# Introduction - Rate Lists

A rate list is a named set of prices that overrides an item's standard selling price.

**Video coming soon:** How rate lists decide a selling price, and why every variant needs its own entry.

Attach one to a customer and every quote, sales order and invoice for them picks it up automatically, with no one remembering to apply a discount by hand.

![The Rate Lists screen. Each row shows a name, a type of either Unit Pricing or All Items, and a detail column reading either Per Item Rate or a percentage markdown or markup, with a currency beside the per-item rows.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/rate-lists/rate-lists-list.png)

*Both kinds in one list: All Items carries a percentage, Unit Pricing carries a rate per item.*

## Two kinds of list

**Percentage** (Adjust everything by one figure)

- Yes: One rule covers your whole catalogue
- Yes: New items are covered automatically
- Yes: Right for trade or volume discounts
- No: Cannot set an exact price on one item

**Fixed price** (Name the price per item)

- Yes: Exact control, item by item
- Yes: Right for negotiated contract pricing
- No: New items are not covered until added
- No: More to maintain

## How a price is decided

When a line is added to a sales document, the price resolves in this order. The first rule that applies wins.

1. **Manual override**: Someone typed a price
2. **Rate list**: From the customer or document
3. **Item selling price**: The standard fallback

> **Note:**
>
> **A typed price always wins**
>
> Once someone edits a line price by hand, the rate list stops governing that line. This is deliberate, so a negotiated one-off is never silently overwritten. Remove the line and re-add it to go back to list pricing.

## What rate lists do not do

- They do **not** affect purchase prices. Costs come from the item or the purchase order.
- They do **not** change documents already raised. Only new lines pick up a change.
- They do **not** price a variant through its parent. Every variant needs its own entry on a fixed-price list.
- They are **not** a discount field. A document discount is a separate thing and the two combine.