Discounting

Overview

Emersion has many different ways to apply discounts to a customer, a service subscription, a package subscription, a service feature subscription and other objects in the system. When considering what type of discounting you want to apply to your customers and under what circumstances, it is very valuable to have a good understanding of:

• the various types of discounts available in Emersion
• the order in which they are applied (i.e which discounting methods take precedence over other methods)
• the interdependancies for each discount and the effect they may have on each other.
• how they affect subscription periods in both a pro rated or an in arrears plan when customers seel to cancel or migrate.

This article aims to explain those discounts, their rules, and which discounting methods take precedence over others.

Prerequisites

We strongly recommend that you read the following articles first and gain an solid understanding of the related content

• The Emersion billing objects
• Billing rules

What Discounts Are there?

The following discounting methods are available in Emersion. We also include relevant billing objects that are relevant to where the discounts are applied. It is important to understand that these are independently applied, with the exception of the package chain discounts, as we have explained below.

Most of the discounts applied occur at the 'access fee' level of a billing object. These include:

• Package Access Fee
• Service Access Fee
• Service Feature Access Fee

The contract discounts we describe below traverse all the underlying subscription objects it is applied to.

How Emersion calculates the base access fee in each of the above billing objects is described in the billing rules article. There are different calculations for the following scenarios:

1. The first subscription period.
2. A 'full' subscription period.
3. The final subscription period.

Subscription periods are frequently aligned with the customer's account invoice period. This too, has an effect on how charges are calculated.

Access Fee Discounts

The Package Access Fee

Calculation

• Access Fee x PeriodRatio

Defined in

• Package Plan Access Fee
• Package Plan > Access Fee Ratecard (Package Subscription Count)

Used when

• Access fee in the Package Plan is populated and overrides service plan access fees.

The Service Access Fee

Calculation

Product Price x PeriodRatio x Service Feature Multiplier

Defined In (In order of override. Later items take precedence over earlier ones)

1. Access Fee x PeriodRatio x Quantity Multiplier
2. Service Plan Access Fee Rate Card (Service Subscription Count)
3. Service Subscription Rate Override ($ amount)
4. Service Subscription Rate Override (% markup on the Service Plan Access Fee)

Used when

• the package plan access fee is not used
• the Service Plan Access Fee >= 0 or an override is used

The Service Feature Access Fee

Calculation

• Product Price x Period Ratio x Feature Multiplier

Defined in

• Product Price when the product is defined as a service feature.

Used when

• Product Price > 0 or Cogs Support

Package Chain Discounts

Only one of the following 2 package chain discounts can be applied to a package subscription for a given customer.

• Package Chain Discount ($)

OR

• Package Chain Discount (%)

Another variant of the package chain discount can be applied to both a service subscription or a service feature subscription for a given customer.

• Package Chain Discount ($)

OR

• Package Chain Discount (%)

Package Chain Discount ($) (Package level)

Calculation

$Discount x PeriodRatio

Defined in

• The package chain package discount

Used for

• applying the discount to the package

Package Chain Discount (%) (Package level)

Calculation

AccessFee x %Discount

Defined in

• The package chain package discount

Used for

• applying the package chain discount to the package

Package Chain Discount ($) (Service and Feature-Level)

Calculation

$Discount * Period Ratio

Defined In (override order, later items take precedence)

• The Package Chain Access Discount
• Package Chain Service Access Discount

Used for

• applying the discount to the service and feature subscriptions

Package Chain Discount (%)

Calculation

'$AccessFee x %Discount

Defined in

• The package chain package discount

Used for

• applying the package chain discount to the package

Contract Discount - Fixed Length ($) (Service and Feature-Level)

Calculation

$Discount x PeriodRatio

Defined In

• Contract > Fixed Length Discount Amount

Contract Discount - Fixed Length (%)

Calculation

NetTotal x %Discount x DiscountPeriodRatio / PeriodRatio

Defined In

• Contract > Fixed Length Discount Percentage

Contract Credit ($)

Calculation

Credit x PeriodRatio

Defined in

• Contract Type

Used when

• Applying a credit when the end date of the contract occurs after the package period start

Package Chain Surcharge/Credit ($)

Calculation

• Surcharge x PeriodRatio

Defined In (override order, later items take precedence)

• Package Chain > Package Surcharge

Used for

• applying the package chain surcharge credit

Net total should never drop below $0