Promotions

A promotion is a scheduled sale: you pick which items it covers, what the discount is, and when it runs, and the register applies the discount automatically to every qualifying item — no cashier action needed. Promotions can be limited by customer class, store, or a required coupon, and the Promotions page tracks how much each promotion has been used and how much revenue it brought in.

Open the Promotions page

Click the More menu at the top of the screen and select Promotions.
The Promotions list opens, showing your promotions with usage statistics.

Anyone who can reach the page can view the list, but editing normally requires an admin login. If your login can't edit promotions, the page shows Login to Admin to edit promotions — click that link and enter your admin password to create or change promotions.

The Promotions list

The Promotions page (More → Promotions) lists each promotion with columns:

Description — the promotion's name (with its Note underneath, if one was entered)
Start / End — the scheduled dates
Discount — the discount amount (e.g. 25% or $5.00). Percentages are shown rounded to a whole number, so a 12.5% promotion reads 13% here. A dollar-off promotion and a fixed-price promotion both show as a dollar amount, so open the promotion if you need to see which Discount Type it uses
Receipts — how many receipts used the promotion
Items — how many distinct items were discounted
Total Disc. — total dollars discounted
Attached Rev. — total revenue (payments excluding coupon and reward tenders, minus tax) on receipts where the promotion applied
Avg Rev. — average revenue per receipt that used the promotion

By default the list shows every promotion except those that ended more than 7 days ago — so promotions scheduled to start later are on the list too, alongside the ones running now. The statistics cover the last 90 days (the Start date box is pre-filled to show you the window). To change what you see:

Check Include historical to list all promotions from all time. This also drops the 90-day window on the statistics, so the numbers become all-time — the page takes noticeably longer to load.
Enter Start and/or End dates and click Go to limit the statistics to a date range. When a date range is set, promotions with no usage in that range are hidden.
If your business has multiple divisions, use the All Divisions dropdown to limit statistics to one division.
Click the download icon to export the table as a CSV file.

Click the number in the Receipts column to open a popup with two tabs: Receipts (each receipt's #, Date, Store, Subtotal, and Attached Revenue) and Items (each discounted item's PLU, Description, Quantity, and Revenue). The download icon in the popup exports the Receipts tab's table as a CSV file.

Click the Summarize button for an AI-written plain-English summary of your current promotions — useful for a quick sanity check that everything is set up the way you intended.

Create a promotion

Go to More → Promotions. Log in as an admin if prompted.
Click + Promotion.
Enter a Description (this is the name shown on the Promotions list and in its usage statistics) and, optionally, a Note.
Enter a Start date and time. Always set a Start date — a promotion with no Start date will not apply at the register. If you enter a start date with no time, the promotion starts at midnight (12:00 AM) that day.
Enter an End date and time, or leave it blank to run the promotion until you end it manually. If you enter an end date with no time, the end time is set to 8:00 PM that day.
Choose a Discount Type (Percent, Dollar, or Fixed Price) and enter the Discount Amount (% or $).
Build the Item Filter to choose which items the promotion covers (see "Item Filter" below).
Click Save.
After saving, a preview table of matching items appears under the filter — check it to confirm the right items are on sale.

To edit an existing promotion, click its row in the Promotions list.

Discount types

Each promotion has a Discount Type and a Discount Amount (% or $):

Percent — takes a percentage off each qualifying item's price. Example: discount amount 25 sells a $10.00 item for $7.50.
Dollar — takes a dollar amount off each qualifying item's price. Example: discount amount 2 sells a $10.00 item for $8.00.
Fixed Price — sells every qualifying item at the entered price. Example: discount amount 5 sells matching items for $5.00. Items whose regular price is already at or below the fixed price are not changed — a fixed-price promotion never raises a price.

Schedule a promotion (Start and End)

Promotions turn themselves on and off by date — there is nothing to do on the day of the sale.

Start — the promotion begins applying at the register once this date and time passes. Always enter a Start date; a promotion with no Start date will not apply at the register, no matter how everything else is set up. A start date entered with no time starts at midnight (12:00 AM) that day.
End — the promotion stops applying after this date and time. Leave it blank to run indefinitely. If you enter an end date with no time, the end time is set to 8:00 PM that day — so an end date of 6/30 runs the promotion until 8:00 PM on June 30, not to the end of that day. To end at a different time, type the time into the End field (for example 6/30/2026 9:00pm).

Ended promotions stay on the Promotions list for 7 days after their end date, then move to the historical view (check Include historical to see them). They are never deleted automatically, so their statistics remain available.

Limit a promotion by customer class, store, or coupon

Three settings on the promotion edit page control who and where a promotion applies (hold Ctrl — Cmd on Mac — and click to toggle selections in these lists):

Customer Classes — the promotion applies only to sales for customers in the selected classes. All classes are selected by default, including (No customer), which represents ordinary walk-in sales with no customer attached. If you deselect (No customer), the promotion silently stops applying to walk-in sales — leave it selected unless the promotion is truly members-only.
Stores — if you have more than one store, the promotion applies only at the selected stores. All stores are selected by default. (If you have only one store, there is no Stores list on the page and the promotion always applies at that store.)
Coupons Required — if you select one or more coupons here, the promotion applies only while one of those coupons has been added to the sale. Leave empty (the default) for the promotion to apply with no coupon. Only coupons that haven't passed their end date are listed (plus any already selected on this promotion), so an expired coupon won't be there to pick.

Deselecting everything switches the promotion off. Customer Classes and Stores are "selected = allowed" lists, and an empty list matches nothing rather than everything. If you Ctrl+click until no class is highlighted, the promotion applies to no sale at all; the same is true of an empty Stores list. There is no warning when you save. To have a promotion apply everywhere and to everyone, leave every class and every store selected. (Coupons Required is the opposite: empty means "no coupon needed".)

Min. Qty and UOM Size

Two optional settings narrow when the discount kicks in:

Min. Qty — the customer must buy at least this quantity of a qualifying item for the discount to apply to that item. Example: with Min. Qty 3 on a shrub promotion, buying 2 shrubs is full price; buying 3 discounts all 3.
UOM Size — restricts the promotion to items sold at a specific unit-of-measure size. Leave blank unless you sell the same product at multiple UOM sizes and only want one size on sale.

Item Filter: choose which items go on sale

The Item Filter on the promotion edit page is a rule builder that selects which inventory items the promotion covers. Each rule is a field, a comparison, and a value. Available fields:

Department — the item's department
Sub. Department — the item's sub-department (shown as Department / Sub-department)
Collection — a saved collection of items
PLU — the item's PLU code
Description — the item's description text
Name — the item's name
Size — the item's size
Each Price — the item's regular each price
Vendor — the item's vendor

To build the filter:

Click Add rule to add a rule, then pick the field, the comparison (equal, not equal, contains, in, etc. — options vary by field), and the value.
Set the AND / OR toggle at the top of the group. With AND, an item must match every rule; with OR, matching any one rule is enough.
Click a rule's Delete button (the minus icon on the right of the rule) to remove it. A nested group has its own Delete button that removes the whole group.

Example — everything in one department except one sub-department (AND selected):

Department equal Trees
Sub. Department not equal Trees / Fruit Trees

Example — two whole departments (OR selected):

Department equal Trees
Department equal Shrubs

Combine AND and OR with groups

A single rule list is all-AND or all-OR. When you need both — for example "all of department A, plus department B except one sub-department" — use groups:

Click Add group. A nested rule list appears with its own AND / OR toggle.
Set the outer toggle to OR and put each department's conditions in its own group with the group's toggle set to AND.

Example — all of Trees, plus Shrubs except Shrubs / Roses:

Outer toggle: OR
Group 1: Department equal Trees
Group 2 (toggle AND): Department equal Shrubs, Sub. Department not equal Shrubs / Roses

You can drag rules between groups using the arrows handle on each rule.

Check your filter with the matching items preview

After you Save a promotion, a preview table appears below the Item Filter listing the items that currently match, in description order: PLU, Description, Price, and Total On Hand, followed by a count like "125 matching items."

The table is capped at a fixed number of rows (100 in most stores). When more items match than it will list, the line underneath says so — for example "125 matching items. Results are limited to 100 items." That cap is on the table only: the promotion still covers every matching item, you are simply not seeing them all listed, and the count in front of the note is not capped, so it is the number to check.

The count and the table are worked out slightly differently: the count is a plain count of everything matching the filter, while the table leaves out items that aren't set to be sold. The count can therefore read a little higher than the number of rows.

Always check the preview after editing a filter. If the count is 0 — or missing items you expected — the filter has a problem and those items will not go on sale.

Promotion not discounting an item? Check the PLU

A common cause of "this item isn't ringing up on sale" is a PLU rule in the Item Filter that doesn't exactly match the item's real PLU code. A PLU rule with the equal or in comparison must match the item's PLU code exactly — and an item's description often looks like its PLU but isn't (extra periods, spaces, or prefixes). A rule naming a PLU that doesn't exist fails silently: no error appears, the item simply never qualifies.

To troubleshoot:

Open the item's page and note its exact PLU code.
Open the promotion and compare each PLU rule value to the real code — watch for periods and spaces that appear in the description but not the PLU.
Fix the rule, click Save, and confirm the item now appears in the matching items preview below the filter.

If the item appears in the preview but still isn't discounting at the register, check the promotion's Start date (it must be set and in the past), Customer Classes and Stores (a list with nothing selected matches nothing, and deselecting (No customer) switches the promotion off for walk-in sales), Coupons Required, and Min. Qty settings — and check the item itself: items whose Discountable setting is Never are not discounted by promotions.

How promotions apply at the register

Once a promotion is active (between its Start and End), the register applies it automatically:

When a qualifying item is rung up, its price is discounted per the promotion — the cashier doesn't need to do anything.
The promotion must match on every restriction: the item filter, the sale's customer class, the register's store, any required coupon on the sale, Min. Qty, and UOM Size.
If more than one promotion matches an item — or a promotion and an automatic customer-class discount both match — the register applies the single largest discount. Promotions do not stack with each other or with an automatic class discount. If two promotions happen to give exactly the same discount the customer pays the same price either way, but which of them gets credited in the Promotions statistics is not predictable.
Items whose Discountable setting is Never are skipped by promotions.

Promotion edits take effect immediately — the next sale rung after you click Save uses the new settings.

Price levels are an exception to "largest discount wins"

When several promotions match an item the register normally applies the largest discount, but a price level does not compete on size. A price level is a customer class's own price for an item, set on the item's page (or in bulk with the Price Level Bulk Update admin tool) rather than on the Promotions page, and the register treats it as that class's price rather than as a discount: it can take effect even when a matching promotion would have taken more off the price, and it still applies to items whose Discountable setting is Never.

If an item has both a promotion and a price level for the sale's customer class, and the exact price matters, ring a test sale to confirm which price the register uses. See Customer Classes & Price Levels for how price levels are set up. Price levels do not appear on the Promotions list.

Some discount interactions are configured per-client

Beyond the rules above, whether a quantity or group price rule on an item is allowed to beat a promotion is configured per-client by VMX. Individual items also have a Price Rule Stacks with Promo setting on the item page that changes how the two interact. Where such a rule is in place it takes precedence over the general behavior described here. If the register's price doesn't match what you expect after checking the promotion's own settings, contact help@vmxllc.com and we'll confirm exactly how your discounts combine.

Trigger promotions (buy X, get Y)

Trigger promotions discount one set of items only when the customer also buys another set — combo and BOGO-style deals. This feature is enabled per-client by VMX; contact help@vmxllc.com if you'd like it turned on.

When enabled, the promotion edit page shows a checkbox: Requires purchase of other items (trigger). The on-screen help reads: "The discount above only applies while the sale contains the trigger items below." Check it to reveal:

Trigger Item Filter — what the customer must buy to unlock the discount. Same rule builder as the Item Filter, with its own matching-items preview after saving.
Buy Qty — trigger units required (default 1).
Get Qty — how many discounted items each trigger purchase unlocks. Leave blank to discount ALL matching items on the sale.

Examples:

Buy 1 / Get all: "25% off all bird seed with purchase of a bird feeder" — Trigger Item Filter matches feeders, Get Qty blank, so every bird seed item on the sale is discounted.
Buy 1 / Get 1: "buy a feeder, get one birdbath 50% off" — Buy Qty 1, Get Qty 1.
Buy 2 / Get 4: every 2 trigger items unlock 4 discounted items.

When Get Qty caps the rewards, the cheapest qualifying items are discounted first. If the trigger items are removed from the sale, the discount comes off automatically.

Promotions on your online store

Promotions can also run on your VMX online store. Every promotion edit page has the web fields listed below, on every store — but they only do something once VMX has connected your promotions to your online store. That connection is enabled per-client by VMX; contact help@vmxllc.com to set it up. Until then, filling these fields in changes nothing, online or in-store.

The web-specific fields on the promotion edit page are:

Web Match Type — ALL discounts every item in the cart that matches the Item Filter; ANY1 discounts just one qualifying item (the most expensive one).
Web Coupon Code — a code the shopper must enter at checkout to get the discount.
Web Auto Apply — Yes applies the promotion automatically with no code.
Web Match Gift Cards — whether gift card purchases can qualify.
Web Once Per Customer — limits the promotion to one use per online customer.

These fields affect only the online store; in-store behavior is controlled by the other settings on the page. The promotion's Description, Note, Start, End, Discount Type, Discount Amount, Item Filter, Customer Classes, and Stores carry over to the online store as well — but Min. Qty does not, so a promotion that requires a minimum quantity in-store discounts a qualifying item online no matter how many are in the cart.

What's on sale? — item-level sale list

The What's on sale? link at the top of the Promotions page opens a read-only, item-by-item list of everything currently on sale — useful for printing or for staff answering "what's on special today?" This view is enabled per-client by VMX; contact help@vmxllc.com if you'd like it turned on.

For every in-stock item covered by an active promotion at your store, it shows Department, PLU, Description, Reg. Price, Promo Price (the calculated sale price), Note (the promotion's name and note), QOH, Start, and End. Only items with stock on hand at the store you are signed in to are listed, and promotions that require a coupon are excluded. Pick a different date in the date box and click Go to preview what will be on sale that day.

Two cautions. The list also shows promotions that have no Start date, even though those never actually apply at the register — one more reason to always set a Start date. And it doesn't account for Customer Classes, Min. Qty, or trigger requirements, so an item can appear here at a promo price that only some customers, or only a larger quantity, will actually get. Open the promotion named in the Note column if you need to know who and what qualifies.

Duplicate or delete a promotion

To reuse a promotion's setup (for example, re-running last spring's sale):

Open the promotion from the Promotions list.
Click Duplicate. A new, unsaved copy opens with all the same settings.
Update the Description, Start, and End, then click Save.

To delete a promotion, open it and click Delete, then confirm. Deleting removes it from the list entirely; if you just want it to stop applying, set its End date instead so its usage statistics stay available.