Context
Discounts allow you to adjust the prices of your offers and subscriptions, either globally or targeted to specific fees.
In other words, you can completely customize how you want to adjust the price when marketing your service.
In the case of a subscription-based business model, managing discounts can be complex because there are multiple dimensions to consider: the target and the duration.
Concept
You can create a discount from the catalog section of ProAbono. Once created, this discount can be added to a subscription or an offer.
Finally, the discount will be applied during the subscription startup or renewal steps.
Attributes
The modeling of the discount is done through a set of attributes, such as:
- The type of discount and the amount
- Fixed amount discount
- Percentage discount
- The targeted fees
- Recurring fees
- Fixed fees
- Fees for a characteristic
- Non-recurring fees
- Startup fees
- Recurring fees
- The duration during which the discount will be active.
The discount can be created from the discount library or directly from the modeling of an offer or subscription. Creating it on-the-fly allows you to directly associate the created discount with the subscription or offer being created/modified.
More Details
- Type of discount: The discount amount can be a fixed amount or a percentage.
The percentage discount allows you to reduce the fees by x% based on the configured value.
The fixed amount discount allows you to deduct X euros directly from the relevant fees.
For example: Your starter offer is a monthly subscription with a fixed price of €10. You want to add a fixed amount discount to offer €20 during subscription. The applied discount will be only €10. Your customer will lose the remaining €10 as they cannot be applied anymore (the invoice is already €0).
- Targeted fees
Recurring fees are fees that are renewed from one period to another. This includes the fixed amount of the subscription and the fees for the characteristics that compose it.
For example: Your starter offer is a monthly subscription with a fixed price of €10 and a support characteristic at €5. You want to add a fixed amount discount of €2 on the fees of the support characteristic to offer part of the fees during subscription.
Non-recurring fees are fees that are charged only once. They include startup fees.
For example: Your starter offer is a monthly subscription with a fixed price of €10 and a startup fee of €45. You want to add a fixed amount discount of €45 on the startup fees to offer these fees during subscription.
- Duration during which the discount will be active.
The duration of the discount can be configured to personalize how you want to market your services.
You can choose to apply the discount permanently. The discount will then be applied at each renewal.
For example: Your starter offer is a monthly subscription with a fixed price of €10. You want to add a permanent discount of 10% on the fixed amount. Your subscription will be billed €9 as long as the discount is active.
But you can also configure a duration of application so that the discount can be applied temporarily.
For example: Your starter offer is a monthly subscription with a fixed price of €10. You want to add a 10% discount on the fixed amount but only for the first 2 months. Your subscription will be billed €9 for the first 2 months.
Associated Processes
|
Process |
Why? | Consequences |
| Add a commercial advantage to your offers by associating discounts with them. |
The discount will be applied continuously or for a limited duration (depending on your choice). |
|
| Add a discount to a characteristic | If you want this discount to apply not to the total amount of the subscription, but only to a specific feature. |
The discount will be applied continuously or for a limited duration (depending on your choice) and only to the targeted characteristic. |
| Add a discount to an offer | You can add a discount to an offer to reduce the amount of subscriptions for customers subscribing to that offer. |
The discount will be applied continuously or for a limited duration (depending on your choice) to all subscriptions based on the respective offer. The discount is not retroactive; it will not apply to subscriptions that were subscribed before adding the discount. Only new subscriptions will have the discount applied. |
| Apply a discount to a subscription | If you want to reduce the amount of a specific subscription. You can add a discount to it at any time. |
The discount will be applied continuously or for a limited duration (depending on your choice) only to the respective subscription. |
| Apply a discount to an invoice | If you want to reduce the amount of an invoice, you can simply add a one-time charge of type “discount”. |
This discount is not linked to the subscription; it will only be applied to the targeted invoice. |
| Delete a discount | Deleting allows you to clean up your database. It permanently deletes discounts that are no longer needed. |
Deletion is permanent. It is only possible if there are no active subscriptions that contain the discount. |
Displays
In the BackOffice
Here is an example of a “Starter” offer that contains 3 discounts.
The discounts are directly displayed in the offer details.
In the invoices
Let’s take the example of an invoice associated with a subscription started based on the “Starter” offer shown above:
The discounts are displayed in the invoices according to the targeted fees.
This specimen invoice is created to show you an example of how discounts are displayed. It is from a test account in the Sandbox environment.
In this example, there are 1 discount associated with the subscription:
- 10% discount on the fixed amount of the subscription applied to the “Flat Fee” debit line
The discount lines appear in italics and are indented to easily link them to the corresponding debit lines.
In the hosted pages
Customer Portal
Your customers can always view their subscription from their private customer portal. In the “Subscriptions” section, they will see the active discounts in detail, as well as the remaining duration for temporary discounts.
