Overview
The Price Development report shows price changes and their impact at Category, Supplier and Article level across different years.
Main functions
Tabs Overview, Articles, Categories and Suppliers
Transaction type Orders, Invoices or Goods Receipts
Charts on price change and price impact across the years, price development by day and cumulative price change/impact
Drilldowns to the underlying transactions and profiles
Show and hide columns to customize the view
Export of tables (Excel/CSV) and charts
Understanding the key figures
Price change: The weighted percentage price development compared to the previous year. It only refers to items for which a comparison price exists in the previous year (see “Comparison price available”).
Price impact: The additional costs or savings resulting from the price change. It shows how much more or less you paid than if you had purchased the current purchasing volume at the previous year’s prices. It also only refers to Articles with a comparison price in the previous year.
Comparison price available: Shows for which share of the current year’s purchasing volume a comparison price from the previous year exists. Articles that were not purchased in the previous year have no comparison price and are excluded from the price development calculation. If a comparison price exists for only a small share of the purchasing volume, the price development is of limited significance. In this case, Tacto shows a warning in the table.
Article price: The weighted price of an Article within a calendar year. The price is displayed in the largest possible price unit available for the Article in the transaction data.
Data sources and data freshness
Price Development is based on transaction data. In the transaction type menu you choose whether it is based on Orders, Invoices or Goods Receipts. The time at which the latest data was imported is shown at the top right of the same menu. If data cleaning is active, certain transactions (e.g. samples or collective Articles) are excluded. For more information, see the article “Data cleaning for transaction data”.
How it is calculated
The calculation follows three assumptions:
Price change and price impact are calculated exclusively in comparison to the previous year. If there is no data from the previous year, no calculation is possible.
All values are aggregated as a weighted average, i.e. items with a higher volume have a greater influence.
For Suppliers and Categories, all associated Articles are considered and summarized using the same scheme.
Example at Article level
An Article was purchased in two orders in each of two years:
Year | Quantity | Price [€/piece] | Value [€] |
2024 | 1 | 10 | 10 |
2024 | 100 | 20 | 2,000 |
2025 | 10 | 15 | 150 |
2025 | 100 | 25 | 2,500 |
Article price 2024: €2,010 ÷ 101 pieces ≈ €19.90
Article price 2025: €2,650 ÷ 110 pieces ≈ €24.09
Price change: €24.09 ÷ €19.90 − 1 ≈ +21.05%
Price impact: (€24.09 − €19.90) × 110 pieces ≈ €461 additional costs
Even though individual orders have very different prices, weighting by quantity gives a realistic picture of the price development.
Special case: volume shift
If purchasing volume shifts between Suppliers, the overall price of an Article can develop differently from the prices of the individual Suppliers. Example: Both Suppliers raise their price by 10% (Supplier A from €10 to €11, Supplier B from €20 to €22). However, because volume moves from the expensive Supplier B to the cheaper Supplier A, the weighted Article price falls overall from €18.33 to €11.52 (−37.14%). The same phenomenon can also occur when volume shifts between plants.
Typical use cases
Optimized Supplier negotiations: Use well-founded price data to negotiate better terms and hold strategic discussions with your Suppliers.
Creating management presentations: Export charts and reports in just a few clicks to support internal decision-making processes.
Adjusting Category strategies in a targeted way: Analyze price developments within specific Categories and identify savings potential or necessary adjustments to your procurement strategy.
View price development directly in the Article profile
In the Article profile, the “Key figures” section shows the price development by day (price and quantity) for the last three years, broken down by Supplier. This lets you see the price development of an Article without switching areas. Use “Go to analytics” to open the full report.
Permissions & access
The feature must be enabled for your account.
Visible to Users with access to the Article profile and to Analytics.
FAQ
Q: Does the chart in the Article profile correspond to Price Development in Analytics?
A: Yes, it shows the same price development as in Analytics, for the opened Article.
Q: What does the comparison price warning in the table mean?
A: A comparison price from the previous year exists for only a small share of your purchasing volume. The displayed price development is then of limited significance. Check the “Comparison price available” column.
Q: How is the price change calculated for energy prices?
A: For electricity prices, Tacto compares the average of the last 30 days with the average of the previous 30 days. This smooths out individual daily spikes and keeps the displayed price change meaningful. Electricity prices are very volatile and can even become negative — comparing two individual days would therefore easily lead to distorted values. For all other market indices (incl. gas), the current value is compared with the value from 1, 7 or 30 days ago.