A price category represents a series of potential billing charges that all use the same one or two fields from the order process as the basis for determining whether those charges are to be included in the bill for that order or not. In other words, the different potential charges within a category represent the amount that should be charged for each potential response in a key field from the order process. The category specifies which field in the order process is that key field and the different prices or charges inside that category represent the amount that should be charged for each of the potential responses a person requesting an experiment might give for that field.

Each price category will appear as a separate line item on the bill for an experiment. The text that appears under that line item as an explanation and the actual price charged on that line item depends on which price criterion within that category matches the value that was entered in the key field when the experiment was requested.

For example, the Microarray Labeling Reaction category from the Agilent Microarray price sheet is based on the Application field.

The experiment being billed used a ChiP-on-chip application.

The Agilent ChiP-on-chip criterion within the Microarray Labeling Reaction category specifies that if the value selected in that field is ChiP-on-chip, then internal groups are charged $80 per unit and external ones are charged $120. (For our example, the group being billed receives internal pricing.)

The applicable charge shows up as a line item on the bill, with the name of the category identified as the Service and the name of the price criterion identified as the Description for that line item. The unit price reflects the correct value as specified by the matching criterion.

To create a new price category for billing:

1. Click on the Manage billing button in the Administration section of the application home page or the Billing button from among the buttons at the top of the window.

The billing window will appear.

2. Select the Prices tab in the pane on the left side of the window.

3. Find the price sheet to which you want to add a new price category in the list on the Prices tab. Click on the appropriate price sheet to select it. (Price sheets are the outermost level of the data tree.) If the appropriate price sheet does not exist in the list, it can be created — see Creating a New Price Sheet for instructions on how to do this.

Each price sheet represents a different type of experiment (from those chosen on the first page of the order process). Make certain you place your new category in the price sheet that represents the kind of experiment your charges ought to apply to or the resulting billing will be incorrect.

4. Click on the New category button on the lower left side of the window.

The Price Category window will open.

5. Fill in the fields on the window as appropriate, including recording the Name of the price category, adding or editing Notes about the item if applicable, indicating the kind of charge/line item represented by the category (such as a service or a product) and selecting the one or two fields to be used as the basis for the price criteria associated with the category. The Active box should be checked in order for the price category to actually be used in billing (or you can deactivate the price category completely by unchecking that box). In the Determine experiment's price using drop-down fields, select the one or two fields from the order process that should be used to compare with the criteria values entered in each potential charge that will go inside of your category. The value entered in that field of each order will be compared with the criteria from the potential charge items in the category you are creating to determine what price should be charged on the line item represented by this new category.

6. Click Save in the lower right corner of the Price Category window to save your new price category.