Promotions
Promotions helps your office run promo codes for seasonal discounts, referral offers, and marketing campaigns while keeping redemption activity visible in ToolbagCRM.
When to use this
Use Promotions when you want to advertise a discount code and track how customers respond. Common uses include spring tune-up specials, first-time-customer offers, referral bonuses, end-of-season promotions, or limited campaigns tied to a postcard, email, or social post.
Promotions are different from customer-specific credits or loyalty points: a promotion is a reusable code with its own discount amount, date window, optional minimum subtotal, optional usage limit, and redemption totals.
Before you start
- Confirm Promotions is included in your ToolbagCRM plan.
- Open Settings → Features and enable Promotions for the account.
- Decide whether the offer should be a percent discount or a fixed dollar amount.
- Pick the campaign window, minimum invoice or quote subtotal, and usage cap before sharing the code publicly.
- Agree on who can create, activate, pause, cancel, or delete promotions.
Create a promotion
- Open Promotions from the main navigation.
- Select New Promotion.
- Enter a short code customers or office staff can recognize, such as
SPRING25. - Add a clear internal name and description so the team knows what the offer is for.
- Choose Percent off or Fixed dollar amount and enter the discount value.
- Optionally set a minimum subtotal, usage limit, valid-from date, valid-to date, and "applies to" note such as
HVAC tune-uporduct cleaning. - Leave the promotion in Draft until the campaign is approved, or set it to Active when it is ready to use.
The promotion list summarizes total promo codes, active codes, total redemptions, and discount dollars given. Use the tabs to separate active campaigns from drafts, paused offers, expired offers, and cancelled codes.
Track redemptions and discounts
When a quote or invoice flow checks a promo code, ToolbagCRM evaluates the code against the current subtotal before it is redeemed. A successful redemption increments the promotion's Used count and adds the discount to Discount Given; the dashboard totals those numbers across all promotions.
Discount behavior follows the fields on the promotion:
- Percent off calculates a percentage of the quote or invoice subtotal.
- Fixed dollar amount is capped at the subtotal so the discount cannot push the total below zero.
- Minimum subtotal blocks redemption until the quote or invoice subtotal reaches the threshold.
- Usage limit appears as
used / limit; when the cap is reached, ToolbagCRM automatically moves the promotion to Expired.
Manage campaign status
- Activate a draft when the offer is approved and ready for use.
- Pause an active promotion if the campaign needs to stop temporarily.
- Resume a paused promotion when the offer should be usable again.
- Cancel a code when the campaign is over early or should not accept new redemptions.
- Delete only when the promotion was created by mistake and you no longer need its redemption history.
Settings
The Promotions settings area can provide defaults for new codes, including default discount type, default validity length, and default usage limit. Defaults speed up campaign setup, but each new promotion can still override the fields that need to be different for a specific offer.
If a default validity length is configured, a new promotion without explicit dates can inherit that window. If the default usage limit is set to unlimited, individual promotions can still add their own cap.
Tips
- Use short, readable codes that office staff can confirm over the phone.
- Put the offer terms in the description or notes so the whole team explains it consistently.
- Review redemption totals after each campaign to decide which discounts are worth repeating.
- Avoid deleting completed campaigns unless they were mistakes; historical discounts can help marketing and billing teams reconcile what happened.
Troubleshooting
A promotion code already exists
Codes must be unique. Try a more specific campaign code, such as SPRING25A, TUNEUP25, or a location-specific code if your office runs separate campaigns.
A code is not applying
Check the promotion status, date window, minimum subtotal, usage limit, and spelling of the code. Paused, cancelled, expired, future-dated, over-limit, or subtotal-gated promotions will not behave like open active offers.
The usage count hit the cap
Only successful redemptions increase the Used count; checking whether a code is valid does not. When Used reaches the usage limit, ToolbagCRM marks the promotion Expired so the code stops accepting new redemptions.