Agreed Discounts – Logical_Order_Of_The_Applied_Agreed_Discounts”). This setting determines which type of discount takes priority whenever a manually agreed discount and an automatically calculated discount could both apply to the same charge for the same Student.
What This Setting Does
This setting is a single-choice (dropdown) option with two possible values:
- “Before any given discount” (default value)
- “After any given discount”
It controls the order of priority between two different sources of discounts that can apply to a Student’s financial arrangement (contract):
- An Agreed Discount – a discount that has been individually negotiated and manually recorded for a specific Student (for example, a special rate agreed upon with a family during enrollment).
- An automatically calculated discount – a discount the system works out on its own, based on general rules configured for the institution. Examples include discounts for families with more than one enrolled child (sibling discounts), discounts tied to a Student’s pricing category, or discounts linked to a voucher.
Whenever both types of discount would apply to the same charge, this setting decides which one is actually kept for that Student.
Where It Is Used
This setting is found under:
- Financial Settings > General Financial Settings > Reductions, Discounts and Loans tab > Agreed Discounts section.
It takes effect at the moment a financial arrangement (contract) is created or recalculated for a Student – for example, when enrollment or finance staff set up a new arrangement, renew an existing one, or the system automatically re-evaluates a Student’s discounts. Its effect is only visible in the resulting list of discounts applied to that arrangement; there is no separate button or action associated with it anywhere else in the application.
Business Logic / Behavior
- “Before any given discount” (default value): The Student’s Agreed Discount is applied first. If, for the same charge, the system would also have automatically granted a discount (for example a sibling discount), that automatic discount is not added on top, because the Agreed Discount has already been used for that charge. In practice, this means the manually agreed discount always takes priority over an automatic discount for the same charge.
- “After any given discount”: The system first applies whichever automatic discounts the Student qualifies for. The Agreed Discount for that same charge is only added afterward, and only if no automatic discount has already been applied to it. In practice, this means the automatically calculated discount takes priority, and the Agreed Discount is used only to fill the gap when no automatic discount already covers that charge.
Business rules that can be inferred from this behavior:
- Only one of the two discounts (the Agreed Discount or the automatic one) is ever kept for the same charge; the two are not combined or stacked together.
- This setting has no visible effect unless a Student actually has both an Agreed Discount and a qualifying automatic discount that would apply to the same charge. If a Student only has one type of discount, that discount is applied regardless of this setting.
- The setting applies uniformly across the institution; it cannot be set differently per Student or per arrangement.
Example
Example Academy has enabled Agreed Discounts and also offers an automatic 10% discount for families with more than one enrolled child (a sibling discount).
A parent enrolls two children: Sample Student One and Sample Student Two. During enrollment, the school’s staff separately negotiate and manually record an Agreed Discount of 15% for Sample Student One only, as part of a special arrangement with the family. Both children would normally also qualify for the standard 10% sibling discount, since there is more than one child enrolled.
- If the setting is set to “Before any given discount”: Sample Student One’s 15% Agreed Discount is applied first. Because a discount has already been recorded for that charge, the system does not also add the 10% sibling discount on top for Sample Student One – the family’s special 15% rate is preserved as agreed. Sample Student Two, who has no Agreed Discount, still receives the standard 10% sibling discount.
- If the setting is set to “After any given discount”: The system first applies the standard 10% sibling discount to both children. Because Sample Student One already has an automatic discount recorded for that charge, the separately agreed 15% discount is not added afterward – Sample Student One ends up with only the standard 10% sibling discount rather than the special 15% rate.
This example shows that the choice made in this setting can change the actual discount rate a Student ends up with, whenever an individually agreed discount and an automatic discount would otherwise both apply to the same charge.
When to Use
Choose “Before any given discount” when:
- The institution wants individually negotiated agreements to always be honored exactly as agreed, and never be silently replaced by a standard automatic discount.
- Staff need certainty that once a special arrangement is recorded for a Student, it will not be overridden later by a general promotion or automatic rule.
Choose “After any given discount” when:
- The institution wants to guarantee that Students always receive the best or most current standard automatic discount, treating individually agreed discounts as a secondary option only.
- Automatic discount rules are actively maintained and should take precedence over discounts that may have been agreed in the past and not recently revisited.
Notes
Prerequisites:
- Before this setting has any effect, Agreed Discounts must first be enabled through “Enable Agreed Discounts On Student Level” (“Financial Settings > General Financial Settings > Reductions, Discounts and Loans > Agreed Discounts – Enable_Agreed_Discounts_On_Student_Level”). If Agreed Discounts are not enabled, this setting has no effect, since there are no Agreed Discounts to prioritize in the first place.
Higher Education vs K-12 Mode:
- This setting behaves identically whether the institution operates in Higher Education Mode or in standard (K-12) Mode. Enabling or disabling Higher Education customization does not change how the order of priority between agreed and automatic discounts is decided.
Related Settings:
- Available Registration Statuses For Sibling Discounts (“Financial Settings > General Financial Settings > Reductions, Discounts and Loans > Agreed Discounts – Available_Registration_Statusses_For_Sibling_Discounts”) – determines which registration statuses make a Student eligible to be counted toward automatic sibling discounts, which is one of the automatic discount types this setting weighs against Agreed Discounts.
- Automatically Give A Discount Connected With Student Voucher When Arrangement Of Type Is Created (“Financial Settings > General Financial Settings > Reductions, Discounts and Loans > Agreed Discounts – Automatically_Give_A_Discount_Connected_With_Student_Voucher_When_Arrangement_Of_Type_Is_Created”) – controls another type of automatically applied discount that this setting’s priority order also affects.
Default Value: The default value of this setting is “Before any given discount”.
