Managing Subscriptions

See the subscription as a "blueprint" for the future invoice: It combines the account information (buyer name, address, etc.) with the details of the products to be charged, like product name and description, price, price model, applicable discounts, etc. In this sense, subscriptions represent contracts or "billing plans".

Managing subscriptions includes the following main tasks:

• Creating subscriptions
• Activating subscriptions
• Defining a preferred invoice date
• Configuring subscription auto-renewal
• Updating subscription and subscription items
• Configuring subscription price increases
• Setting up installments
• Canceling subscriptions
• Using subscription-based metrics

Creating Subscriptions

There are two ways to create a subscription manually:

• Creating a subscription manually from scratch, or
• Cloning an existing subscription, copying the current configuration and any attached items and prices.

Info

JustOn also allows for building subscriptions automatically. For details, see Automatic Subscription Build.

Creating a Subscription From Scratch

You can create subscriptions in different contexts, either directly via the Subscriptions tab or from any other page that includes a related list of subscriptions, for example, a detail page for an account or a contract. Depending on the creation context, the new subscription may automatically be connected to an account.

To create a new subscription from the Subscriptions tab:

1. Open the Subscriptions tab.
2. Click New.
3. Specify the details as required.

4. Click Save.

   This generates the new subscription, and you can proceed to add items (see Managing Subscription Items).

To create a subscription from a specific context:

1. Open the detail page of the account, contract, etc., in the context of which you want to create the subscription.
2. Scroll to the Subscriptions list.
3. Click New.
4. Specify the details as required.

5. Click Save.

   This generates the new subscription, and you can proceed to add items (see Managing Subscription Items).

Note

The Subscriptions list must be made available in the corresponding detail view. For details, see Managing Pages.

Cloning a Subscription

Certain business use cases require a subscription to be cloned. Cloning a subscription creates a copy of the current subscription, including the attached items. In addition, the following information is set by default:

• the subscription name Autogenerate,
• the status Draft,
• the account, invoice template, contact data etc. as copied from the original subscription.

Upon cloning, you can modify this data as required.

To clone an existing subscription:

1. Open the subscription that you want to copy.
2. Click Clone.

3. Edit the details as necessary.

   
   Cloning a subscription

4. Click Clone.

   This generates the new subscription, including the selected items and their prices.

Activating Subscriptions

Unless otherwise defined upon creation, new subscriptions have the status Draft. To be considered in an invoice run, they must be set Active. To do so:

1. Open the subscription that you want to activate.

2. Double-click the current status and select Active from the drop-down list.

   Alternatively, you can click Edit in the detail view and then select Active from the Status drop-down list.

3. Click Save.

   This activates the subscription, including it in the invoice run.

Defining a Preferred Invoice Date

You can set up a subscription to only generate an invoice on a preferred date with a specific time interval, for example, on the 6th day of the month every three months. To do so:

1. Open the subscription for which you want to set a preferred invoice date.
2. Click Edit.

3. Edit the details as necessary.

   • Preferred Invoice Date: Specifies that an invoice is generated if this date is before the invoice run end date; it will also be copied as the invoice date when the invoice in finalized
   • Billing Period: Specifies the number of months to set the next preferred date after the invoice has been finalized

4. Click Save.

   The subscription is considered in an invoice run if the invoice run end date is after the preferred invoice date. When finalizing the resulting invoice, the preferred invoice date is copied to the invoice as invoice date if the preferred invoice date is the current or a future date. The next preferred invoice date of the subscription is calculated by adding the billing period months to the last preferred invoice date.

Configuring Subscription Auto-Renewal

Auto-renewal parameters

The following settings control the automatic subscription renewal:

Field	Description
Auto-Renewal	Defines the number of days or months to extend the subscription, setting up the subscription for automatic renewal.
Cancellation Terms	Defines the cancellation period in days or months for a subscription. If empty, a value of 0 is taken by default.
Renewal Date	Specifies the next renewal date. If the subscription is set up for automatic renewal, the date is automatically calculated like: End Date - Cancellation Terms + Grace Period. If the subscription has no end date, the field is empty.

The grace period is controlled via the corresponding global setting. In Setup, open Custom Settings > Global Settings > Manage > Edit, and set a value for Grace Period. If left empty, 0 is used by default.

To set up a subscription for automatic renewal:

1. Open the subscription that you want to be extended automatically.
2. Click Edit.
3. Specify the auto-renewal, cancellation terms and renewal date as necessary.

4. Click Save.

   This makes the subscription subject to automatic renewal. JustOn schedules the corresponding job to run daily in order to extend all auto-renewal subscriptions when the renewal date is reached.

Info

For the automatic subscription renewal to run, the following conditions must be met:

• Subscription is set Active.
• End Date is set.
• Auto-Renewal is set.
• Renewal Date is set and less or equal to the current date.

Updating Subscription and Subscription Items

Info

The automatic subscription update functionality is available as of JustOn 2.43.

Certain business use cases require existing subscriptions or subscription items to be updated, for example, after the value of a source object field has changed.

Note

Make sure that the subscription update is enabled. For details, see Enabling Subscription and Subscription Items Update.

1. Open the subscription that you want to be updated.

2. Select the ON_UpdateSubscription checkbox, and click Save.

   As an alternative, you can set up a custom process to have the checkbox selected automatically when certain conditions are met.

3. Execute the subscription builder as set up for the corresponding source object.

   For details, see Enabling Subscription Generation.

   This triggers the automatic subscription update. The subscription builder copies the specified fields to be updated. After completing the update, the subscription builder deselects the checkbox ON_UpdateSubscription and sets a date in ON_LastSubscriptionUpdate.

Configuring Subscription Price Increases

Certain business use cases require the prices for subscription items to be increased automatically on a regular basis.

The following subscription details control this behavior:

Field	Description
Price Increase	Specifies the percentage value by which to increase the prices of this subscription. Note that the price increase affects all items equally.
Price Increase Date	Specifies the date (MM-dd) on which the price increase is made effective.

Price increase concepts

The subscription price increase feature makes use of price tier groups. If set up accordingly, a scheduled job duplicates the latest price tier group and increases the price of all subscription items by the defined percentage value once a year at the defined date.

For the date, the following options are available by default:

Value	Description
01-01	January 1st
06-01	June 1st
Start Date	Month and day of the subscription start date
End Date	Month and day of the subscription end date

You can add more month/day combinations to the picklist. For details, see Adding Price Increase Date Options.

The price increase considers subscriptions and items if the following conditions are true:

• The subscription status is Active
• The corresponding price increase settings at the subscription are set
• The subscription end date is empty or after the current date
• The item status is Active
• The item end date is empty or after the current date

• The item has price tiers whose

  • End date is empty

  • Start date is empty or at least nine months in the past

    JustOn creates the new price tier groups at the earliest nine months before the price increase becomes valid.

To manage the price increase options:

1. Open the subscription for which you want to configure a price increase.
2. Click Edit.
3. Specify the price increase and price increase date as necessary.

4. Click Save.

   JustOn creates the new price tier groups at the earliest nine months before the price increase becomes valid.

Note

For the automatic price increase to become effective, there must be set up the corresponding scheduled job.

Price increase example

This section shows a price increase example, illustrating its behavior.

Subscription settings

Field	Example Value
Price Increase	5%
Price Increase Date	06-01

Corresponding price tier group before the price increase

Quantity	Price	Start Date	End Date
100	10,00	-	-
1000	9,50	-	-
-	9,00	-	-

Price tier groups after the price increase

(1) Existing price tier group

Quantity	Price	Start Date	End Date
100	10,00	-	2017-05-31
1000	9,50	-	2017-05-31
-	9,00	-	2017-05-31

(2) New price tier group

Quantity	Price	Start Date	End Date
100	10,50	2017-06-01	-
1000	9,975	2017-06-01	-
-	9,45	2017-06-01	-

Setting Up Installments

Certain business use cases require staged payment plans for invoices. To this end, JustOn allows for setting up installments, which represent models for intended payment plans.

If this feature is enabled, you can define an installment type for a subscription. When executing an invoice run, JustOn consequently produces an invoice with the payment plan (installments) set up.

1. Open the subscription for which you want to define installments.

2. Double-click the Installment Type field and select the intended payment plan from the drop-down list.

   Alternatively, you can click Edit in the detail view and then select the payment plan from the Installment Type picklist.

3. Click Save.

   This activates the selected installment type, which triggers the generation of the corresponding payment plan when creating the invoice.

Canceling a Subscription

Canceling a subscription clears the renewal date and updates the end date if

• the old end date is empty - the new end date will be

  Cancellation Date + Cancellation Terms

• the cancellation date is after or equal to the renewal date - the new end date will be

  old End Date + Auto Renewal

To cancel a subscription with immediate effect:

1. Open the subscription that you want to cancel.

2. Double-click the current status and select Canceled from the drop-down list.

   Alternatively, you can click Edit in the detail view and then select Canceled from the Status drop-down list.

3. Click Save.

   This sets the cancellation date to the current date.

To cancel a subscription for a future date:

1. Open the subscription that you want to cancel.

2. Double-click the Cancellation Date field and specify the date as required.

   Alternatively, you can click Edit in the detail view and then specify the cancellation date.

3. Click Save.

   This sets the status Canceled on the specified date.

Info

JustOn continues to process canceled subscriptions in the invoice run until their end date is reached. Canceled subscriptions without end date, however, are ignored.

Using Subscription-Based Metrics

Service companies (SaaS, professional services, etc.) usually generate recurring revenue based on subscriptions with their customers. JustOn supports subscription billing with recurring and transactional (usage-based) items. Now the companies need continuous reporting about subscription-based KPIs, too - like, for example, MRR (monthly recurring revenue) or Churn (rate of discontinued subscriptions or lost revenue).

For analytics and reporting purposes, JustOn introduces specific metric objects that can be set up to track and display invoicing-relevant changes. The metric records can give valuable insights into your business by displaying the recurring revenue for the current or a future date, recurring changes (like growth or churn), or expected cash flow on a monthly basis. In addition, you can use the metric records in order customize the JustOn reports or to build your own reports in Salesforce.

• Subscription metrics
• Cash metrics

Subscription Metrics

Subscription metrics track changes to recurring or transactional items, like creation, termination, price/quantity modifications, to display the recurring revenue or growth/churn rates. Subscription metrics are related to the account and the subscription.

The subscription includes the field Initial MRR. It shows the sum of the initial MRR values of active recurring items at the subscription start.

You can define additional fields on the subscription that summarize subscription metric data. Use this to calculate the current or future MRR values, like Current MRR or MRR in One Year.

Example metrics-related fields on subscriptions

Field	Purpose
Last MRR Update	Shows the date on which the MRR fields were last calculated.
Current MRR	Shows the current MRR over all recurring items.
MRR in One Year	Shows the MRR in one year, based on the last MRR update.

The MRR fields are set up individually for your org by an administrator. Be aware that the field labels as well as the count/month configuration may vary.

Subscription metrics generation

Generally, the following item actions produce new or changed subscription metric records:

• Creating a recurring item
• Creating a transactional item with expected revenue

• Ending a subscription or item using an end date

  You can set the end date retroactively within one month to trigger the end metric creation.

• Deactivating an item

• Changing the price/quantity of an item

The following example illustrates the subscription metric generation on a basic level, that is, without applying criteria. This produces a single metric chain.

There is a subscription with the start date set to 2019-01-01 and the following items:

Start and end dates trigger subscription metric record creation

Based on the given subscription items, the subscription metric builder job produces these metric records:

Produced subscription metric records

#	Event	Modification
1	REC1 start date	50,00 initial MRR value 50,00 actual amount
2	REC2 start date	270,00 (positive) change 270,00 expansion value 320,00 actual amount
3	REC3 start date	30,00 (positive) change 30,00 expansion value 350,00 actual amount
4	REC2 end date	-270,00 (negative) change 270,00 churn value 80,00 actual amount
5	REC1 end date	-50,00 (negative) change 50,00 churn value 30,00 actual amount

If there are end dates set for items, JustOn produces the corresponding end metrics.

Now assume you cancel the subscription before an item end date is reached. This forces JustOn to generate one end metric record for the current metric chain that includes all items, irrespective of their end date settings.

Produced subscription metric records after cancelling the subscription

#	Event	Modification
1	REC1 start date	50,00 initial MRR value 50,00 actual amount
2	REC2 start date	270,00 (positive) change 270,00 expansion value 320,00 actual amount
3	REC3 start date	30,00 (positive) change 30,00 expansion value 350,00 actual amount
4	subscription end date	-350,00 (negative) change 350,00 churn value 0,00 actual amount

The individual subscription metric records are accessible via the corresponding related list on the subscription detail page if set up accordingly.

Note

Do not delete items from active subscriptions when using subscription metrics, as this would break the metrics. Instead, deactivate the item or set an end date, as described in Terminating Item.

Info

To actually create or update subscription metric records, your org requires the subscription metric builder job to be scheduled. The changes are always based on the previously tracked metrics.

Cash Metrics

Cash metrics track subscription amount changes in order to display a business's cash flow. Cash metrics are related to the account and the subscription.

Depending on your process configuration, JustOn creates and updates cash metric records on subscription or item change. The conditions that trigger cash metric updates may include

• Modified start/end date or activation status for subscriptions
• Modified start/end date, activation status, billing period or modified quantity, price or discount values for items

One cash metric record corresponds to a monthly invoice run for a subscription. That is, JustOn "simulates" an invoice run per month and aggregates the amount of the resulting invoice line items for each subscription in the Amount field of the cash metric record.

You can access the cash metrics records via the corresponding related list on the subscription if set up accordingly.

Info

To actually create or update cash metric records, your org requires the corresponding processes to be set up.

Next steps:

Managing Subscription Items
Managing Item Pricing
Managing Invoice Runs
Manually Creating Invoices