Subscription Type determines the subscription offerings including services, rates, physical goods, and billing information. 

Billing Term Scheme defines the subscription billing rules, whether to pre-bill or post-bill services, the billing frequencies, binding periods and price plans. When the subscription type is selected, its default billing term scheme and respective values are set.

Price Plan is the set of rates at which a company offers goods and services to customers.  The default price plan defined on the billing term scheme can be modified. 

Billing Frequency refers to how often the subscription is billed. The default billing frequency defined on the billing term scheme can be revised. 

Binding Period is the predefined duration of the subscription the customer accepted.  Ending the subscription before it is over may be subject to a penalty. There is no default binding period defined on the billing term scheme but one can be selected.

Effective Date is the day on which the services included in the subscription started getting billed.  It reflects a change in the life cycle state of the subscription from 'Draft' to 'Effective'. 

Agreement Date is the day on which the contract was signed. 

Life Cycle State reflects the operational state of the subscription. It is automatically set by the system based on the status of the subscription and its services, usually on the execution of a subscription action.  Refer to subscription services life cycle state for more information.

Allowed Cycle Day is used to specify the day of the month on which the billing cycle ends.  It is set automatically for 'Period' billing, based on the configuration of the billing term scheme, and manually (as agreed with the subscriber) for 'Anniversary' billing. 

Concurrent Usage based pricing is the application of a price rate, based on the total number of persons simultaneously using a service or installed item, and a percentage the customer and company agreed on.  Concurrent usage based pricing must be supported by the selected billing term scheme.

• Concurrent Usage is the total number of people that can use a service at the same time.   
  E.g., the number of rooms in a hotel with access to channels from the same subscription.
  
  
• Concurrent Usage Rate Percentage is the rate that should be applied to concurrent services.
  The following formula is used in the billing calculation:  
  Total Subscription Rate = Subscription Rate * Concurrent Usage Rate Percentage * Concurrent Usage  
  (E.g., $1000/month = $50/month * 20% * 100 rooms)
   

Mandatory are the services without which a subscription is not possible (e.g., a specific channel). Optional are the ones that may be added to a subscription. 

Service: A termed product to which clients can subscribe, such as a broadband TV or telephony service. Only termed services can be added.

Distributor: An abstract layer used in CRM.COM to relate subscription services (e.g., broadband) and subscription associated devices (e.g., modems) to a provisioning provider and to define what services will be available from each device (if more than one is available).

Components Services: a link to available services that constitute a bundle (offered for sale as one product).

First Activated On is the date on which the service first became 'Effective'. 

Rated Up To is the date up to which the service has been billed. 

Life Cycle State reflects the state of the service during the current period and determines whether subscription services should be charged.  Subscription services in an 'Effective' state are charged by default; this can be modified in the billing definition.  

View History provides information for the service during specific periods:

• Billing Directive determines whether a period should be debited, credited or ignored by billing.
• Rating State indicates whether the period has already been taken into consideration by the billing engine.  A 'Pending' state indicates that the period has not been billed yet, whereas a 'Completed' state indicates that the period has already been billed/credited.

Installed items provided to subscribers that can be distributed to one or more provisioning distributors from one or more providers. 

Serial Number is a unique identifier for the specific physical product.

Ownership Status reflects whether the company or customer owns the installed item.

Distributors are the companies from which the installed item is available.

Components are other physical goods that may be part of the installed item bundle.

Subscription information can be communicated to the subscriber by email or SMS. 

The small tasks or actions requested and scheduled for the subscription, such as an installation or maintenance visit.
Activities can be automatically scheduled for a subscription through Workflow Rules.

Classification: The type of billable entity that can use the scheme is  'Subscriptions'.

Billing Type: The method used by the billing engine to bill products is 'Prepaid'.

Life Cycle State: A scheme must be in an 'Effective' state to be used on subscriptions during billing runs.

Define the termed and expense services available to the specific billing term scheme.

Pre-rated Period is Adjustable per Subscription: The setting applies to 'pre-rated' billing type services. If enabled, the period for which the service will be activated and billed will be based on the funds available in the wallet of the subscriber. If disabled, the billed period must be selected by the user (upon service addition or initiation) based on the available periods, defined in the 'Period Billed in Advance' field.

For termed services, use the Billing Type to select between:

• Post-Rate for services that are billed after being used for a certain period.  The funds are directly deducted from the wallet.
• Pre-Rate for services that are billed and must be paid for a Period Billed in Advance; funds are directly deducted from the Wallet to cover the whole period. 
  • Period Billed in Advance: This is the unit of time that a pre-rated service should be billed in advance.  If the funds are insufficient to cover the pre-rated period, then services cannot be activated.  
    Select multiple pre-rate billing type services and click Set Periods Billed In Advance to set the same available periods for all services.

Expenses do not have a billing type as they are billed by the next billing run.

Billable Period Start Date: Determines the date from which the service is considered by the billing run, regardless of the date on which the service became 'Effective'. 

Billing Effective Date: The date from which a service should start being billed. By default, it is equal to the subscription service Effective Date.

For example, if the Billing Effective Date is 1 June and Billable Start Date is 5 June, then a service will be billed from 1 June, on 5 June.

By default, the Billable Period Start Date is the same as the Billing Effective Date. 

Discount Option: Determines whether the billing terms will use fixed or flexible pricing. If fixed pricing is selected, then additive discounts cannot be applied to billable entities.

Allow Concurrent Usage: Determines whether pricing based on concurrent usage can be specified in the billing terms.

Determines the rules that are applied when using the Amend Billing Terms subscription action.

Minimum Period of Time Before Billing Term Amendment: Constraints the user to schedule the action on a predetermined number of days after the end of the next billing cycle, so that it does not coincide with an already billed period.

Exceptions allow specific users or units to override the rule.

Classification: 'Flexible' or 'Package'.

Ranking Level is used to set the priority of subscriptions during activations, deactivations, and cancellations. If an account does not have sufficient balance to fund all of its subscriptions:

• Subscriptions with the lowest ranking will be deactivated and/or canceled first
• Subscriptions with the highest ranking will be activated first

Billing Term Scheme (mandatory and cannot be amended once the package is saved).

Binding Period applied if allowed by the billing term scheme (defaults to the value provided on the scheme).

Price Plan: The base price plan is generated once the type is saved, using the rates defined for each service in the 'Allowed Attributes' tab.

Billing Frequency (if not defined, subscription are created using the default billing frequency of the billing term.

Designate main services with a 'Yes' under Mandatory and additional services with a 'No'. At least one service is required in order to register a subscription.

If the classification is set to 'Package', then the price plan base rate must also be defined. The price plan for the package will be created on saving the subscription type.

Define schemes to make available for selection when creating a subscription of each type.

The billing type must be set once services added to the type (that were not on the original scheme) are populated.

This section can be used to define:

• Distributors that can be used for subscriptions of the specific type
• Whether to block undistributed services and installed items from being added to subscriptions
• Dependencies, such as distributors that should already be present on the subscription before a new one is selected. E.g., a main distributor should be present before a twin distributor can be added to a Pay TV subscription.
• Exceptions (products to which the dependency rules do not apply).

Define prerequisites for the addition of products and product types.

Select the dependent product or product type and up to ten prerequisites (products or product types).

You can define whether all the specified values or at least one should be met.

Define allowed changes between subscription services 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'. 

Define the minimum and the maximum number of installed items of each type that can be added to a subscription.

• Maximum number of concurrent usage: the number of devices that can be logged on a service simultaneously (includes registered and unregistered installed items).
  
  
• Physical Good Type: Define type and minimum/maximum number of items allowed per subscription.
  
  
• Allowed Un-registered Physical Good Type: Define types that will be used by a subscription, while not registered in CRM.COM. E.g., a subscriber may log into a service using a smartphone, tablet or smart TV. The un-registered items may be used and are considered in the calculation for 'Maximum concurrent usage'.

Define prerequisites for the addition of products and product types.

Select the dependent product or product type and up to ten prerequisites (products or product types).

You can define whether all the specified values or at least one should be met.

Subscription and Job Types available in the system, which follow billing definition settings.

Billable Life Cycle States: Subscription states whose period is considered billable other than the default 'Effective' state.

Non-Creditable Life Cycle States: Subscription states whose period should not be refunded (credited) other than the default 'Effective' and 'Draft' life cycle states.
For each state, you can define the conditions that make it non-creditable.

Allowed Billing Frequencies: Define the billing frequencies for use in billing term schemes, using the available custom values, labels and configurable units of time, in order to map your personal business requirements.

Allowed Binding Periods: Define the binding periods for use in billing term schemes, using the available custom values, labels and configurable units of time, in order to map your personal business requirements. The binding date can also be set automatically, based on a date set in this section, on an (X) number of days after the:

• • Subscription Effective Date
  • Subscription Created Date
  • Subscription Agreement Date

View configured schemes for normal subscriptions, prepaid subscriptions, and jobs, or create a new scheme.

Number Of Threads: The number of processor threads that should be used by the normal billing run.

Recurrence: The settings that are applied to all billing runs that are classified as recurring.

The settings that will be applied during the rating step of the normal billing run.

 Period To Bill In Advance determines how far ahead to pre-bill services.

• Billing Frequency Period: Services are billed for the rest of the month plus one subscription period. E.g., if the billing frequency is three months, the billing cycle date is the first day of the month, and a subscriber signs up on the 15th, then the bill includes three months and 15 days.
• Billing Frequency Period - Post Bill Prorated Period: New services are billed for one subscription period, minus the days remaining in the current month. E.g., if the billing frequency is three months, the billing cycle date is the first day of the month, and a subscriber signs up on the 15th, then the bill includes two months and 15 days.

Period Cycle Adjustment: Defines how a billed period is adjusted when amendments are made to pre-billed services, such as upgrading, downgrading, or amending the billing frequency, which will result in a different 'From' and 'Cycle' date (specified in the billing terms).

The date can be adjusted to:

• Previous Billing Cycle Date
• Next Billing Cycle Date
• Nearest Billing Cycle Date Based on Threshold Day (a value between 1 and 31 representing a day of the month). 
  The nearest billing cycle is the previous cycle if the date is before or on threshold day.
  The nearest billing cycle is the next cycle if the date is after the threshold day.

Bill as of Day Settings: used by the billing run to select and bill subscriptions that have their 'Rated up to Date' equal to or before the 'Bill as of Day '.

• Day of Month to be used in the 'Bill as of Day', the first time a normal billing run is configured.
• Period After Previous Billing Run a unit of time added to the current billing run 'Bill as of Date', in order to calculate the 'Bill as of Date' of the next scheduled billing run.

The settings applied during the invoicing step of the normal billing run include the Debit Financial Transaction Type which is used to create Invoices, theCredit Financial Transaction Type which is used to create Credit Notes and the Minimum Amount In Debit which is necessary to bill Rated Billing Items.  

Set Transaction Date X UOT After Billing Run uses the date on which the Billing Run is executed to set the Invoice Transaction Date.

Usage Detail Records Invoicing: Defines whether Usage Detail Records will be invoiced individually (in separate invoice lines), or grouped together per usage service in a single invoice line.

Settings applied during the assembling step of the normal billing run.

The rounding options define whether bills will be rounded off and the Rounding method used.

• Integer scale
• Rounding product: The product that will be included in the rounding debit or credit financial transaction.
• Debit adjustment type: The type of financial transaction that will create the adjustment Invoice.
• Credit adjustment type: The type of financial transaction that will create the adjustment credit note. 

Exceptional Billing Settings are the requirements to classify a bill as potentially problematic and in need of investigation, for easy identification.

• Maximum credited amount: The credit amount that when exceeded results in a bill being classified as Exceptional. 
• Maximum debited amount: A value reflecting an account's credit limit, that when exceeded by a new bill, results to the bill being classified as Exceptional.   

Include financial transactions not previously included in bills (transactions posted between billing runs)

Include financial transactions posted X days ago: Defines that only transactions posted X days ago (and not included in another bill) will be included in the current bill.

Settings applied during the formatting step of the normal billing run, for exporting usage and rating information in an XML file.

The formatting step can be enabled and applied automatically (when the billing run is submitted), or manually (when the billing run is executed).

Define the generation rules for bill check digits by specifying how check digits should be generated, and which type of bill payments will require them.

Rules:

• Generate Check Digit for Bill Number     
• Generate Check Digit for Accounts Receivable Number 
• Generate Check Digit for Bill's Amount 

Check digits required for Payment Types: Define a set of payment types that should require valid check digits to be specified when a payment is posted against a bill. If none are specified, then all payments will require a payment code.

Enable Wallet Consumption Estimation Step by Default: used to forecast how many days are left until the whole wallet amount is consumed by the current subscription services.

Maximum Estimation Period:  The prepaid billing process look-ahead period when estimating the consumption date for a subscription service.  Available for 'Re-estimate All' and 'Re-estimate Only Wallet with Changes'.

Rules that determine whether and when customers are allowed to rest their subscription or services.

Rules that determine when customers are allowed to regret their subscription or services.

Expressed as a unit of time after the:

• Subscription Effective Date
• Binding Start Date
• Agreement Date

Define Allow Subscription Cancellation OR (Allow Mandatory Services Cancellation AND Allow Optional Services Cancellation).

Rules which determine when customers are allowed to upgrade, downgrade or switch mandatory and optional services.

Expressed as a unit of time after the:

• Subscription Effective Date
• Binding Start Date
• Agreement Date
• Next Billing Cycle

Rules which determine when customers are allowed to upgrade, downgrade or switch packages

Expressed as a unit of time after the:

• Subscription Effective Date
• Binding Start Date
• Agreement Date
• Next Billing Cycle

Rules which determine when customers are allowed to replace their subscription

Expressed as a unit of time after the:

• Subscription Effective Date
• Binding Start Date
• Agreement Date
• Next Billing Cycle

Determines the rules for canceling a subscription without a contract or whose contract has ended.

Notice Period Before Cancelling: the period before the requested cancellation date during which the customer must notify the company.

Minimum Period of Time Before Cancellation out of Binding: Constraints the user to schedule the action on a predetermined number of days after the end of the next billing cycle so that it does not coincide with an already billed period.

If both periods are defined, then the action will be scheduled for the later of the two.

Determines the rules for canceling a subscription with a running contract. 

Notice Period Before Cancelling: the period before the requested cancellation date during which the customer must notify the company.

Minimum Period of Time Before Cancellation in Binding: Constraints the user to schedule the action on a predetermined number of days after the end of the next billing cycle, so that it does not coincide with an already billed period.

If both periods are defined, then the action will be scheduled for the later of the two.

Define one-time subscriber charges that are applied when events occur, triggered by subscription actions.

Expense Service automatically added on the subscription once the conditions of the policy are met. Only products marked as expense services are available. Only one expense service can be defined per event-based conditional expense policy.

Entity: the subscription or job associated with the event, which will trigger the rule.

Events: A pre-defined list of events upon which the expense service might be eligible to be automatically applied on a subscription provided the policy conditions. Only one event can be selected each time.

Execution Method: Define the execution method of the event in order for the conditional expense to be applied on the subscription. This field is available only for subscription deactivation or activation). The following options are available:

• Both Manually and through Automatic Process (default): The expense is applied if a subscription action is executed manually or through an automatic process (such as a batch process).
• Only Manually: The expense will be applied only if a subscription action is manually executed.
• Only Automatic Process: the expense will be applied only if a subscription action is executed through an automatic process.

Application Method: Whether any event-based expense will be added at the time the event occurs or during the next billing run (default).

Applicable only if the billing term scheme applies the "Pay After Bill" payment model

Due Date Rules: How the due date will be set on the invoice financial transaction that will charge the applied Expense service. Applicable only if the method is set to 'On event execution'. Available options are:

• Based on accounts receivable Credit Period Terms (default)
• X UOT after posting date

Conditions required for the expense service to be added on the subscription. Multiple conditions can be defined for each event-based conditional expense policy.

Add Expense Action Type

Add Expense Sub Action Type

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.

Expense Service automatically added/removed on the subscription once the policy's conditions are met.

Events to apply: A pre-defined list of events upon which the recurring expense service might be eligible to be automatically applied on a subscription provided the policy's conditions are met.

Events to terminate: A pre-defined list of events upon which the recurring expense subscription service might be eligible to be automatically terminated from a subscription if none of the policy's conditions are met.

Apply period cycle adjustment: Whether billing recurring expense will be adjusted based on the subscription's period cycle.

Conditions that should be met in order for the expense service to be added on a subscription.

Add Expense Action Type

Add Expense Sub Action Type

Cancel Expense Action

Cancel Expense Sub Action

Used to define penalties when a service is canceled while in or out of binding, and the conditions for the penalty to apply. 

Penalties for a cancellation during binding can be a fixed amount or a percentage based on the time remaining.

For example:

• 20% for canceling 12 to 6 months before the binding end date
• 10% for canceling 6 months before the binding end date.

Penalties for a cancellation out of binding can only be fixed.

Define whether additional expenses will be applied on the bill of each account owner.

Expense service added on a bill as an additional fee. Only expense services can be selected.

Conditions that should be met to apply the additional fee during a normal billing run. Multiple sets of conditions can be defined and a fee is applied if on or more set of conditions are met. If no conditions are set, then a fee is applied to all bills. Each set of conditions includes:

• Accounts Receivable Presentment Method (associated with the job or subscription)
• Accounts Receivable Classification
• Billing Term Scheme (associated with the job or subscription being billed).

Subscription and job events that override the default CRM.COM credit limit rule, based on the accounts receivable classification and credit rating conditions.

The CRM.COM credit limit rule blocks the execution of subscription actions if the balance of the accounts receivable is greater than the credit limit.

Define whether specifying an address for a new subscription is mandatory or not, and the conditions for when it is 'Not Mandatory On Conditions'.

Define settings that will be used when subscriptions are automatically activated and the conditions that should be met.

Subscription Action Type and Sub Action Type: The actions that will be used and logged upon activation.

Subscription Deactivation Period: Activation will only affect services that were deactivated x days ago.

Accounts Receivable Outstanding Amount: Only subscriptions with an outstanding amount that is less than or equal to the amount defined will be activated.

Apply on Events

• On Posting Payments: Subscriptions will be automatically activated when payments are posted.
• On Scheduling Subscription Activation: Activation of subscriptions can be scheduled to take place at a specific time and period.
• Payment Types that trigger the automatic subscription activation process.

Exclusion: Groups of specific users, certain accounts receivable classifications (such as 'employee') and specific subscription types can be excluded from the activation process.

Define settings that will be used when subscriptions are automatically deactivated and the conditions that should be met.

Subscription Action Type and Sub Action Type: The actions that will be used and logged upon deactivation.

Normal Subscription Deactivation Method: Select between based on the day and hour of the activation, or only based on the day.

Prepaid Subscription Deactivation Method: Select between based on the day and hour of the activation, or only based on the day.

Accounts Receivable Outstanding Amount: Only applicable for normal subscriptions. Only subscriptions with an outstanding amount greater than the defined amount will be deactivated.

Apply on Events

• On Prepaid Subscription Deactivation Process
• On Scheduling Normal Subscription Deactivation: Deactivation of subscriptions can be scheduled to occur at a specific time and period.

Recurring Payment Failure Exceptions: Defines the exceptions provided when an automatic recurring payment fails to be submitted.

• Exception provided: A 'grace' or 'short-term deactivation' period can be applied to avoid deactivating the customer once the payment has failed.
• Number of Days to be applied in grace or short-term deactivation periods (allow up to 30 days).

Exclusion: Groups of specific users, certain accounts receivable classifications (such as 'employee') and specific subscription types can be excluded from the scheduled deactivation process.

Define settings that will be used when subscriptions are automatically canceled, as the conditions that should be met.

Cancellation Type: whether cancellation affects individual services or the whole subscription.

Subscription Action Type and Sub Action Type: The actions that will be used and logged upon cancellation.

Apply on Events

• On Scheduling Subscription Cancellation: Cancellation of subscriptions can be scheduled to occur at a specific time and period.

Period in Not Effective Life Cycle State: A subscription that has been inactive for a certain period of time, can be scheduled to be canceled, based on the following settings:

• Prepaid Subscription Period or Normal Subscription Period that is not effective for a period greater than the defined value. 

Exclusion: Groups of specific users, certain accounts receivable classifications (such as 'employee') and specific subscription types can be excluded from the scheduled cancellation process.