The Lock Column

What is this?

The narrow column headed * on the main grid — usually sitting just to the right of Future Price — shows a small orange padlock on any item whose Future Price was set by a specific rule rather than by an ordinary strategy step. The symbol inside the padlock tells you which kind of rule did it.

The padlock is a label, not a switch. You cannot click it to lock or unlock anything, and it does not stop a later strategy run from repricing the item. It is there so that when you look at a price and think "why is this one different?", the answer is one glance away.

Hover any padlock and Margin Master will tell you what it means.

The icons

Icon	Means	Where it comes from
	Priced from a margin rule — the price was calculated to hit a target margin.	A SKU-level exception or a rule set to a margin.
	Priced to a fixed retail — you typed the exact price you wanted.	A SKU-level exception or a rule set to a fixed retail.
	Priced from a cost break — the price came off a quantity cost break.	Any rule set to a Cost Break, including an ordinary strategy step.
	Priced from another price level — Retail, Level 1 through Level 5, a competitor price, List, a zone price, and so on. This is the catch-all, so it covers most of the price levels you can pick from.	A SKU-level exception or a rule set to any price level not covered above.
	Priced from another SKU — this item takes its price from a different item.	A SKU-level exception set to a SKU.
	Priced by a Custom Group — the item belongs to a custom group, and the group priced it.	Any custom group. Group members always get this icon, whatever the group prices to.

The icon tells you what the rule did, not what kind of rule it was. A SKU-level exception set to a margin shows the percent padlock, the same as any other margin rule — see the questions below.

When the column appears

If you price Ace Hardware, Emery Jensen, or Do it Best products, Margin Master adds the * column for you the first time a strategy run produces any locks, and slots it immediately to the right of Future Price.

Once the column is part of your saved column view, it is yours: Margin Master will not move it or turn it back on, so you can position it wherever you like, or remove it entirely, through Edit Columns. Removing the column removes only the display — the locks themselves are unaffected.

Blank cells

Most rows have no padlock, which simply means no special rule touched that item — an ordinary strategy step priced it, or nothing did. On some point of sale systems every freshly imported row carries a placeholder value that also shows as blank. Either way, a blank cell means "nothing to explain here."

The Z column is a different thing

The equally narrow Z column that often sits nearby is unrelated. It shows a vendor logo, not a padlock, on items that have zone pricing — the vendor pricing that varies by geographic zone rather than being the same everywhere. Which zones your stores use is set under the Store Manager (zones are assigned by Ace corporate; a store can override its zone there); see Main Window Orientation.

Tips

If you are looking at a surprising price, check the padlock first. It narrows the search from "somewhere in my strategy" to one specific rule type in seconds.

A screen full of padlocks usually means a strategy leans heavily on custom groups or SKU-level exceptions. Both are meant to be the exception rather than the rule — see SKU-Level Exceptions for why keeping them to a minimum matters.

Sort or group by the * column to pull every specially-priced item together for review.

Common Questions

Q: Can I click the lock to unlock an item? A: No. The padlock is purely informational — it reports what happened, it does not control anything. To change how an item is priced, change the rule that priced it: edit or deactivate the SKU-level exception, or remove the item from the custom group, then run the strategy again.

Q: My item has a SKU-level exception, so why does it show a percent sign instead of an S? A: Because the icon describes the action. Your exception is set to a margin, so it shows the margin padlock. The S padlock is reserved for the narrower case of an item priced from another SKU. If you want to see which items have exceptions, open SKU-Level Exceptions instead — that is the authoritative list.

Q: Why did this column appear on its own? A: The first strategy run that produces locks adds it, so that the locks are actually visible rather than silently recorded. From then on your column layout is respected.

Q: The lock is on the row but the Future Price looks unchanged. A: A Future Price of zero means no change, not a price of $0.00. The rule ran and marked the row, but produced no new price — usually because the rule had nothing to price from. Run the strategy again and read the Strategy Pre-flight Check dialog, which lists rules that cannot price.

Q: Two items are in the same custom group but priced differently. A: Groups run in sequence, and an item can belong to more than one group — the last group to run wins. Use Find Duplicate SKUs... in the Manage Custom Groups menu to find items that belong to more than one group.