What is Trade Allowance?
As per BusinessDctionary,it is the discount offered by producers or marketers to distribution channel members (distributors, wholesalers, retailers) usually as a short-term promotional incentive. Its objective is to effect a lower retail price to stimulate sales.
Trade allowance management module in AX provides the tools to manage the trade allowances and maintain the relationships with vendors and customers throughout the promotional process. This is a new module introduced in AX 2012 R3. Customer rebates were available since AX 2012 but is focused on B2C scenarios. Below is a screenshot depicting the differences.
Trade Allowance Management helps in planning, creation & execution of Promotions, Claims management, Settlements and Analysis of the Promotions. Generally the Marketing manager (super user) plan the promotion and allocate the funds. Together with the Sales manager (super user), the Marketing manager creates trade allowance agreements and gets the necessary approvals. Once the sales team generates invoices for the customers/products that are part of the agreements, claim process is triggered. Accounts team manages the claim and payment settlement process. The Marketing Manager will be able to analyze the promotion???s effectiveness using the Planned vs Actual ROI and several other reports thus helping make better use promotion funds.