6.13 How to Manage Subscriptions/Recurring Payments

Challenge

The subscription business model is a powerful method of ensuring consistent revenue and convenient supply of a particular service. Creating contracts to suit your business needs as well as ensuring Media Campaign Creation, invoicing and automated renewals take place without too much overhead and with minimal need for manual intervention is key.

Solution

You can manage and invoice your Subscription contracts directly in ADvendio. Navigate to the App Launcher > Subscriptions.

Setting up a Subscription Contract

The information entered on your Subscription Contract will form the basis of all Media Campaigns and Invoices created for this Subscription Contract. For example, the Business Type and Legal Entity on the Subscription will be the Business Type and Legal Entity for any Media Campaign or Invoice created for that Subscription Contract.

You can also configure discounts, as well as payment/invoicing preferences for a given Subscription Contract. This information will also be mapped to the created Media Campaigns and subsequent Invoices.

Which Subscription renewal Models are Supported?

  • Weekly

  • Monthly

  • Quarterly

  • Yearly

  • Custom - any duration which isn’t covered by the options above. This Subscription period is excluded from automated renewal.

The period of the Subscription Contract is necessary in order to handle the renewal/rolling of the contract duration. Each time a contract is automatically renewed it will be extended by the same period.

How to Add Items to your Subscription Contract?

Once you have set up your Subscription Contract, you then need to add the relevant inventory covered by this Subscription contract. This is done by creating Subscription Ad Price Assignments for each Subscription Contract. Subscription Ad Price Assignments will be used by the Media Campaign creation process to create Campaign Items for the purpose of invoicing your Subscriptions.

Go the Related List > Subscription Ad Price Assignments > New

  • Select the relevant Ad Price

  • Enter valid From date, Valid Until date and quantity for this particular item

  • Configure whether or not this item is valid for renewal

    • Should this item be automatically renewed/rolled if the contract isn’t cancelled

  • If needed you can also figure a new payment start, distribution Unit and distribution (Period) (Default: month-based)

    • For more information on these fields, see here.

  • You can also configure discounts for individual Subscription Ad Price Assignments

How to Invoice your Subscription Contracts?

To invoice your Subscription Contracts you need to create Media Campaigns and Campaign Items for your Subscription Contracts and Subscription Ad Price Assignments. All Media Campaigns are automatically created as booked with Bill Me set to true.

To create Media Campaigns for your Subscription Contracts, simply press Generate Media Campaigns on your Subscription Contract.

When you press this button, it will need to be confirmed that Media Campaigns should be generated for the given Subscription Contract.

Once confirmed, one of two things can happen 1) a success message appears that Media Campaigns have been successfully created and/or updated or 2) an error may be encountered if your Subscription Contract isn’t configured correctly.

Once you have your Media Campaign created you can utilize all downstream processes such as Invoicing, Publisher Payout, Third Party Commission, Accounting Records and more.

To be able to create Media Campaigns and Campaign Items, the following fields need to be set. Additionally, they are also relevant for handling automatic renewals.

Field

Function

Value

Field

Function

Value

Active

Sets whether a Subscription is active and valid for Media Campaign Creation

Active = true = active Subscription valid for Media Campaign creation, if closed-won

Active = false = inactive Subscription not valid for Media Campaign creation, if closed-won

Status

Sets the status of a Subscription and whether it is valid for Media Campaign Creation

Closed - Won = an active Subscription valid for Media Campaign Creation, if active

Approved

No function - can be used to implement custom approval process

Default = false

Cancelled

Sets whether a Contract has been cancelled

Cancelled = true = contract has been cancelled and will not be automatically renewed/rolled

Cancelled = false = contract has not been cancelled and will be automatically renewed/rolled once cancellation period has passed

 

Cancellation Period (Days)

Sets number of days before which a contract needs to be cancelled

e.g. cancellation days 7, Subscription valid until 31.12.2020
where cancelled = false, this subscription will be automatically renewed/rolled between 25.12.2020 - 31.12.2020

Setup

No specific setup is needed to manage your Subscription Contracts within ADvendio and to manually create your Media Campaigns. Once users have the relevant permissions assigned, they can create Subscription Contracts and generate Media Campaigns from those.

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