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Reviewing Options for Plans and Plan Templates

This topic explains the general and billing options available for configuring your Plan Templates and Plans:

General and Billing Options

Plan Template Options

Plan Templates offer the following configuration options:

  • Name. Descriptive name for the Plan Template.

  • Code. Unique reference for the Plan Template. (Optional)

  • Currency. Use the drop-down list to select the currency you want to use for the Plan Template.

    • Note that you must first create the currency you want use at the Organization level for it to show for selection in the list.

    • This currency becomes the pricing currency and is used when you attach Product Plan Templates or Plans based on those templates to an Account to set up pricing for product usage against the Account.

    • If you have entered a different currency for your Organization, then the Organization currency will be used as the billing currency. If you have selected a currency for the Account that is different to the Organization currency, then this Account level currency setting takes precedence and will be used as the billing currency.

Tip: Why different pricing/billing currency? If you have end customer Accounts located across many different countries, you may nevertheless want to always price for product usage in the same single currency. You can then select a different billing currency on an Account-by-Account basis to ensure you Bill each of your customers in the currency appropriate to their geographical location. For more details, see Creating and Managing Currencies.

  • Bill frequency. Determines the period bills cover when you generate bills for the Accounts to which the Plan has been applied. Four options:

    • Daily. Starting at midnight each day, covering a twenty-four hour period following.

    • Weekly. Starting at midnight on a Monday morning covering the seven-day period following.

    • Monthly. Starting at midnight on the morning of the first day of each month covering the entire calendar month following.

    • Annually. Starting at midnight on the morning of the first day of each year covering the entire calendar year following.

Note: The options for Bill frequency depend on the Epoch settings you configure for your Organization. See Managing your Organization.

  • Bill interval. How often bills are issued. For example, if Bill frequency is set to Monthly and Bill interval is set to 3, bills are issued every three months.

  • Standing charge. Enter a standing charge applied to bills for customer Accounts on a Plan derived from the template:

    • Standing charge billing. You can override the organization-wide setting to bill either in arrears or in advance for the Standing charge.

    • Standing charge interval. How often the standing charge is applied. For example, if the bill is issued every three months and the Standing charge interval is set to 2, then the standing charge is applied every six months.

    • Standing charge offset. Defines an offset for when the standing charge is first applied. For example, if the bill is issued every three months and the Standing charge offset is set to 0, then the charge is applied to the first bill (at three months); if set to 1, it would be applied to the next bill (at six months), and so on.

    • Standing charge description. You can enter a custom description for any Standing charge amounts that appear in the bill as line items.

Notes:

  • Standing Charge Prorating. Note that standing charges are prorated at billing. For example, if your billing frequency is monthly but when you run a Bill, the period for which the Plan has been active is only ten days, then the standing charge applied will be roughly one-third for the configured amount. For example, in a 31 day month, the standing charge applied = standing charge * 10 / 31. See Prorated Charges in the Troubleshooting Bills topic for more details.

  • Working with Standing charge interval and Standing charge offset? For more information on how to use these settings to have a Standard charge applied to Bills on an Account, see the Standing Charge section in the following topic. An example is also given to explain these settings.

  • Product minimum spend. Enter a minimum spend amount for usage charges per billing cycle for customer Accounts on a pricing Plan derived from the template. Note that this applies to a minimum spend amount for the Product as a whole for a customer Account that consumes the Product. If the customer Account has Child Accounts which have different pricing Plans attached, the minimum spend amount you enter for the Parent Account pricing Plan is reckoned at billing against the total charges due - for both Child and Parent. See Billing for Parent/Child Accounts:

    • Minimum spend billing. You can override the organization-wide setting to bill either in arrears or in advance for the Product minimum spend.

    • Minimum spend description. You can enter a description for any Minimum spend amounts, which will appear in the bill line item.

Notes:

Plan Options

A Plan is always based on a Plan Template - if you try to create a Plan for a Product for which no Plan Templates have yet been created, you'll be blocked and prompted to create a Plan Template first. Plans offer the following configuration options:

  • Name. Descriptive name for the Plan.

  • Code. Unique reference for the Plan. You will need this Code as a unique id when submitting API calls, such as a call to update a Plan.

  • Standing charge. Enter a value to override the Standing charge value inherited from the Plan Template:

    • Standing charge billing. You can override the template setting to bill either in arrears or in advance for the Standing charge.

    • Standing charge description. You can enter a custom description for any Standing charge amounts that appear in the bill as line items, and which overrides any description entered for the Plan template:

  • Product minimum spend. Enter a value to override the Product minimum spend value inherited from the Plan Template:

    • Minimum spend billing. You can override the template setting to bill either in arrears or in advance for the Product minimum spend.

    • Minimum spend description. You can enter a description for any Minimum spend amounts, which overrides any description entered for the template and which will appear in the bill line item.

Important! Understanding Billing Options. We recommend that you review Understanding Billing Options for Plan Templates/Plans before you proceed to create and price up your Product Plans.

Tip: Default Minimum Spend Description? If you omit a custom description, then a default Minimum Spend description will be shown for Bill line items- see Bill Line Items - Default Descriptions for details.

Custom Fields

You can define Custom Fields when creating a Plan Template or Plan or edit them at a later date to do this. Any Custom Fields you create for an individual Plan Template or Plan override those you've created for them at the Organizational level. See Working with Custom Fields.

Next: Understanding Billing Options for Plan Templates/Plans


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