Package Discount Component

Summary

This article describes the use of discounts on packages. A discount is a price override which can modify a price for a set period of time or change it indefinitely. Discounts can be used for various purposes, for instance reducing the package price during a promotional period.

Discounts can be applied at different levels throughout EngageIP (i.e. Account, Service or Package). example below a discount will be applied at the package level for a particular service.

Occurrence Tracking

• When the discount is added after the package has been added to accounts, the system will add a record to this table for each userservice and start it from 0 and will occur x more times based on the occur value if used

• If a package has billed out all of the 'occur' times, then you increase the occur value, those user packages will start billing out the discount again so that you'll see billing apply the discount a few periods, then fall back to original pricing for some periods, then go back to applying discount to comply with the newly increased occur field - Discounts and especially the OCCUR field really are not intended to be modified continually - rather they should be set once and left. Owner price plans may make more sense for constantly changing pricing

• If the occur field is decreased, any user packages billed to date will stop applying the discount the next time they bill out (because billed times will be equal to or greater than the occur field in the table: UserServicePackageDiscountTracking

• If a discount is added with Occur field, once it has been used (according to occur field) the system deletes the discount automatically after its done billing x number of times

• If the API is used and a discount is added to a one time service with occur field = 1 or greater, the discount will automatically disappear after billing. If the occur field value is 0 or left empty, the discount on the one time service will continue to exist on the user package in the list of discounts

Applying Multiple Discounts on the Same Service

You can have any number of discounts on the same service, they will all be applied in the order in which they were added to the service.

For example: if you have a service with a base fee of $5 then you add a price discount of $3.00 the charge will be $3.00. If you then add another price discount of $2.00, the charge applied would be $2.00 Adding a percentage discount of 50% after that would make the charge $1.00 and so on. All discounts are calculated together based on the order in which they were applied.

Applying Discounts to Packages in the Product Catalog

1. Click on Setup

2. Click on Packages

3. Click on the Name of the package from the list

4. Under the Components section click the Add button

5. Select Discount from the drop down menu

6. Select the type of discount (Fixed, Percent, Price) from the Discount pick list

   Open

   

   Fixed - actual dollar value to discount (this value can be greater than or less than the current base fee) from the package's base fee. Entering a value greater then the current base fee here would create a negative base fee value for the service. The example below shows a 'Fixed' discount, where the value is greater then the original base fee of the service, creating a negative overall amount that will be charged to the customer when billed.

   Open

   

   
   Percent - percentage of the base fee that will be discounted. Below you can see an example of a percent discount, in this case 10% was configured so the amount that the customer will be charged as shown is $26.99, a discount of $3 effectively.

   
   Price - Value entered will become the new base fee of the service (this is a complete price override and can be greater than or less than the existing base fee, this value will replace the existing base fee effectively). Below the image shows an example of a price discount were the customer will be charged $19.99 rather than the regular base fee of $29.99. You'll see the amount they will be charged in the amount column of $19.99. In this case the discount shows zero because this is a price override, not a discount calculated from the base fee.

    

7. Select the Service to apply the discount to from the pick list. It is important that we associate a discount to a particular service within the package in order to properly report on your discounts and revenue

8. Enter the Amount of the discount. You do not need to enter $ or % in this field as the application will calculate the appropriate value based on your Discount Type selection

9. Enter a Note (optional) to describe the nature of the discount or why it is being applied to the service

10. Enter a numerical value in the Occur field to represent the number of billing cycles the discount should apply
    Note: If you want this to recur forever, leave the field empty. 1 means that the discount will apply only on first billing, 3 means it the discount will apply for three billing periods, and so on

11. Select whether the discount should skip the first prorated portion or not. If selected, the discount will start being applied when the first full period is billed. If this is unchecked, the discount will be applied for the first prorated period and going forward as configured

12. Click Save

Using Package Discounts to Apply Credits

It's possible to apply credits to an account for a period of time, or indefinitely with the Package Discount Component. To do this you simply apply a discount of greater than 100% or a fixed value discount that is greater than the price of the service within the package. The setup process is detailed below:

1. Create the Package

2. Add the required Service to the Package and note the price of the existing Service, whether zero or greater than zero

3. Under Components select Discount on the Package edit page
   Note: The component can be added at the Package level (i.e. on the Setup page which applies to all packages under an Owner) or at the User-Package level (per user), whichever method suits your needs

   The component can be added at the Package level (i.e. on the Setup page which applies to all packages under an Owner) or at the User-Package level (per user), whichever method suits your needs

4. For the Discount Type select either Fixed or Percentage (the Discount Type "Price" cannot result in a credit value)

   • Fixed - enter a value greater than the value of the existing service. If the service value is zero and you want the package to provide a credit of $20 on the customer account, enter $20.  If the service value is $10 and you want the customer to receive a credit of $20, enter $30 in the value window on the discount. The fixed amount is subtracted from the service amount to calculate the end value that will be applied on the customer account (see image below as example)

     Percentage - enter a percentage greater than 100%
     Note: the service in this scenario must have a value greater then zero in order to calculate the credit. If the service has a value of $10.00 and you want to credit the customer $10.00, enter '200' in the discount amount field, this means 200%. Given the same service price you could credit the customer $1.00 by entering 110% in the amount field

Once a discount is added to a package an icon will appear next to the package name in the list. Hovering over this image will display the details of the discount on the package. For a list of other package reference icons see the Account-Package and Account-Service Icons article.

Applying a Discount at the Account Level (User-Package Discount)

1. Load the customer's account

2. Click the package which contains the service to which you would like to apply a discount or price override

3. Under the Components section click Add

4. Select Discount

5. Enter the amount, the discount type, and the number of times it will occur (if infinite, leave blank. If you would like the discount / price override to apply 3 times, you can enter 3)

6. Click the Save button

7. Check that the price of the package on the packages page has changed according to the override or discount set

Deleting Discounts

1. Click on the name of the package from the list

2. Click the word Delete on the appropriate discount line item under the Components section

Recalculating Discounts

To force a system wide recalculation, the migrator now has a button on it to reset service price. Ask LogiSense for more details on using this.

Q & A

Q: If I've selected 'skip prorate period' and bill a package for a full period, but then cancel the package within that first full period, is the discount then removed?

A: The discount is applied at the time the transaction is first added to the account for that full period. If you cancel the package with a refund, that discount is still considered and calculated into the prorated refund appropriately.