THE ESSENTIALS

Before covering how to manage subscriptions, let’s explain some key terms used throughout CRM.COM regarding subscriptions, services and billing.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Each Contact has one subscription per billing cycle (i.e. one or more services billed at the same time interval - monthly, quarterly etc.). A contact can have multiple subscriptions, and each one has a state reflecting the state of its services. Possible subscription states are:

• Active - There’s at least one running service for the subscription (i.e. a service in an Effective state), which the Contact is still paying for

• Inactive - A subscription has non-churned services, but none of them are activated (i.e. may have Not Effective, Paused or Draft states)

• Churned - All the subscription services have been discontinued either by the Contact or automatically due to business rules (i.e. all services have a state of Cancelled or Regretted).

Subscriber

A contact or an organisation receiving and being billed for their chosen subscribed services.

Subscription Terms

Subscription terms represent the Contact's agreement with the service provider and include the following:

• The agreement date

• The billing cycle - i.e. how often the subscription is billed 

• The billing day- the day of the week or month on which the billing cycle of a subscription begins

  • For weekly subscriptions, the billing day is one of the days of the week

  • For subscriptions with monthly cycles or cycles longer than a month, the billing day could be any day of the month from the 1st to the 31st

• The preferred payment method - one of the Contact's defined payment methods acceptable by the organisation and used to fund the subscription

Subscription Payment Method

The Contact can select from one of the organisation's accepted payment methods to finance each of their subscriptions. The chosen payment method will automatically collect money whenever the Contact is billed for their subscription. If a payment fails, the subscription will remain unbilled/unpaid and therefore be eligible for disconnection.

If a subscription payment method is not specified, then the billing engine uses the Contact's primary payment method instead (if any) to fund the subscription.

Subscription Address

Represents the physical location where the subscription services are consumed, typically one of the Contact’s addresses.

Devices

An equally important aspect of a subscription is its associated devices, i.e. the hardware required to provision the service to the subscriber.

• Any accompanying devices for a service can be specified in the dependency rules and are applicable for purchasing a termed, one-time, or even for consuming a usage service

• The required devices can be sold, rented, or already owned by the Contact

  • Sold devices - The device can be purchased through the same order as the service and will be invoiced as part of the order's invoicing and not by the subscription billing run. The subscriber has ownership of the device only when it has been paid for.

  • Rented devices - The device can be rented either free of charge or at a fixed price charged on every billing cycle. Rented devices must be returned to the organisation upon terminating a subscription service.

• Multiple services can be enabled via a single device, regardless of their subscription (i.e. the same device can be used to provision multiple subscriptions for the same Contact)

• A device can only be associated with a single contact and located at one of the Contact’s physical addresses

Ordering

Subscription ordering is when a contact purchases new services or requests changes to existing ones. When an order is placed for a service, either a new subscription will be created or an existing one will be amended. A service could also be billed, paid for, and activated, subject to the service’s billing model.

SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

A subscription includes the services purchased by the Contact for a specific billing cycle. Subscription services adhere to the subscription's terms, which the subscriber and the service provider have agreed upon. A subscription service can be configured as one of the following types:

• Termed Service - A service which is billed on a recurring basis, regardless of its usage

• One-Time Service - A service provided upon request and billed on a one-off basis. The service is provisioned to the Contact for a specific period of time and then churned

Each service has its own state too, this reflects the overall state of the subscription:

• Effective - The service is in use by the Contact, i.e. is being billed normally and paid for, or is in a trial period

• Not Effective - The service has been deactivated due to an outstanding balance, the service cannot be resumed until the Contact has settled the balance

• Paused - The service is temporarily discontinued for a period of time specified by the Contact, the service will not be billed for during this time. Pause periods can be configured in Settings.

• Cancelled - The service has been terminated, either upon contact request or due to being deactivated for a long period of time. Configure the cancellation rules in Settings.

• Draft- The service has been ordered, but payment is pending. Once payment has been settled, the service can be manually activated (become Effective) or, alternatively, be cancelled without applying the cancellation business rules

• Regretted - The Contact has changed their mind about purchasing a subscription service and has requested its termination. Based on business rules, a service can be regretted within a defined time frame since its activation (e.g. within 15 days of purchasing). Successfully regretted subscriptions are entirely refundable.

Trial Period

A temporary period whereby a contact can try a service free of charge (with no billing or contract obligations) before being billed for it. The trial period for a service is defined in its price terms and is effective once a contact has purchased the service.

A contact has the right to cancel the service at any given time during the trial period without penalties or any other restrictions whatsoever. At the end of the trial period, the service becomes a paid service (using a payment method), and its billing cycle begins.

Service Termed Period

A service’s termed period covers a number of billing cycles and begins on the date the service is activated for the first time or immediately after the end of a trial period. The termed period defines the duration a service will be used for before it is auto-renewed or expired. A termed period can be:

• Automatically renewed at the end of the termed period

• Renewed upon contact request before the service expires

Auto-Renewal & Expiration

A service is either auto-renewed at the end of its termed period, meaning that it remains active and is billed for the next period, or it expires and is deactivated (not auto-renewable) at the end of the termed period.

Contract Period

A service may have a contract period, during which the Contact is obliged to follow the service provider’s business rules, such as restrictions on when the service can be cancelled. Likewise, the service owner ensures that the service cost will not be affected if a price increases during the contract period. The contract period is specified in the service price terms.

Service Bundles

Subscription services can be sold individually or as a bundle. A subscription service bundle can have a fixed or a flexible composition:

• Fixed - A fixed service bundle includes a set of subscription services which can’t be altered at a fixed price. The Contact is billed for and provisioned the contents of the bundle.

• Flexible - A flexible service bundle includes a set of mandatory services that can’t be altered and are charged for at a specific price. However, add-on services (with or without an additional price) can be selected and added to the flexible bundle. The additional services can be added and removed at the discretion of the Contact, and the Contact is billed for and provisioned the contents of the bundle, including any add-ons.

Quantity

A service can have a quantity and be delivered via multiple devices, to multiple locations, or to multiple users. The service’s quantity can be changed anytime, and billing will be adjusted accordingly.

Service Locations

A service can be consumed at multiple contact locations. In such cases, a service is ordered with a quantity representing the number of locations at which it will be provisioned. Once subscribed to the service, the Contact can optionally specify at which specific location(s) the service will be delivered. Service locations must be selected from the Contact’s list of available addresses.

Service Activation & De-activation

The back-end service delivery process manages service (re)-activations and de-activations.

A service is a candidate for de-activation when:

• It’s in an Effective state, and there’s an outstanding balance with no grace period

• The service has passed its billed up to date

• The service is funded by an account, the account has an outstanding balance, and if there’s a threshold defined in the business rules, then the outstanding amount exceeds the threshold amount

• When the service is funded by the CRM.COM Wallet, and there are insufficient Open or Commerce funds in the wallet

• All payment retries have failed

A service, on the other hand, is a candidate for (re)-activation when

• It’s in either Draft or Not Effective state

• Its funding entity can fund it i.e.

  • The account is settled, or if not, its outstanding amount is less than the threshold amount defined in business rules

  • The CRM.COM wallet has sufficient Open/Commerce money to activate the service for one more billing cycle

BILLING

The billing process produces invoices that must be paid in accordance with the Contact’s credit terms. In cases whereby the contact credit limit is exceeded or payments fail during the billing run, then the respective service is deactivated.

Recurring billing is triggered according to configured billing rules; at the beginning of the billing cycle or a number of days before. The process runs on a daily basis and identifies if there are services to be billed. Its time of execution is not configurable.

Real-time billing is triggered upon performing various billable events such as new purchases, service or device amendments, applicable fees etc. Real-time billing is also triggered when usage charge limits are reached.

Some basic billing terms are explained here below, however, billing is covered in depth in the Billing manual.

Billing Cycle

The time interval for which a subscription and its services are billed on a recurring basis, for example, monthly or quarterly.

Billing Period

A service's billing period is the length of time for which the service will be billed. Therefore, a billing period covers a number of billing cycles in the case of termed services, or it has the same duration as a one-time service’s duration. At the end of the billing period, the service is either auto-renewed or expired.

Usage Charge Limits

Usage charge limits are a global business rule defining the maximum allowed non-billed amount of money or quantity which can be consumed. Once this threshold is reached, the Contact will be immediately invoiced for the additional non-billed usage up until that point in time, even though the Contact is not due to be billed yet (i.e. prior to the end of the billing cycle).

Usage Allowance

Restrictions on the services and physical goods a contact can consume, as well as the usage quantities (amount of money or units of measurement) which can be consumed within a period of time. 

Subscription-driven Billing vs. Payment-driven Billing

Subscription billing is either driven by the subscription itself or based on how much money a subscriber has to pay for services:

• Subscription-driven - This is the model whereby the service price and billing terms dictate when, how often, and how much a service is billed. Services are billed on a recurring basis, based on a billing day and billing cycle, and subscribers must pay in order to continue using the services.

• Payment-driven - A subscriber tops up their wallet with an amount of money, explicitly stating the services it should fund. Depending on the top-up amount, the services are billed for the longest billing cycle possible or even for multiple upcoming periods.

Viewing Subscriptions

In CRM.COM, you can view subscriptions in two different ways:

• All subscriptions are consolidated on one screen (Subscriptions > Subscriptions)

• Individual contact subscriptions from the contact screen (Contacts > My Contacts)

Navigate to Subscriptions > Subscriptions to see a complete list of all contact subscriptions with basic billing information, click on a subscription to reveal the services included.

Use Filters to quickly locate subscriptions using criteria such as contact details, next renewal, or when the subscription contract ends.

Open

Individual Contact’s subscriptions can also be viewed from the contact screen; navigate to Contacts > My Contacts > select a contact > Subscriptions tab. Services are grouped per billing cycle on this screen.

Open

The subscription’s main billing and payment information is also visible here:

• The billing day

• When the next bill will be issued

• When the next bill is expected to be paid

• When was the last billed period

Creating Subscriptions

Subscription services are purchased through placing an order, either directly by the Contact via a front-end device (app or portal), or through the back-end, by a system user who creates the order on behalf of the Contact. Refer to the Orders manual for more information on placing orders. Finally, in the case of B2B solutions, system users can add subscription services directly to either existing subscriptions for a contact or create a new subscription for a contact due to adding the first service.

Ordering a service entails selecting the service that the Contact wishes to subscribe to and selecting the service price terms. So if a service is sold in multiple price terms, then the service price and billing plan must also be selected.

In the case of a service being sold as a flexible bundle, then the bundle’s optional components can also be selected, these may or may not have an additional charge.

On checkout, the order quotation includes an extra section that represents the Contact’s first bill:

• Total amount of the first bill

• When this bill will be issued, and when it should be paid

• The period that will be billed

Upon placing the order, CRM.COM will either create a new subscription or amend an existing one depending on the Contact’s existing subscription billing cycles. For example, if the new service ordered has the same billing cycle as an existing service (e.g. monthly), then the new service will be added to the same subscription, if not (e.g. service is to be billed quarterly), then a new subscription will be created for the new service added.

Managing Subscriptions

A user can manage subscriptions via the back-end system by navigating to the specific contact screen, or by a contact themselves, through an app/portal.

Subscription actions are supported on two main levels; actions available at the subscription level that result in either changing the subscription terms or affecting all of the subscription services in one go and actions available per service.

Subscription Based Actions

These actions affect the whole subscription and its services.

Add Services

A subscription can be amended to include new services, but only through the back-end, by a system user. Contacts must place a new order via a front-end device if they want to purchase additional services. Similar to the ordering flow, the service is selected first, and then the price terms are chosen.

Add Device

Add a device to the subscription by simply searching for a device using its serial number. Devices which can be added to a subscription include:

• Devices owned by the Contact

• Devices from the service owner’s warehouse

Deactivate

Deactivate all the subscription services. This action is available only when there's at least one Active service available.

Pause

Temporarily pause (suspend) the subscription for a specified number of days. Services are automatically re-activated at the end of the paused period or manually by Resuming the service.

Resume

This action is available only when there are paused services and is used to resume their usage before the pause-end period is up.

Grace Period

Manually apply a grace period allowing due payments to be paid off. The grace period must comply with the minimum and maximum number of days set in the Grace Period system settings.

Change payment method

Change or set the subscription’s preferred method of payment, which can either be one of the Contact’s payment methods or their wallet.

Change billing day

Change the day of the billing period (only available for Anniversary Billing).

Cancel

Cancelling a subscription automatically cancels all its services too. This action is not reversible, and cancellation fees may apply.

Bill upcoming billing cycles

Bill the Contact’s subscription in advance for a number of selected billing cycles or up to a specific date.

View Bill

View the next three upcoming subscription bills with basic information such as:

• The period to be billed

• The services to be billed and their total cost

• The cost of each bill

View Actions

View a log of actions which have been executed against a subscription, including those which have been scheduled, scheduled and cancelled, or rejected actions due to insufficient funds.

Service Based Actions

These actions affect only the selected service.

Deactivate

Deactivate an Effective service.

Activate

Activate or re-activate a service. This action is only possible when a service is either in Not Effective or Draft state and is performed manually by default. An attempt to Activate a service will trigger the billing engine, which in turn will attempt to retrieve money for the service if the Contact’s credit limit is zero.

Service activation is successful only if the Contact is within their credit limit (if any), payment has been received, or any outstanding service payments have been settled.

Change

A change of service implies that a change is being made to either:

• The price terms (e.g. changing from a monthly to a quarterly charge)

• The components (add-ons) which can be added/removed from a service

• The quantity of the service (e.g. delivered to multiple locations)

A Tier Path configuration defines the permitted changes between services, thus allowing a service to be replaced with another service within the same path.

A change to a service will ultimately result in a price change if the price of the service increases, then it’s classified as a service upgrade, or alternatively, if there is a reduction in the price of the service, then it’s classified as a downgrade which in both cases will be reflected in the next billing run.

When the actual change of service will become effective can be defined in the Change Services setup.

Change Terms

Changing the terms of a service includes:

• Opt-in/out of auto-renewal - Amend the terms by changing the service from auto-renewed to one that expires, or vice-versa

• Extend termed period - Moves the next auto-renewed date, or expiration date, ahead by the set number of days

• Renew contract - Renew the contract for one more period

• Extend contract - Extend the contract period for a short period of time

Pause

A service is temporarily paused (deactivated, as opposed to cancelling) on request of the Contact for a set number of days. The service is automatically resumed when the pause period expires.

Resume

Resume a paused service before its intended date.

Manage Devices

Use this action to enable or disable a service on a device. Select from a list of subscription devices on which the service is already enabled on, to disable the service. Likewise, select any other device on which you can enable the service on.

View Locations

View the locations (contact addresses) where this service is being provisioned to.

View Allowance

View the remaining or permitted allowance for a usage service.

Regret

Regret a service, thus terminating it, subject to the regret period configuration. Upon successfully regretting a service, the Contact will be credited in full from the payment date.

Cancel

Cancelling a service may result in cancellation fees (subject to business rules). Cancellations are also subject to Cancellation rules set by the service owner. Once cancelled, the service cannot be re-activated, and contacts must re-subscribe. If no other service exists for the subscription, then the subscription will automatically become Inactive.

Device Based Actions

Use this set of actions to manage the devices for a subscription (if available).

Return

Returns the device back to the service owner’s warehouse if it has been rented to the subscriber. If a device has been sold to the subscriber, then it can’t be returned.

Replace

Replace a rented device with another one in the service owner’s warehouse. Not applicable for sold devices.

Service Dependency on a Device

If an order is placed for a service dependent on a device, then the service won’t automatically become Effective. The respective device must be connected to the subscription service and enabled through the Manage Devices option.

Device dependencies can be configured via product settings.

Planned Changes

An action can be performed immediately or scheduled for a future date. In the latter case, the user must specify either the exact date or in how many days the change will take effect.

Subscription or service changes can be scheduled upon contact request or enforced due to business rules. For example, Change Service might require that the service be downgraded at the beginning of the next billing cycle, so CRM.COM proposes the next allowed scheduled date, which must be set as the intended scheduled date.

Future Subscriptions

Subscriptions and services scheduled to start on a future date are described as future services/subscriptions. Future services can be ordered only by system users in the back-end and never through the ordering flow (e.g. Add Services or Change service action). Future subscriptions and their services have a future billing cycle that begins on the date that they are scheduled to be added and activated, and this future date also marks their billing day as well.

Time Travel

The Time Travel tool is available in Test mode and allows users to navigate back in time, enabling them to examine the behaviour of core processes. With the necessary configuration in place, users can then move forward to the present and verify outcomes such as service billing, applied promotions, or pending changes, ensuring accurate and reliable results.

Subscription Settings

To configure Subscription settings, select Settings > Subscriptions & Billing > Subscriptions.

Subscriptions

Settings applicable to subscriptions.

Action Categories

Action Categories can be used to group specific changes to the subscription or service, giving a business meaning to the change that was applied. Action Categories are also used for analytics purposes.

Cancellation Rules

Define the business rules which apply when a service is to be cancelled. Rules differ depending on whether the service is in contract or not.

Change Services

Define the business rules to be applied when upgrading or downgrading an existing service, i.e. set when the service change will be applied.

Pause Periods

Set up the business rules permitting the temporary disconnection of an existing subscription service by a subscriber.

Regret Period

Define the period of time whereby a subscriber is allowed to terminate a subscription service based on its day of activation. If regretting a service is successful, then the service will be credited, if not, then it must be cancelled (and may incur cancellation fees).

Grace Period

Optionally define a grace (extended) period whereby subscribers can pay off their outstanding bills after the due date without repercussions.

Being in grace prevents a subscription service from being deactivated due to owed debt. However, once the grace period is over, a service could be disconnected if the debt is not settled.

Grace periods are applied per subscription according to the above configuration.

Trial Management

The Trial Management feature allows the Business to determine whether a Contact is eligible for a single Trial service or can subscribe to multiple Trial services. In the first scenario, contacts are granted a Trial period only once when they subscribe to their first service that offers a trial. Subsequent service orders with trial periods will not grant the Contact with additional trials. In the case of allowing trials per service, contacts can try each service individually, allowing for multiple trial periods. However, each service is eligible for a trial only once, specifically during its initial order.

There is also a setting to allow extending the trial period by the maximum number of days specified (per service). If this feature is enabled, then a back-end user can manually extend the service’s trial period (Extend Trial Period option from the Subscriptions tab on the Contact screen), and the Contact will be billed at the end of their extended trial end date (in pre-bill cases). The Extend Trial Period option is only available if the extended trial period number of days has been set.

Service Restrictions

Define restrictions on how many subscription services a contact can own based on their account classification.

Service Delivery Rules

Automated actions can be configured and carried out without the need for human intervention. Configure the rules for automatic de-activation and cancellation of services.

• Service can be activated or remain active when accounting outstanding balance is less than - Set a maximum value whereby even if a contact's credit limit is exceeded, their services will remain active if the owed amount is below this value. For example - typically, a contact with a zero credit limit will be disconnected if they owe any money at all, however, with this setting, the Business allows contacts to remain connected if they exceed their credit limit by a small amount, e.g. owing less than EUR5.00.

• Define whether automatic de-activations will be:

  • Based on day and hour - The de-activation process runs hourly and deactivates any unpaid services within the hour, e.g. a 24-hour service will be deactivated within 24 hours of purchasing, and not earlier or later. This option allows for more precision due to hourly runs but need only be used if such services are offered

  • Based on day - The de-activation process runs once a day, and any unpaid services at that time will be deactivated

• Set the automatic cancellation rules for services that have been deactivated for a long period of time.

Products

Aside from the Subscriptions & Billing settings, Product related settings will also need to be configured as part of subscriptions. For a complete guide to Product configuration, refer to the Commerce manuals.

Navigate to Settings > Commerce > Products for subscription-related Product configuration. The settings listed below are clearly subscription related only.

Tier Paths

Tier paths are used to define a set of associated products (representing services) in a particular sequence. Tier Paths are referenced during service change actions to determine if a service can be changed and with which service(s) it can be changed.

Dependency Rules

Dependency rules ensure that subscription service requirements are not violated during a purchase or change of service. Types of dependencies that can be defined:

• A service product requiring a device (physical good) to be provisioned to contacts (technical)

• A service product requiring other services to co-exist on a subscription in order to be purchased by a contact (driven by  a company's business rules)

• A service product that cannot co-exist with another service on a subscription (cannot be purchased and delivered by the same subscription)

If the new service has a dependency on another service, then the required service must also be added to the subscription for the order to be processed successfully.

If the new service cannot co-exist with a non-churned subscription service, then that service must be removed.

Dependencies are handled manually during an order and are subject to contact confirmation.

Reference Material

You may also find it helpful to refer to the following manuals for further reading about Subscriptions.

Contacts

Contacts

Billing

Billing

Product Catalogue

Product Catalogue

Orders

Accounts

Promotions

Automations

Time Travel

TABLE OF CONTENTS