Subscription Plans

With subscription plans, you can charge customers recurring (e.g. monthly) fees for using the service. For example, the fee is $30 per month for an IP Centrex phone line. You can include subscription plans in customer products (both main and add-on ones).

Use the Subscription Plan Management page to list all existing plans.

Add / Edit a Subscription Plan

To add a new subscription plan, click Add on the toolbar. An existing subscription plan can be edited by clicking its name in the list.

Field	Description
Subscription Plan Name	The logical name of the subscription plan.
Subscription Plan Name Visible to End User	A clear subscription name shown to end users on invoices and on their self-care interfaces (e.g. the internal subscription name is “Phone Book” while the name visible to end users is “Telefonbuch”).
Managed By	By default – Administrator only. The plan can be assigned to a reseller (Managed by NNN) so that it is manageable from the reseller's self-care interface.
Currency	Indicates which currency is used for billing calculations. All fee amounts in the plan are to be defined in this currency. A subscription plan can only be assigned to customers, accounts and products using the same currency.

General Info tab

Field	Description
Subscription Charges Applied	This defines the way subscription charges are applied to a customer’s account: At the end of the billing period – The customer is charged the full subscription fee at the end of the billing period. In advance – The customer is charged subscription fees until the end of the N^th full billing period following the current one. For instance, a subscription charged 2 months in advance is activated on April 1^st for a customer who has a monthly billing period. Therefore, the customer’s invoice for April will include subscription charges for May and June. When activated within the current billing period (e.g. April 10^th), the customer’s invoice will contain their pro-rated subscription charges for the incomplete billing period (from April 10^th till April 30^th) and their advance subscription charges for the two future billing periods (May and June). Progressively – The customer is charged a prorated subscription fee on a day-to-day basis. This means that by the end of the billing period, the total subscription fee amount will have been charged. For example, if the monthly subscription fee is $9.99, a progressive charge of $0.33 will be made daily. On the 10^th day the subscription charges will total $3.33 and by the end of the month, $9.99. Depending on your business model, specify how PortaBilling® will generate xDRs for customer subscriptions: Keep total charge only – PortaBilling® generates a single xDR updated every day to cover subscription charges from the beginning of the billing period untill the current day. Generate daily charges – PortaBilling® generates a separate xDR for each daily subscription charge. These xDRs can be used for accounting and reporting.
Periods In Advance	This is only available for subscription plans charged in advance; it specifies for how many periods advance charges must be made.
Subscription Is Activated	If the subscription is assigned to an account, this parameter specifies the date upon which the subscription charges apply: At the given start date – The first billed day is the subscription start date. The start date can be directly specified for subscriptions assigned to a customer or account. When assigned to an account having the status Not Yet Active (an account with an activation date defined as sometime in the future) via the main or add-on product, the subscription will only begin to be charged once the account is activated. Upon the account’s first usage – Charges are applied upon the account’s first usage.
Activation Fee	A one-time fee applied when the subscription is activated.
Activation tax transaction code	Specify the internal tax transaction code from the list. PortaBilling® will use this code to extract taxation codes for EZTax®, Avalara, GST or SureTax taxation plug-ins and send them for tax processing for services covered by a subscription activation fee.
Minimum Subscription Period	Time interval (in months) during which the subscription must remain uninterrupted to avoid penalties.
Early Cancellation Penalty	If the subscription is cancelled before the minimum required subscription period a one-time fee is applied. The following options are available: Fixed – A fixed charge is applied without taking account of when the subscription is cancelled. Remaining subscription charges – The charge depends on when the subscription is cancelled. For example: a subscription plan has a $30 monthly subscription fee and a 12-month minimum subscription period. A customer signs up on September 10^th and cancels the subscription on October 1^st (he has only used the service for 20 days.) In this case, the subscription will be charged for 11 months and 10 days, that is $3011 + $30/3010 = $330 + $10 = $340.
Cancellation tax transaction code	Specify the internal tax transaction code from the list. PortaBilling® will use this code to extract taxation codes for EZTax®, Avalara, GST or SureTax taxation plug-ins and send them for tax processing for services covered by the subscription cancellation fee (e.g. administrative costs).
Waive the charges for the days when no service was provided	Select this check box to exclude subscription charges for the periods when: A customer is suspended because of an overdue invoice. A customer or individual account has reached the credit limit. A customer or individual account has no available funds. A customer or individual account is administratively blocked. An account is expired. Clear this check box so subscription charges are always applied (disregarding customer / account status).
Can Be Applied More than Once	Select this check box to assign the same subscription multiple times to one account. Note that you can only use this option when you are adding a new subscription plan. For new subscriptions, the Can Be Applied More than Once option is off by default (so that subscription charges are not applied multiple times for the same account).
Round Charged Amount	A pattern that defines the rounding up of the amount charged per billing period (e.g. when the monthly subscription amount is $10.00, but the service was only used for 10 days, it is desirable to round up the applicable charge of $3.33333). This pattern takes the form of XXX000. An X (to the left) means that the digit(s) in this position will be left unchanged, while a zero (to the right) means that this position will be rounded off. For example, XXXXX.XX000 means that the amount will be rounded up two decimal places, so that 1.2345 becomes 1.24. Note that rounding off is always done upwards.
Description	An extended description of this subscription plan.

Periodic Fee tab

Field	Description
Periodic Fee	The value of the periodic fee that will be applied to the customer while a subscription is active if no special promotional fees or bulk discounts are defined.
Daily Periodic Fee (for subscriptions charged progressively)	This option is only available for subscriptions charged progressively with the Generate daily charges option enabled. Specify the value of the daily fee that a customer will be charged while their subscription is active.
Show rates for	Shows how the defined periodic fee will be applied to customers having a specific billing period (e.g. if a $10 periodic fee is defined for customers having a monthly billing period, a $2.33333 periodic fee will be applied to customers having a weekly billing period, etc.).
Usage tax transaction code	Specify the internal tax transaction code from the list. PortaBilling® will use this code to extract taxation codes for EZTax®, Avalara, GST or SureTax taxation plug-ins and send them for tax processing for services covered by the periodic subscription fees.

Promotional Periods tab

In this tab you may define specific fees for different promotional periods.

Field	Description
Promotional Periods	Promotion span – the number of billing periods covered by this fee.
Fee	Amount of the fee.
Show rates	Shows how the defined promotional fee will be applied to customers with a specific billing period (e.g. if a $10 promotional fee is defined for customers with a monthly billing period, a $2.33333 promotional fee will be applied to customers with a weekly billing period and so on.)

After you have edited a specific row, click Save to confirm that you have finished editing this row. (You still need to save the whole form – use Save on the toolbar for this).

Note that you can change the order of the promotional periods by clicking Up and Down arrows.

Multi-Months Discounts tab

This tab is available only for subscriptions charged in advance (In advance is selected from the Subscription Charges Applied list on the General Info tab).

To improve your cash flow, you can now encourage your customers to pay monies in advance by providing them with bulk discounts for subscriptions that are charged in advance (e.g. “Pre-pay for 6 months and get 20% off for Internet” or “Pay for 12 months and save $100 for IPTV!”).

You can set the number of billing periods and choose a discount value, which will either be a percentage (e.g. 20%), or a fixed sum (e.g. $20).

Field	Description
Discount type	Defines whether a discount is based on a percentage or on a fixed sum: Percentage – The discount is provided as a defined percentage, calculated from the standard periodic fee. Fixed amount – The discount is provided for a defined amount.
Months	Shows the number of months this bulk discount applies to.
Standard Fee / months	Shows the value of the standard periodic fee for the specified number of months.
Discount	The percentage discount value. It must be numeric (with a period allowed, e.g. 33.3) in the 1–100 range. A 100% discount means “free service.”
Discount Fee	Shows the auto-calculated fee value with the defined discount applied. If Fixed amount discount type is selected, then specify the amount of the discount fee here.