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• Recurring Charges: Counters

Creating Counters and Pricing Plans

You can quickly create Counters in your m3ter Organization, which you can then use as pricing metrics to apply unit-based pricing to Product Plans or Plan Templates for recurring subscription charges.

This topic explains how to create Counters and how to use them to price your Product Plans or Plan Templates. A seat-based example is used to explain these tasks - how to set up a Counter to use as a pricing metric to price Plans and be able to charge on the basis of how many seats end-customer Accounts subscribe to in a given billing period:

• Creating Counters

• Using Counters to Price Plans

Creating Counters

You can create Counters as:

• Product Counters. These can only be used to price Plans belonging to the same Product.

• Global Counters. These can be used to price Plans belonging to any Product.

To create a Product Counter:

1. Select Metering>Counters. The Counters page opens and lists Counters already created for your Organization for the pre-selected Product. If you want to create a Counter for a different Product, use the drop-down to select it.

2. Select Create Counter. The Create page opens.

3. Enter the details of the Counter:

• Name and Code of the new Counter. (Required)

• Check that the selected Product is correct. Clear this if you are creating a Global Counter.

• Unit. This will appear on Bill line items charged against the Counter:

• In this example, we'll create a Premium Seats Counter for the Premium Seating Product.

4. Select Create Counter. The Counter Details page for the new Counter opens:

• We now have a Premium Seats Counter we can use to price Plans belonging to the Premium Seating Product - see the next section.

Using Counters to Price Plans

You can quickly price Plans in the Pricing Editor using Counters. For the current seat-based pricing example we created a Counter for in the previous section. We've also set up in preparation:

• Premium Seats Plan Template for the Premium Seating Product. This Plan Template is configured for monthly billing frequency in USD currency with no Standing Charge and no Minimum Spend amounts defined.

• Premium Seats Plan 2 based on the Premium Seats Plan Template. This Plan will inherit billing attributes from the template. See Creating and Working with Plan Templates and Plans.

We'll now use our Premium Seating Counter to set up seat-based pricing for the Premium Seats Plan 2.

To use a Counter to price a Plan:

1. Select Pricing>Pricing Editor.

2. Select Product. For the current example, this is Premium Seating.

3. Select Add Plans. A Select Plans dialog opens listing all Plans created for the Product.

4. Check the Plan you want to price and select Confirm. For the current example, this is Premium Seats Plan 2:

• The Select Plans dialog closes and the Plan is added to the Pricing Editor.

• A warning advises you to add an Aggregation or Counter to configure pricing for the Plan.

5. Select Add Counters. A Select Counters dialog opens and lists any Counters created for the Product and any Global Counters.

6. Check the Counter you want to use to price the Plan and select Confirm. For the current example, this is Premium Seating Counter:

• The Select Counters dialog closes and the selected Counter is added to the Pricing Editor in readiness to price the Plan:

7. Select Create Plan Pricing. The Counter Pricing>Create page opens and at the top of the page details are listed for:

• The Counter you are using and the Unit it uses.

• The Plan you are pricing and the Plan Template it is based on.

8. Enter the Counter Pricing Details:

• Start date (inclusive) and End date (exclusive) to define the period you want the pricing to be active for the Plan. For the current example, we'll enter June 1st, 2024 until July 1st, 2025.

• Description. This will appear for Bill line item charges for the pricing. For the current example, we can use Seating Charges. Note that if you leave this blank, then a default description is used.

9. Define the Counter Pricing Settings:

• Running Total Billing. Select for either Bill in arrears - at the end of each billing period - or Bill in advance - at the beginning of each billing period.

  • For the current example, we can leave this as default: Bill in arrears.

• Pro-rate running total. Use this setting to control how Counter running total charges are calculated at billing for cases where the pricing applied to an Account starts or finishes somewhere within the first or final billing period:

  • For example, suppose you are pricing a Plan set up for monthly billing frequency. The service period agreed with an end-customer Account on the Plan runs from June 1st 2023 until June 15th 2024. The running total at the start of the June 2024 - the final billing period - is 10. The pricing applied to the Account ends June 15th 2024 - this could be because the pricing is set to end for the Account Plan on that date or because the Plan ceases to be active for the Account on that date:

    • If you enable Pro-rate running total for the pricing and the pricing configured is $2 per unit, then the final Bill of July 1st 2024 will calculate the Counter running total charge for 15 days of the 30 day month of June, that is: 10 x $2 x 1/2 = $10.

    • If you disable Pro-rate running total, then the final Bill of July 1st 2024 will calculate a Counter running total charge for the full month, that is: 10 x $2 = $20.

  • Default is enabled. For the current example, we'll switch this to disabled.

• Pro-rate adjustment credit. Use this setting to control how a Counter Adjustment credit for an Account on the Plan made during the arrears billing period is rated with respect to credit amounts due on the Account:

  • As if the units were unsubscribed to (not used) for the entire billing period. (Prorating is disabled)

  • As if the units were unsubscribed to (not used) for the number of days from the date the Counter Adjustment was made to the arrears billing period end. (Prorating is enabled)

  • For example, suppose the Plan is set up for monthly billing frequency and the Counter pricing you've configured is for a flat charge rate of $2 per seat. A Counter Adjustment is made on the Account on June 1st 2024 for 15 seats and a second Counter Adjustment is made on June 16th for 10 seats:

    • If disabled, the July 1st 2024 Bill will be calculated as if the credit due for the reduction in Counter number of 5 seats covered the entire month: 5 x -$2 = -$10.

    • If enabled, the July 1st 2024 Bill will be calculated as if the credit due for the reduction in Counter number of 5 seats covered only the remaining 15 days of the 30-day month of June: 5 x -$2 x 1/2 = -$5.

  • Default is enabled. For the current example, we'll switch this to disabled.

• Pro-rate adjustment debit. Use this setting to control how a Counter Adjustment debit for an Account on the Plan made during the arrears billing period is rated with respect to debit amounts due on the Account:

  • As if the units were subscribed to (used) for the entire billing period. (Prorating is disabled)

  • As if the units were subscribed to (used) only for the number of days from the date the Counter Adjustment was made to the arrears billing period end. (Prorating is enabled)

  • For example, suppose the Plan is set up for monthly billing frequency and the Counter pricing you've configured is for a flat charge rate of $2 per seat. A single Counter Adjustment is made for the June billing period on June 16th 2024 for 15 seats:

    • If disabled, the July 1st 2024 Bill will charge for the full amount: 15 x $2 = $30.

    • If enabled, the July 1st 2024 Bill will only charge a pro-rated amount for the 15 days remaining in the 30-day month of June: 15 x $2 x 1/2 = $15.

  • Default is enabled. For the current example, we'll switch this to disabled.

• Pricing type. Select the pricing type you want to use for the Counter pricing applied to the Plan:

  • For the current example, we can leave this as the default of Tiered.

• Pricing Bands. Create the pricing bands for the pricing type:

  • For the current example, we'll set up two pricing bands for the Tiered Counter pricing:

• Note that the Start (>) value for a pricing band is treated exclusively and the End (<=) value is treated inclusively. In this example, the bottom tier band means any unit measures greater than 0 up to and including 20 are priced at $2 per unit; the second tier band means any unit measures greater than 20 are priced at $3 per unit.

10. Select Create Counter Pricing. You are returned to the Pricing Editor where the Active Pricing is now shown in the pricing grid for the Plan:

• We've now set up an example for seat-based recurring charges to be applied to the Premium Seating product. In the next topic, we'll attach Premium Seats Plan 2, which is priced using the Premium Seats Counter, to an Account and then create some Counter Adjustments on the Account.

Next: Understanding and Creating Counter Adjustments for Accounts

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