Most shops want first-time customers to feel a small win on visit one. An automatic First-time discount applies without anyone needing to type a code — invisible to your team, just shows up on the estimate.
Setting it up
- Discounts → Create discount.
- Category: First-time Customer. (This auto-locks Customer eligibility to first-timers — you can't undo it within this discount.)
- Method: Automatic (no code field appears).
- Type: percentage or flat. Most shops do 5–10% or a flat ₹250–₹500.
- Set a sensible Min purchase amount (e.g., ₹1500). Otherwise a tyre top-up gets the discount and you've leaked margin.
- Max per customer: 1. (It's a first-time discount — they can only get it once anyway, but be explicit.)
- Date range: leave open-ended, or set quarterly to revisit.
- Save → mark Active.
How it triggers
When you (or a customer-facing flow) create an estimate, Autodots checks if the customer has any prior invoice. If not, the discount auto-applies and is visible on the estimate as a separate line: "First-time customer: −5%". The customer sees it on the approval page.
Who's excluded
- Customers with at least one issued invoice (paid or unpaid) — they're not first-time.
- Customers tagged as Fleet — they get the fleet discount instead, not this one.
- Estimates below your Min purchase amount.
Layering: first-time + a coupon code stacking is sometimes too generous. Toggle Stackable off on this discount to keep it as the only discount when it applies.
Other automatic discount ideas
- Repeat customer 5% (Customer eligibility: All; min 3 prior invoices) — rewards loyalty without a code.
- Off-peak Tuesday discount — date-restricted to a slow day.
- Big-spend bonus — flat ₹1000 off when bill exceeds ₹15,000.