The (Calendar) Quarter option is available for indefinite rebate rules.
First, theSeveral time-based methods are available for calculating absolute rebates. This page explains how to calculate those rebates quarterly over a specified period.
With quarterly rebates:
The cumulative total is calculated for the transactions from the start of the quarter up to the start of the calculation period, where:
The start of the first quarter is the validation period start date, and the same day is used for the subsequent quarters (every three months). For example, if the validation period starts on February 10, 2023, the quarter start dates will be February 10, 2023, May 10, 2023, August 10, 2023, November 10, 2023, February 10, 2024, and so on. However, if the validation period starts on a day that not all months have, only the affected month will be adjusted. For example, if it starts on March 31, 2023, the quarter start dates will be March 31, 2023, June 30, 2023, September 30, 2023, December 31, 2023, March 31, 2023, and so on.
The calculation period might not start on the same date as the validation period. In this example, the year starts in January, but the calculation starts in August.
Then, the transactions in the calculation period are added to that cumulative total and put into brackets accordingly. This ensures the calculation starts in the correct bracket.
In this case, you get the same total whether you calculate the individual months separately or the whole year in one calculation.
If the calculation period spans multiple quarters, the cumulative total is reset to $0 at the start of each quarter (as defined by the validation start date).
| title | Example and graph |
|---|
Using the figures in the example above, where both the validation and calculation periods were within one calendar year and the start date is March 11:
In the first quarter:
The cumulative total is $60 (1 month, March), and the calculation period total is $70 (where did this come from).
Since you are starting from $60, you are in the 1% bracket. So, the first $40 worth of transactions in the calculation period ($100 bracket limit less $60 cumulative total) gets a rebate of 1%, which is $0.40 ($40*0.01).
That leaves $30 worth of transactions ($70-$40) in the 2% bracket, which results in a rebate of $0.70 ($30*0.02).
Therefore, the total rebate amount is $1.10 ($0.40+$0.70).
In the second quarter:
The total of the calculation period is $75.
So those transactions would get a rebate amount of 1%, giving a total of $0.75.
The total for the whole calculation period is $1.10+$0.75 = $1.85
With my proposed changes, a calculation from to would reset the cumulative total to $0 at . This would give the same result as calculating - and - separately and adding the results.
The Month calculation is shown in the Multiple Periods graph. The calculation starts at the beginning of the cumulative period, so the transactions start from $0. At some point, that period will reset, and the total will reset back to $0 for the start of the next period. Then the calculation process repeats. Only the first few transactions of each period are in the first bracket, the next transactions will be in the next bracket and so on.
This option works with prior periods as well, as in the second graph, so if the calculation period does not start at the beginning of one of the cumulative periods, a prior transaction amount is used as the starting point.
In the rule setup, click the Amounts Per dropdown list and select Quarter. By default, the quarterly calculation uses the same start date as the rule. If you want to change this, select Other, then select the month.
For example, suppose the rule setup uses the Percentage of Value calculation method, the Value bracket basis, and three brackets exist. The ruleyear starts in January.
Example 1: Start the quarters and calculation on the rule start date
This is a straightforward use case, so in the results, you get 12 rows, three for each quarter.
Example 2: Start the quarters on the rule start date but start the calculation on a different date
Example 3: Start the quarters in a different month to the rule start date