Overview

A subscription service is a service provided to a customer, as part of a subscription. Subscription services are following the subscription terms that were agreed between the subscriber and the service provider, as specified on the subscription. Subscription services can be one of the following:

• Termed Services: Services that are provided continuously and billed on a recurring basis, regardless of their usage.
• Usage Services: Services that are provided upon customer request and are billed on a recurring basis, based on their usage.
• Expense Services: Services that are provided and billed just once, for a fixed amount of money.

In CRM.COM subscriptions are categorised into 'Pre-bill' and 'Post-bill' which essentially describes the way they are billed. Pre-bill services are funded by an account controlled by a credit limit and services are rated and billed before their consumption. For Post-bill services the customer pays after the bill is received. 

Setting up Subscriptions 

Before you start using Subscriptions it is necessary to set up the system to reflect your own business needs.

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Generic Settings

Normal Subscriptions usually have two main characteristics; binding period which defines the time that subscribers are binded to honor their contract, and billing frequency which defines how often a subscription will be billed. Through Generic Settings you can configure the available binding periods and billing frequencies. Once configured they must be added to billing term schemes through which they will be made available on subscriptions.

Subscription Action Classifications

The action's classification is available only through an action's screen and it is used to provide reasoning as to why the action was performed. Mostly used for downsales actions (terminations, removal/swap of services).

Subscription Action Classifications are user defined and are used to describe why a subscription action has been performed. Classifications can be used when executing a subscription action. Refer to the Subscription Actions manual for more information.

Billing Term Schemes

Billing term schemes establish rules for billing and paying subscriptions; for example, define whether the subscription will be billed before or after the bill is issued, whether the billing will be done using an anniversary cycle, or all subscribers will be billed from the beginning till the end of the month etc. You can create multiple billing term schemes and upon creation of the subscription, agents will be able to choose the one which is applicable to that subscription. It is however possible, to update the billing term scheme of the subscription at a later stage if required. Once configured, Billing Term Schemes can be added to Subscription Plans through which they are made available for selection in the subscription.

Details required to set up the Billing Term Scheme: 

• Billing Type: Define the billing type that will be applied by default on services. 
  • Pre-Bill: Bill an upcoming period in advance, sufficient funds must be present in the account for a new subscription or amend subscription action to be allowed.
  • Post-Bill: Bill an unbilled period in the past, the customer submits a payment after the bill is received.

• Billing terms auto-renewal: Indicates whether the subscription will be auto-renewed at the end of its billing cycle or not. By default, all subscriptions are auto-renewed.

Generic Billing Rules 

• Billing Model: Define the billing behavior of the subscriptions. 
  • Subscription-driven: The subscriber has the option to select the period to bill in advance. The same period is applied for each subscription service. 
  • Payment-driven: Services are billed for a period based on the available wallet funds.
    
    • Billing Method: Defines the subscription's billing cycle (applicable only for Subscription-driven): 
      • Period: Period billing is a method of billing where customers are billed for a period of time which starts on a billing cycle day which is specified by the billing company.
      • Anniversary: Anniversary billing is a method of billing where customers are billed for a period of time which starts on a billing cycle day which is preferred by each customer.
    • Billable Period Start Date: Determines the start date of the billable period of each subscription service. By default, Billable Period Start Date and the Subscription Service Effective Date is the same but can be overriden here.
      • Subscription action performed date 
      • Binding start date 
      • Agreement date 
    • Billing Effective Date: The date that determines when a subscription service should start being billed. Subscription service billing effective date is by default set equal to the subscription effective date, but can be overriden through this setting.
      • Subscription action performed date 
      • Binding start date 
      • Agreement date 
• Allow concurrent usage: Determines whether pricing based on concurrent usage can be specified in the billing terms of this specific scheme. Applicable only for 'Commercial' type subscriptions where corporate customers require concurrent usage of their subscribed services in various locations, by multiple users or on multiple devices.
• Synchronize Billing: Available only for anniversary billing term schemes, defines whether subscription services will be rated up to the same date on each normal billing run (in order to have the dates among all services in sync after a billing run process.

Allowed Attributes

• Billing Frequencies: Specify all of the billing frequencies which are allowed to be used in subscriptions following the billing term scheme.
• Binding Periods: Specify which of the binding periods are allowed to be used in subscriptions following the billing term scheme.

Service Rules 

• Free Services: Specify the free services permitted for the Billing Term Scheme. 

Auto-renewed and Expired Subscriptions

An auto-renewed subscription is a subscription that is automatically renewed at the end of its billing cycle. As a result, an auto-renewed subscription is billed for the next billing cycle and remains effective so long as the account or wallet has enough funds. On the contrary, a subscription which is not auto-renewed will not be billed for the next billing cycle and it will be automatically deactivated. 

Billing Models

The Billing Model defines the billing behavior of the subscriptions as well as how the subscription will be delivered to account owners. Two models are supported:

• Subscription-driven model: A billing model where services are billed prior or after their consumption, either anniversary or period based. The Subscription's billing terms dictate its billing cycle, i.e. the day and the frequency on which it will be billed. A bill is generated and it has to be paid either immediately on its generation if the account owner has 'opt-in to Subscriptions' or at a later stage based on the account owner's credit terms. The bill is paid off by using account or wallet funds.
• Payment-driven model: A billing model where services are always billed prior to their consumption and never after their consumption. The Subscription's billing is triggered by the payment submitted by the account owner. The payment and its amount define the period for which the subscription will be billed, i.e. the account owner will pay as much money as required in order to consume services for as long as he/she wants. A bill is generated for the period of time defined by the payment and it is always immediately paid through the payment that triggered the billing. In cases where the payment is submitted against specific services, then the specified services are billed, otherwise a generic product is billed.

The available periods to be billed in advance for both models are configured in the Billing Term Scheme. In case of subscription driven the periods are available for selection when creating a subscription, while for payment driven models the periods are used by the system to check against wallet funds.

Anniversary or Period based billing

Anniversary based billing means that each subscriber is billed (usually) every month, on the day of the month that they were activated. This requires the Billing Run to be executed on a daily basis so that all subscribers are billed every month on the same day that they subscribed.

If anniversary based billing is selected then it is possible to define the Allowed billing cycle days range of allowed billing cycle days (i.e. cycle day is the day the billing cycle begins) and you have the option for the date to be reset upon the execution of changes done on the subscription (Automatically reset on performing one of the following events), such as the addition or upgrade of a service.

Period based billing on the other hand, will bill all subscribers on the same day of the month, regardless of the day that they have subscribed. The first time a subscriber is billed will either be billed for the remaining of the month and a month in advance or just until the end of the month (depending on the business model); this ensures that all subscribers will always be billed up to the same date and therefore the company will only need to execute one Billing Run per month.

If period based billing is selected then a specific Billing cycle day must be set.

If a customer has 0 credit limit and they have 'Opted-in to subscriptions', then they will pay once the bill is posted.

Restrict time of allowed subscription changes and bill accordingly

If you would like to take a payment before you proceed to changes on a subscription it is possible to define when changes can be done as well as how they will be billed. For example, if a customer would like to upgrade a service you can allow the service to be upgraded and bill immediately the difference between the old and new service, however if the customer would like to downgrade the service, you can allow the downgrade to take place only once the paid period is reached and bill for the new service,

This is possible through Billable event allowed performed date rules where you can select between 'Immediately' and 'At the end of the paid period' and Billing adjustment rules (via Billing Term Scheme > Billing Rules tab) where you can choose between:

• Bill Full period where the service will be billed for one complete billing frequency
• Bill the difference where only the difference between services is billed
• Bill until next billing period the service is billed up to the date that the rest of the services are already billed
• No billing adjustment no billing takes place

Additional settings

In addition to defining the billing and payment model, billing term schemes are also used to define the following: 

• Allowed billing frequencies
• Allowed binding periods
• Which services are free of charge (i.e. free to air channels)
• Whether concurrent usage is allowed (Refer to B2B Subscriptions)
• Usage service billing rules

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Subscription Plans 

A Subscription Plan defines the company's commercial policies which are applied on subscriptions of that type. 

Subscription Plans represent the offerings a company presents its subscribers. These offerings consist of individual products, prices, billing rules, and provisioning providers, or inclusive packages. The offerings can either be a-la-carte or bundled. A-la-carte allows customers to add from a pool of services which are then charged accordingly, while bundles have a predefined set of services and price. Multiple subscription plans can be defined and the one required by the subscriber is chosen upon creating the subscription; it is possible however to change the subscription plan at a later stage.

The subscription plan includes:

Plan Overview

General information such as Name, Alternative Code, Description, as well as:

• Subscription Model: Define whether the subscription plan is for Commercial purposes (B2B) or Residential customers.
• Can be used for creation by: The Business Units that will be allowed to sell subscriptions of this plan.

Billing Information 

A set of billing term attributes, 

• Select the allowed Billing Term Schemes for the subscription plan.
• Select the Default billing term scheme. 

Billable Services

Select the available Products (services) for the subscription plan, and specify whether each one is a Main (mandatory) service, or an Addon (optional) service.

• Usage Services Consumed - Specify the usage services that can be consumed through subscriptions. 
• Required Equipment - Select the Products/Types/Families of products required for the subscription service to be delivered. 
• Set up Providers - Specify the allowed provisioning providers through which services will be delivered to customers. 

Other possible actions from this section include: 

• Set up offers - Define a list of (special) offers for the subscription plan that will be available to be applied if a contact subscribes for the specific subscription plan. 
• Set up advance services rules - A set of business rules applied on services for subscriptions of this plan.
  • Restrictions: A set of restrictions which are applied among all non-terminated services of a subscription. Restrictions are applied throughout a subscription's life cycle.
  • Dependencies: It defines the type of services that can or should co-exist on subscriptions of this type. Only termed services are allowed to be added.
  • Tiers: Define allowed changes between subscription services (tiers) used by the Swap Services subscription action. You can create multiple 'tier groups', and within the group provide a tier level for each included service, which will define whether exchanging one service for another constitutes an upgrade, downgrade or a swap.  Note that the smaller the number, the higher the hierarchy of the service and that you can only swap services that belong in the same tier group. You can also define a tier group hierarchy where one group can follow another. In this case, the system will restrict the options to swap between services of the 'child tier group', depending on the changes in the services of the 'parent group'.
• Set up advance physical goods rules - It is possible to define from where physical goods (installed items) added on the subscription come from. For example whether they can be chosen from the ones residing in the company's warehouse and are available for rental or sale, installed items in a partner's warehouse which have already been purchased by the customers, or installed items already owned by the customer. If any of the options are blocked then agents will not be allowed to add installed items from that location. You can choose to block any of the following: i) hardware the customer already owns, ii) hardware bought from a partner or your company, iii) hardware which belongs to your company and will only be rented to the customer for as long as they are subscribed. 
  • Restrictions per type: Define restrictions for the subscriptions of this plan. 
    • Maximum number of concurrent logged in devices:  the number of devices that can be logged on a service simultaneously (includes registered and unregistered installed items). This option is directly related to cases where you can login to your subscription TV through multiple devices, e.g. mobile phone, tablet, smart TV.
  • Allowed un-registered physical good types: Define whether the physical goods of the specified type are allowed to be considered as un-registered physical goods, through which the subscription service will be delivered.
  • Dependencies: Define the type of services or physical goods that can or should co-exist on subscriptions of this type. 

Expense Services 

Specify the allowed expense services that can be manually added to subscriptions. There is also an option to Set up event-based expense policies from here, allowing you to define the rules that determine if an Expense Service will be automatically applied on a Subscription and be billed just once, and the conditions that should be met.

Trial Periods 

Specify the (free) trial period if applicable for this subscription plan. 

Trial periods allow customers to subscribe for a service and try it out for a free period of time. If by the end of the trial period the customer does not churn the service, then the service is billed. No payment is required in advance when purchasing a service in trial period, as its billing is initiated only after the end of the trial period. A trial period can be provided once per subscription or on every service purchased individually. In addition, the trial period can be applied to any or some of the available services of the subscription plan. In any case, the subscription or each individual service are allowed to go into trial period only once.

Subscription and Billing Policies 

Subscription and Billing Policies includes rules and restrictions regarding the billing and management of subscriptions throughout their life cycle. They are used to incorporate your business requirements into the system. 

Select a Subscription and Billing policy to add, available options include: 

• Generic - Define the life cycle states to be considered as 'billable' and 'non-creditable'.
  • Billable Life Cycle State Rules - Select the subscription service life cycle states that will be considered as 'billable' during billing for both 'Normal' and 'Prepaid Subscriptions'. By default, only the 'Effective' life cycle state of services is considered as 'billable'.
  • Non-creditable Life Cycle State Rules - Select the subscription service life cycle states that will be considered as 'non-creditable' during billing for both 'Normal' and 'Prepaid Subscriptions'. By default, only the 'Effective' life cycle state of services is considered as 'non-creditable'.
• Subscription activation - Define the settings that will be used when subscriptions are automatically activated as well as a number of conditions that should be met.
• Subscription deactivation - Define the settings that will be used to automatically deactivate subscriptions, as well as a number of conditions that should be met. 
• Subscription cancellation - Contracts bind customers for a specific time period, therefore guaranteeing that the customer will generate a predefined amount of money for the company. To this end, penalties can be imposed for cancelling a subscription earlier than stated in the contract. It is possible to define rules both for cancelling subscriptions or services which are either with or without contract, and define penalties with which they will be imposed.
• Subscription service rules - Determines the rules that are applied when adding, starting or stopping subscription services. 
• Subscription restrictions - Define restrictions on the maximum allowed number of subscriptions that a financial customer can own at a time, and the business rules related to a subscription's address.
• Resting period Rules - Define the rules that will be applied when a subscription goes into resting and the conditions that should be met. The rules can be applied either on all billing term schemes or only on specific billing term schemes. Exceptions on specific users or business units can also be defined per rule.
• Grace Periods - Define the rules that will be applied when providing an extension to a subscription's grace period, and the conditions that should be met.
• Regretting Rules - Determines the rules that are applied whenever a subscription or subscription service is regretted. The rules permit the customers to regret within a specific period of time after the subscription or the service was activated.
• Swapping Rules - Determines the rules that are applied whenever a main or add-on service is swapped. The rules permit the customers to swap services, only if a period of time after the date that the subscription or the service was activated has already passed.
• Expenses - Charge customers with one-off or recurring expenses:
  • Conditional expense rules: Define one-time subscriber charges that are applied when events occur, triggered by subscription actions.
  • Recurring expense rules: Define recurring subscriber charges. A period defined by a start and end event, within which a selected expense will be charged on a recurring basis according to the billing frequency of the subscriber.
  • Additional fees on bill rules: Define amounts charged on bill. For example, you can charge an extra amount for printed bills.

Billing Run Settings 

Define the settings that indicate how normal billing runs can be performed. 

The Billing Run, or the Billing Engine, is the billing mechanism responsible for generating Bills for one or more billing cycles. The Billing Run process goes through several steps (Rating, Invoicing, Assembling, Bill check digits generation) each one responsible for performing specific tasks and passing information to the next step, up until the Bill is generated. Account owners' payment preferences define if payment gateway requests might be submitted through the billing run process if Bills need to be paid off immediately.

Rating 

Rating is the process that decides the Period to bill in advance (how far ahead you would like to bill subscriptions) and provide the default values for the bill as of Threshold day. Any services with 'to date' before or equal to the 'bill as of date' will be billed.

Invoicing 

Invoicing is the process where all services and hardware are grouped together in an invoice or a credit note in case that customer must be credited. 

Assembling

Assembling is the process where all invoices and credit notes created by the billing run are placed together. Through the assembling settings you can define whether rounding is applied, as well as Exceptional Billing Settings which will alert you in case the conditions are met:

• Maximum amount in credit: The maximum amount that the customer should be in credit. For example, if this is set to 100, then if a generated bill amount is -101 then the bill will be classified as exceptional.
• Maximum credit limit amount: The maximum credit limit that can be provided to a customer, which can be either a fixed amount or a percentage of the customer's credit limit as specified on the customer's account. For example if this is set to 500 (fixed amount), then if a generated bill amount is 501 then the bill will be classified as exceptional.

Bill Check Digit Generation

You can select how the check digit added to the bill will be generated which can be based on the bill number, account or bill amount.

Usage Allowance Limits  (UAL)

Usage allowance limits are set to implement a threshold on how much a subscriber can spend or consume on a specific usage service through their subscription, on a daily or monthly basis or within a single transaction. Usage allowance limits can be defined in either cash amount or in a usage volume (e.g. usage in minutes, litres, etc. ). Usage allowance limits can be specified in two different levels:

• Accumulated usage allowance cash amount limits or Accumulated usage allowance usage limits which can be consumed Per transaction, Per day, Per month or Per billing cycle.
• Per Usage service which is the cash or usage amounts that can be consumed for a specific service per transaction Per transaction, Per day, Per month or Per billing cycle.

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Refer to Subscription Billing for more information on how CRM.COM handles billing of subscriptions.

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Using Subscriptions

Creating a subscription

To register a new subscription, navigate to the Subscriptions screen and click on NEW. To create a subscription the following information must be provided:

• An Account is required against which bills will be issued and the payments for the subscription will be made.
• The Subscription Plan which will provide information associated to the services and hardware allowed to be added to the subscription.
• The Billing Term Scheme which will provide the billing rules.
• The termed Services the customer has subscribed to.
• Optional:
  • The Traceable Goods Ownership (hardware) such as a set-top box provided to the customer.
  • Additional one off Expenses such as start up or installation fees.

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Using actions to modify subscriptions

Subscriptions actions are available from the subscription data entry screen and are used to apply business changes on subscriptions. Some of the available actions include activation, deactivation, putting a subscription to rest, modifying contract details and adding services or hardware.

Actions are grouped into three categories:   

• Subscription Service Related Actions.
• Subscription Installed Items Related Actions. 
• Subscription Related Actions.

Refer to Subscription Actions for more information.

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Activating subscription services

Subscriptions are created either in a 'draft' or 'effective' state. In case that the subscription is 'draft', no money is has yet been paid and no signals are sent to the customer's device. It is possible to activate a subscription at a later stage using the 'Activate Subscription' subscription action in which case, the subscription will be billable. Regardless of the billing model followed, money must be available in the account or wallet (based on the contact's Account payment preferences and if they have chosen to 'opt in for subscriptions') for the subscription to be activated.

Rules associated to activation (e.g. Activate Subscriptions when the Account Outstanding Amount is less or equal than) can be defined via Configuration > Billing > Subscription & Billing Policies > Subscription Activation. The activation service delivery process is a continuous process so subscriptions will be activated immediately.  

Billing of subscriptions services

Subscriptions are billed through the Billing Run, which is a background process and is executed daily. Additionally, a subscription will also be billed automatically upon activation.

Refer to Subscription Billing for more information.

Deactivating subscriptions services

Subscribers who do not have sufficient funds in their accounts or wallets to pay for the subscriptions are deactivated by the automatic deactivation process. The process is also responsible to identify and process subscriptions that are owned by accounts that have exceeded their credit limit.

It is possible to exclude subscriptions that belong to specific groups, accounts classifications (such as employees), and specific subscription plans from deactivation.

Deactivation is always applied at the level of subscription services. Deactivation can take into consideration the 'date and time' on which the services were activated (so that subscribers can benefit up to the last minute for the services they have paid for), or just the 'date', in which case the service gets cut off at midnight of the day that the services must be deactivated. Services taken into consideration are: 

• Subscription services that were classified as candidates for deactivation (from the Billing Run due to insufficient funds).
• Subscription services that were not classified as candidates for deactivation, but are owned by an account or wallet whose credit limit has been exceeded. 

Rules associated to deactivation (e.g. Deactivate Normal Subscriptions when the Account Outstanding Amount is greater than) can be defined via Configuration > Billing > Subscription & Billing Policies > Subscription Deactivation. The deactivation service delivery process runs every hour (if set to run per hour, otherwise once a day). 

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Reactivating inactive subscription services

Deactivated subscription services are activated by the recurring activation process or following a payment made against the account. The activation process also re-evaluates the status of subscription services that were classified as candidates for deactivation (during the billing run). It is possible to exclude from activation subscriptions that belong to specific groups, accounts, classifications (such as employees) and specific subscription plans.

Activation always takes place on the subscription service level and not on the subscription level. Services taken into consideration are:

• Subscription services that were not effective for a period that is less than the specified threshold, given that their account overdue balance is less than the specified threshold.
• Subscription services that are effective and are classified as candidates for deactivation, given that their account overdue balance is less than the specified threshold. 

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Provisioning subscriptions

Subscriptions for the Subscription TV business will also require provisioning of the content. Provisioning in CRM.COM is the distribution of the paid content (e.g. channels, film) from the video platform to the customer's device. According to the state of the subscription (active, inactive) the required information is communicated from CRM.COM to the TV platform or CAS which will in turn handle the signals to the subscriber's device accordingly. CRM.COM is integrated with multiple TV platforms and Conditional Access Systems. For more information refer to the Provisioning manual.

Cancelling subscriptions

Subscriptions and subscription services can be cancelled by the user through a subscription action, or automatically through a recurring cancellation process. Subscriptions or services that are inactive for a long period can be automatically cancelled (through system processes that are configured once and executed as often as necessary). During the recurring process, the system examines cancelled subscriptions or services, following the rules defined by the business set in the Subscription and Billing Policies under Subscription Cancellation.

The following settings are available:

• Select whether to cancel the whole subscription or just specific services.
• Provide the period (in months) for which a subscription should be inactive (i.e., in a life cycle state that is 'Not Effective') before it is considered as a candidate for cancellation.
• Provide exceptions for specific Business Units, Account classifications, Subscription plans.  

When the billing run is executed, any subscriptions complying to the cancellation rules will be cancelled accordingly.  

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Providing subscriptions or subscription services free of charge

Subscription services that are provided for free cannot be disconnected due to outstanding or insufficient funds. If all the subscription's services are free then the subscription is considered a free subscription. To create a free subscription or free services, define these services in the Billing Term Schemes > Service Rules.

 Applying discounts to subscriptions

There are two ways to offer discounts on subscriptions:  

1. Through price plans, based on purchased quantity/period.
2. Through offers, which are applied to a subscription based on subscription or account conditions, or selected by the agents creating the subscription by using the Provide Ad Hoc Discount action.

Refer to the Pricing manual for more information.

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Paying for a subscription

CRM.COM supports multiple ways of paying for a subscription. Cash, Direct Debit, Credit Card or other supported online payment methods. Depending on the payment model of the subscription, payments may have to be made upfront (before the subscription/service is activated) or after the bill is created. This means that the account must either have enough funds to cover for the payment or a card/online payment must be available from where money will be directly deducted. Payments required upon the execution of a subscription action (e.g. adding a new service) can be made directly from the subscription action screen.

Recurring card (online) payments

It is possible for customers that choose to pay with credit cards or other online payments, and to provide their credit card details so that a payment can be made automatically whenever required. This provides your customers with the certainty of an uninterrupted service due to payment failures. In order to enable recurring payments, the information (i.e card details or PayPal account) must be provided and saved on the subscriber's account, and enabled to be used for recurring payments ( select 'Opt in for Subscriptions').

Handling failed recurring payments 

In case a payment fails, a grace period can be extended to customers who settle their dues through recurring payments (protecting them from immediate deactivation). It is also possible to deactivate the service only until the payment is effected successfully (short-term deactivation). To enable this option go to Configuration > Billing > Subscription and Billing Policies > Subscription Deactivation tab > set the following parameter accordingly: On Recurring Payment Failure Exception (either Apply Grace Period or Apply Short Term Deactivation Period). 

Paying with a different card than the one defined as 'Opt in for subscriptions'

By default, whenever money is needed for a subscription payment the system will deduct money from the card which is set to 'Opt in for subscriptions'. If however, the customer wishes to pay using a different card, it can be done by selecting it at the time of the payment. If a card is not specified, the card that is authorised for subscription payments will be charged.

Paying with other means

If account funds are insufficient to cover a requested subscription change or the activation of a new subscription, and there is no registered card used for recurring payments, a customer can manually submit a payment. To do this, use the Pay Now option, which is available in subscription actions that require payment, and proceed to make the payment. This would usually be used in cases where cash is provided by the customer.

Making payments for specific prepaid services

It is possible to make payments to top up the subscriber's wallet for an amount of money that can either be consumed by all the services of a subscription or for specific ones. As a result, the payment amount is not just added to the customer's wallet but also allotted to the requested services. This can be done by defining the services which the payment is allocated to upon the creation of the financial transaction.

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Additional Processes and Automations for Subscriptions

B2B Subscriptions

Business-to-Business subscriptions represent the agreement between the service company and another company instead of a physical person. They allow the concurrent usage of the subscribed services in various locations, by multiple users or on multiple devices. 

Defines how the commercial account owner will be billed, i.e. based on which billing principle. Applicable and mandatory only if the subscription follows a Commercial subscriptions model. Available options are:

Billing of commercial subscriptions is done based on:

• Based on number of traceable physical goods - the number of physical goods (installed items) added to the subscription.
• Based on maximum capacity - number defined upon subscription creation which will always be used by billing.
• Based on actual capacity - number provided every time the subscription is billed and is based on the actual number of devices/users that used the subscription.

The above parameters are set on the subscription during creation. B2B subscriptions can only be created for accounts associated to companies and not physical persons.

To create a B2B subscription you must use a 'Commercial' subscription plan and a billing term scheme which supports concurrent usage.

Offering Subscription Bundles

A (subscription) bundle reflects a company's marketing offering that allows its customers to subscribe for a fixed set of services and physical goods. It includes:

• A fixed price for all services included in it.
• Common subscription and pricing terms to all customers that select to subscribe to it.

A bundle:

• Can be swapped with other packages (retrieve Subscription > Amend Subscription > Services section > Services to be swapped to: Any, Downgrade Service, Switch Service (same value/number of channels), Upgrade Service.
• Can be discounted automatically by auto-applied discounts or by discounts added on the fly (retrieve Subscription > Give an offer > select the offer > Apply on: All Products, Specific Products. Apply Ad-hoc discount option. 
• Have additional services swapped.

For more information on bundles refer to Subscription Plans.

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Communicating subscriptions 

It is possible to automatically create communications on various events that take place with regard to a subscription, such as creating, cancelling activating or deactivating, changing etc. by setting up an 'Event Based Communication Definition' accordingly. You can use tags (text that is automatically replaced by values specific to selected records) when creating communications. Tags are available for selection by typing '#'. It is also possible to manually create communications which include subscription related information through the communications page by adding the subscription number in the 'Referring to Entities'.

Refer to the Communications manual for a complete list of service request tags.

Approving subscriptions

Subscriptions can be configured to require approval from a specific user before they are further processed. This is done by setting up Approval Definitions and triggering Workflow Rules. For more information refer to Managing Approval Requests.

Automation on subscriptions

Subscription processes can be automated by using Workflows.  For example, you can use alerts to contact users or schedule activities, when a subscription of a specific type is created. For more information refer to Workflows. 

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Previewing days until deactivation

A preview is available through the Bill Subscriber action (Billing > Subscriptions > retrieve subscription > select Bill Subscriber from the Actions Panel), which can estimate the number of days left until the wallet (which pays for pre-bill and post-bill subscription services) runs out of funds.

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