How it works

DATA REQUEST – input for pricing analysis (ProfitLens)

1. SCOPE
- Transaction data at line level: each row should correspond to a single invoice line or order line (line item), not a whole order or a summary. An order containing five different items is delivered as five separate rows.
- Period: one full year – a calendar year or the rolling last 12 months up to the last closed month. Two years enable year-over-year comparison, and four complete quarters give rolling twelve-month values. Feel free to update every quarter: new files can extend the history or replace a previous period, and every analysis is saved as a version so progress can be tracked over time.
- All sales within the unit to be analysed. If anything is excluded (entity, country, channel, internal sales) – state what and why.
- For larger groups: analyse one coherent business unit, division or market per analysis, with consistent currency and pricing logic.
- No aggregation, no pivot tables, no subtotals or section headers.

2. FIELDS PER ROW
- Date (REQUIRED) – Transaction date (YYYY-MM-DD). Alternatively year and month as two separate columns.
- Customer number (REQUIRED) – Unique key per customer, consistent throughout the file.
- Customer name (optional) – The customer's name.
- Item number (REQUIRED) – Unique key per product, consistent throughout the file.
- Product name (optional) – The product's name.
- Quantity (REQUIRED) – Units sold on the line. Negative value for credit notes/returns.
- Unit price (REQUIRED) – Net price after discount, in the file's currency. State if it is gross.
- Unit cost (recommended) – Standard cost, purchase price or full cost – state which.
- Amount (optional) – Line total (quantity × price).
- Currency (recommended) – Currency code per row, or state that the whole file is in one currency.
- Discount (optional) – As amount or percent – state which. Back-end rebates in their own column.
- List price (optional) – Gross price before discount, if available.
- Customer segment (recommended) – E.g. industry, size or channel. May be delivered as a separate sheet.
- Sales rep (recommended) – Responsible salesperson or sales code.

3. FORMAT
- Excel (.xlsx) or CSV (UTF-8). Max 100 MB per file. Larger datasets are split by period (e.g. one year per file); each file is uploaded separately and merged with the previous one via Extend history. For datasets over 100,000 rows, CSV is recommended first – it cuts file size substantially and handles hundreds of thousands of rows without hitting the file limit.
- Exactly one header row at the top of each sheet. No merged cells, no empty columns between fields.
- Column names may be your system's own – we map them in the next step.
- Dates as real dates (YYYY-MM-DD). If only year and month exist, deliver them as two separate columns.
- Numbers as numbers, not text. No thousands separators, no currency symbols in cells. One consistent decimal separator.
- Negative amounts with a minus sign, not parentheses.
- Credit lines and returns must be included and flagged (own column or negative quantity).

4. PRICE AND COST
- State clearly whether the price is gross (list price) or net after discount. Never mix in the same column.
- If both list and net price exist: deliver both as separate columns.
- Discount as amount or percent – state which. Back-end rebates and annual bonuses in their own columns if they exist.
- Unit cost: state which cost it is (standard cost, latest purchase price, average full cost) and when it was last updated.
- Currency: a column with currency code, or confirmation that the whole file is in one currency.

5. KEYS AND MASTER DATA
- Customer number and item number must be the same keys throughout the file.
- Real names are not required. Customers and products may be masked (e.g. "Customer A"), but the masking must be consistent: the same customer/product must always carry the same masked name throughout the file and in all sheets. State which columns are masked.
- If customer segment, region, channel or sales rep lives in a separate register – deliver it as its own sheet with the customer number as key.
- If cost or invoiced outcome sits in another system – deliver it as its own sheet and state which key links it to the transactions.

6. OTHER
- The better the data, the sharper the analysis — but the file does not need cleaning. Empty fields, duplicates and odd values are handled and reported in our quality control.
- Feel free to add a short note about known data limitations (system migration, incomplete period, reused item numbers).