The quick answer
Rebate agreements come from the Rebates and Trade Promotions SuiteApp, so install it and set up its preferences first. Then click New Rebate Agreement. Enter the name, dates, Status and Subsidiary. For a rebate a manufacturer pays you on your sales, set Transaction Type to Sale, Payment Type to Receiving, the manufacturer's vendor record as Payer, a Settlement Method and an Accounting Item, and save. Then click Add Agreement Details to pick the customers and items that qualify and set the calculation. Qualifying sales order lines show an Estimated Rebate Amount.
In this example, Westbrook Office Systems resells Northgate Devices tablets. Northgate pays back 8 percent of the price of every tablet sold to Preferred customers in the North and Midwest territories this fall, and Westbrook passes half of that to the customer as a lower price. Company, customer, vendor and user names are fictional example data.
Before you start
None of these screens exist in a standard NetSuite account. The agreement form, the Agreement Details popup and the rebate columns on sales order lines all come from the Rebates and Trade Promotions SuiteApp (Rebate Management). An administrator has to install it and complete its setup, including Rebate Preferences, before anyone can create an agreement. The rebate columns only show on sales order forms the SuiteApp is set up for. Your role also needs the SuiteApp's rebate permissions on top of access to sales orders.
The walkthrough follows Oracle's own demo of the SuiteApp. Field labels and sales order columns depend on the SuiteApp version, your forms and your role, so yours may not match exactly.
You also need the pieces the agreement points at: the manufacturer as a vendor, a rebate item to use as the Accounting Item, and the customer and item values you'll filter on. Here that's Territory and Tier on the customer, and Class and Manufacturer on the item. Those values have to be filled in on the actual customer and item records, or the criteria won't match. Customer Tier in particular is often a custom field, so check what your account uses.
01. Start the agreement and enter its terms
On the Home dashboard, click New Rebate Agreement in the Shortcuts portlet. If you don't have that shortcut, look for New Rebate Agreement in the menus the SuiteApp added for your role.
The Transactional Rebates form opens with Status Draft and Transaction Type Sale. Enter Agreement Name Northgate Fall Tablet Promotion 2026 and Agreement Reference # NG-4471, Northgate's own number for the deal. Enter Agreement Start Date 09/01/2026 and Agreement End Date 12/31/2026. Leave No End Date cleared, since the promotion ends with the year, and leave Stackable Rebate cleared too.
Set Status to Active and Subsidiary to Westbrook Holdings : Westbrook US. The promotion has already started in this example, so Active is right. An agreement that starts in the future normally stays Draft or Planned until its start date. A sale only gets the rebate if the agreement is active, the sale is dated inside the agreement's dates, and it's booked in this subsidiary.
02. Set the accounting and save
Under Accounting, leave Transaction Type as Sale and set Payment Type to Receiving. Receiving means Westbrook gets the money, so the Payer/Payee field is relabelled Payer and the checkbox becomes Auto Claim. On a Paying agreement they read Payee and Auto Disburse.
Set Settlement Method to A/P Debit, Payer to Vendor: Northgate Devices and Accounting Item to Supplier Rebate Credit. A/P Debit is meant to settle the rebate against what Westbrook owes Northgate rather than billing Northgate for it. The Accounting Item is the rebate item NetSuite uses on accruals and settlements, so check its accounts before you pick it. Leave Settlement Frequency and Auto Claim as they are.
Click Save. You can't add agreement details to an unsaved agreement. The agreement reopens as Receiving : Sale : Rebate Transaction with Agreement # 25. Your agreement number will be different. Transaction Type and Payment Type are now read-only, and the Agreement Details, Related Transactions, Accruals, Settlements and Update History subtabs appear.
03. Choose which customers and items qualify
On the Agreement Details subtab, click Add Agreement Details. The subtab warns that adding, removing or editing a detail can't be undone by clicking Cancel on the agreement, so if you change your mind, revert the detail by hand.
Each criterion in the Agreement Details popup is a multi-select list. An inclusion list names the values that qualify, and an empty one includes everything. An exclusion list names values that never qualify. A sale has to pass every criterion on the detail.
Under Customer Criteria, in Territory (Inclusion), click North, then Ctrl-click Midwest (Cmd-click on a Mac) so both stay selected. In Tier (Inclusion), click Preferred. That means a Preferred customer in either territory.
Under Item Criteria, click Tablets in Class (Inclusion) and Northgate Devices in Manufacturer (Inclusion). UOM (Inclusion) stays All. Lists you leave empty, like Category (Inclusion), don't filter anything.
04. Set the calculation and pass-through
Under Accounting Information, set Calculation Method to % Calculation and Calculation Amount to 8. Set Calculation Basis to Transaction Price, so the rebate is 8 percent of the line's sale amount. The other methods include Flat Amount, Fixed Cost, Guaranteed Profit %, Volume Amount and Volume Quantity.
Set Price Pass-Through Type to Percent (%) and Price Pass-Through Value to 50. That gives half of the rebate back to the customer as a lower price. Click Save in the popup. It closes and the detail is saved to the agreement.
05. Check the rebate on a sales order
Go to Transactions > Sales > Enter Sales Orders and select Customer Lakeview Learning Supply. Under Sales Information, Customer Tier shows Preferred and Territory shows North, so this customer meets the customer criteria. The order is dated 09/30/2026, inside the agreement's dates.
On the Items subtab, select NG-S12 Slate 12 Tablet. Rate fills in as 1,240.00. Enter Quantity 2. The line now shows:
- Actual Gross Amount 2,480.00, which is 2 × 1,240.00
- Estimated Rebate Amount 198.40, which is 8 percent of 2,480.00
- Price Adjustment 99.20, half of 198.40
- Adjusted Sale Amount 2,380.80, which is 2,480.00 less 99.20
The rebate on a sales order is an estimate, and it's recalculated if you change the date, item, quantity, units or rate. A sales order doesn't post, so nothing is accrued yet.
06. See which agreement wins
Click the line's View Applicable Rebates cell. The Applicable Rebates popup opens with Payment Type All. Rebate Information repeats the line: Actual Gross Amount 2,480.00, Price Pass-Through Value 99.20 and Adjusted Sale Amount 2,380.80.
The Rebates list shows every agreement the line qualifies for. Here there are two:
- Northgate Fall Tablet Promotion 2026, Agreement Detail ID 31, not stackable, Rebate Amount 198.40, Best Deal Yes, and Apply checked.
- Northgate Annual Reseller Incentive, detail 28, stackable, 49.60, Best Deal No.
When a line qualifies for more than one agreement from the same payer, NetSuite picks the best deal: whichever is bigger, the best non-stackable agreement or the total of the stackable ones. 198.40 beats 49.60. The Apply column is the agreement the line uses, and you can check a different row to override NetSuite's choice.
Check the result
- The agreement is saved as Receiving : Sale : Rebate Transaction, Agreement # 25, with Payer Vendor: Northgate Devices.
- Its detail limits it to Territory North or Midwest, Tier Preferred, Class Tablets and Manufacturer Northgate Devices, at 8 percent of Transaction Price with a 50 percent pass-through.
- The sales order line for 2 NG-S12 Slate 12 Tablet shows Estimated Rebate Amount 198.40, Price Adjustment 99.20 and Adjusted Sale Amount 2,380.80.
- Applicable Rebates marks Northgate Fall Tablet Promotion 2026 as Best Deal and applies it.
The recording stops on the Applicable Rebates popup, before the line is added and the order saved. The money shows up later. Accruals come from posting transactions, such as the invoice for this order, once the SuiteApp's accrual process has run, and they appear on the agreement's Accruals subtab. Claiming the money from Northgate is a separate settlement step, which shows on the Settlements subtab.
Common questions
What's the difference between a Receiving and a Paying rebate?
Receiving means your company gets the money, usually from a manufacturer or vendor. Paying means your company pays it, usually to a customer. Northgate Devices funds this promotion, so the agreement is Receiving, Northgate is the Payer, and the settlement method is A/P Debit.
Why is there no rebate on my sales order line?
Something on the line doesn't match the agreement. Check that the agreement is Active, the order date falls inside its dates, the order is in its subsidiary, and the agreement detail was saved. Then check the records themselves: here the customer has to be Preferred and in North or Midwest, and the item has to be in the Tablets class with Northgate Devices as its manufacturer.
What does Stackable Rebate do?
Stackable agreements can add up on the same line. A non-stackable one competes with them instead: NetSuite takes the best non-stackable agreement or the total of the stackable ones, whichever is bigger. The new agreement isn't stackable, so its 198.40 won against the stackable reseller incentive's 49.60 instead of being added to it.
Does saving a sales order create a rebate accrual?
No. The sales order only shows an Estimated Rebate Amount, because a sales order doesn't post. Accruals come from posting transactions like the invoice, once the SuiteApp's accrual process runs, and they show on the agreement's Accruals subtab.
What does price pass-through do?
It hands part of the rebate to the customer as a lower price. Here the rebate is 8 percent of 2,480.00, or 198.40, and a 50 percent pass-through gives the customer a 99.20 Price Adjustment. The Adjusted Sale Amount drops to 2,380.80, and Westbrook keeps the other 99.20 of the rebate.
Why can't I add agreement details to a new rebate agreement?
The agreement has to be saved first. Save the header with its dates, payment type, payer, settlement method and accounting item, and it reopens with the Agreement Details subtab and the Add Agreement Details button. If the subtab still isn't there, the SuiteApp setup or your role's rebate permissions are probably incomplete.