The more variants are available for products, the more unique and complex the corresponding price models become. Moreover, price structures entail their own challenging complexity. Using the price function of our CPQ solution, you manage this complexity and ensure transparent and always current price information. Your outcome: a structured and transparent price and product landscape.
What's the basic feature of the price function in CAS Configurator Merlin?
There are multiple
approaches to modeling your price landscape in CAS Configurator
Merlin: One option is to assign different price types and the corresponding
price values to your products and features. These can include, for example,
manufacturing costs, purchase prices, selling prices, margins, or discounts.
Another option is to create configuration-specific
calculations. These result in unique price calculations. The unique
calculations are, for example, the result of different material usage or
expenses.
The prices and corresponding calculations are then intuitively displayed for
the sales team in the quote configurator. Additionally, you flexibly define
which employee can access which price data using access rights. The big
advantage: your sales team can provide qualified
price information at any time as the prices are calculated
alongside the configuration. Thus, your sales team profits from high price transparency and
can best advise their customers on all sales alternatives.
What are the sources for price data in CAS Configurator Merlin?
There are different options for defining the
corresponding price information in CAS Configurator Merlin.
All data
directly in the system: You model
your entire price landscape using CAS Configurator Merlin, manage all data in
the CPQ solution, and provide them to the corresponding teams. You model,
configure, and calculate in one tool. Using this option, you manage your price
data with maximum flexibility.
Full
integration of Excel: Another
option is to fully integrate Excel tables. CAS Configurator Merlin adopts price
data from the corresponding Excel tables and imports them into your CPQ
solution. You decide whether data is adopted entirely or only in part.
Integration of
third-party systems: Furthermore,
you can simply integrate your CPQ solution with third-party systems. Using the
open interfaces of CAS Configurator Merlin, you import any price data from
third-party systems or query it live - for example, from an ERP system. This
enables you to create calculations on the bill of materials level.
Additionally, you can create calculations including different price sources and
thus only manage a part of the data in CAS Configurator Merlin. You can then
import the remaining data from, for example, Excel tables.
Using the different
options, you can flexibly model your unique price landscape according to your
requirements. Moreover, you can always access current and consistent
price tables. Outdated data records are a thing of the past. Just
choose the option that best fits your price landscape.
How do you handle working with different price tables, for example, for different countries?
Using the price function, you can deploy multiple price tables
for different subsets. Besides different products, these subsets can include,
for example, countries, sales groups, time periods, or sales regions.
Furthermore, you can adopt data from different price tables. Thus, you can
prevent double efforts and costs.
Example:
In a default price list, you manage the general product prices. However,
distributors, who sell your products, sell them at a higher price and thus
require their own price list. To save on effort and cost, you simply generate a
new price list specifically for your distributor. This list is based on the
default list and is, for example, multiplied by the factor 1.1. The general
price data is adopted and increased by 10%, especially for the distributor. You
can always manually change the price lists retroactively so as to even further customize
your price data. Thereby, you can, for example, remove the 1.1 factor when
adding purchased parts.
How does CAS Configurator Merlin ensure a clean and controlled switch between price lists?
Often the switch between price lists creates very high
manual effort and costs. New price data has to be entered, team access must be
available, and you need to ensure that the switch is seamless.
In practice, the process often looks different.
The seamless switch is
much easier if the new price list is created before the switch, entered into
the CPQ solution, and provided to all employees as of a specific date. Using
the CAS Configurator Merlin price function, you can assign temporal or
even configuration-dependent validities to your price lists. You can
switch from an old price list to the new price list in no time and your teams
can immediately utilize the new data.
What are my options for modeling my unique pricing model in CAS Configurator Merlin?
Using the rule-based price calculation function, you can
implement any calculation approach in CAS Configurator Merlin
- for example, a product profitability calculation or mixed
calculation. Additionally, you can set off different price types against each
other. Thereby, entirely new price calculation options are
available. Calculate your margin, model the rental costs for different contract
terms, or use the rule-based price changes to calculate and display scaled
prices or bundle prices.
In CAS Configurator
Merlin, you can perform price calculations as unique as your products and
prices. For this purpose, various approaches are available to you. Our experts
would love to answer all your questions and inform you about your options to
best model your price model, optimize your price structure, and execute complex
calculations.
Flexible options for data integration
Your benefits
- Model complex price models to fit your needs.
- Define complex rules and permissions for your price data.
- Work transparently and efficiently based on a knowledge database.
- Excite your customers with transparent calculations.
Model custom price models
Contact us now, we're glad to help.
Do you have any questions or would you like more information on our CPQ solution? We're here for you!

Verena Scheurer
Sales Consultant
+49 721 9638-901