A price override is a feature of a retail management system which allows an authorised person to change the automated price of a product or service, in order to apply a discount. Price overrides occur for a variety of reasons. One common reason is to discount damaged goods. Another is

employee discount Discounts and allowances are reductions to a basic price of goods or services. They can occur anywhere in the distribution channel, modifying either the manufacturer's list price (determined by the manufacturer and often printed on the package) ...

and discounts given to other groups. An override may also be necessary due to the displayed price of an item not matching the price shown at the register. This can occur when staff have not caught up with changes to the display caused by recent price changes on the retail management system, or it may simply be a mistake. The customer is then given the old price for goodwill, or for legal reasons. Other reasons include

coupon In marketing, a coupon is a ticket or document that can be redeemed for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product. Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods or by retailers, to be used in r ...

redemption and items on sale.Donald J. Horan, ''The Retailer's Guide to Loss Prevention and Security''
pp. 138-139
CRC Press, 1996 . Price overrides can present an opportunity for employee fraud. Unauthorised large discounts can be given to associates of the employee. Alternatively, an employee can make the sale at the full price, then, after serving the customer, void the sale and enter it again, but this time with a discount which the employee pockets. For these reasons the ability to override prices is often limited to senior employees only, or alternatively, junior employees have a limit placed on the amount they can override, typically 10%.John Robert Wyman, ''Loss Prevention and the Small Business: The Security Professional's Guide to Asset Protection Strategies''
pp. 113-114
Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999 . This can be further refined by the retail management system distinguishing between the various types of transactions and setting appropriate limits and controls for each individually.

References

Pricing Management accounting Monetary economics {{Business-term-stub