Buying and architecture
Choosing the Source of Truth for Your Pricing Catalog
By the Orvlin team · · 1 min read
Pricing catalog source of truth: what to decide
The website, sales calculator and billing engine each contain a different allowance. Every team thinks its copy is current. A source-of-truth decision should explain where changes originate and how dependent views update.
Separate public presentation from authoritative operational rules. A quote may contain a negotiated override, but that exception should be recorded and effective-dated. Keep historical versions for invoices and corrections.
An example with the numbers exposed
A plan includes 10,000 operations, while an enterprise account has a signed 25,000-operation allowance. The catalog can retain the standard rule and the account-specific override without rewriting the public offer for everyone.
The mistake worth avoiding
Centralization is not permission to expose every negotiated term publicly. Consumers of the catalog should receive the fields appropriate to their purpose and authorization.
A practical checklist
- Designate authoritative rule ownership.
- Version standard plans and overrides.
- Connect quote and invoice references.
- Test for drift across customer-facing views.
Frequently asked questions
- Can the website be the pricing source of truth?
- It can display published terms, but negotiated rules, historic versions and operational detail usually need a structured authoritative record.