"You Have Four Copies and They All Expire Sunday"
That's the sentence that separates disciplined couponing from casual discount use. Four copies of a $2.00/1 coupon on a product with a $6.00 shelf price, combined with a store sale that drops it to $4.50, is an $8.00 savings event on a Sunday morning. Missing it because you didn't know the expiration date — or didn't know you had four copies — is just lost money sitting in a drawer.
The coupon database is the system that makes "you have four copies and they all expire Sunday" a scheduled notification rather than a discovery after the fact.
Copies, Limits, and the Transaction Mathematics
Number of copies is the physical inventory count: how many identical coupons are currently in the binder. Coupon Limit per Transaction is the store's enforcement policy on that coupon: some manufacturers print "limit 2 like coupons per transaction" on the face of the coupon, others restrict to 1. The distinction matters because if you have four copies and the limit is 2 per transaction, the optimal strategy is two separate checkout transactions, not one — which requires knowing the limit before you're at the register.
Minimum purchase required captures a different constraint: coupons that require buying two or three items to trigger the discount. A "buy 2 get $1 off" coupon with Minimum Purchase = 2 paired with a quantity of 1 in your cart is a coupon that doesn't apply and doesn't save anything. That's the kind of error that happens at checkout when the coupon details aren't in front of you.
Together, Copies × Value — subject to Limit per Transaction — gives you the maximum savings available from that coupon in a single shopping run. Sorting by Expiration Date ascending shows you which savings events are about to close.
Exclusions: The Fine Print That Voids the Trip
The Exclusions field is where serious couponers record the text that manufacturers bury in six-point type: "not valid on trial size, variety pack, or multipack," "excludes items sold by the pound," "valid on 12 oz or larger only," "not valid at Walmart or club stores." These exclusions are not edge cases — they're the fine print that makes a coupon inapplicable to the specific product size or retailer you planned to use it at.
Recording exclusions at clip time takes thirty seconds. Discovering at checkout that your coupon doesn't apply to the 10 oz bottle you picked up — because the coupon specifies 12 oz or larger and the store only carries 10 oz — costs the transaction, the time in the store, and often the embarrassment of a voided coupon in a line with people waiting.
Coupon Type and Product Description together narrow the applicability: Type might be "manufacturer," "store," or "digital," which determines stackability. Product Description captures the specific variant the coupon applies to — not just "laundry detergent" but "Tide Original Liquid 92 oz or larger, HE formulas only." That specificity is what makes the coupon actionable rather than aspirational.
The Value field in USD quantifies what's at stake per coupon. Sorted by value descending, the database surfaces the high-value coupons expiring soonest — the planning view for a weekly grocery run that's optimized for savings rather than just convenience.