Applying or waiving subscription charges

Market environment or local regulations may require service providers not to charge customers for the days when they don’t have access to the service.

For service providers to comply with this requirement, PortaBilling by default:

1. Charges a full subscription fee; and then
2. Credits the customer’s balance for each day when the service was unavailable for the customer.

A customer may not have access to the service due to the following reasons:

• The account expired.
• The account or customer was blocked.
• The customer was suspended.
• No funds were available (credit limit of a customer or an account with individual credit limit was exhausted or a prepaid customer or account ran out of available funds).

By default, PortaBilling credits the user’s balance in each case mentioned above. You can exclude one or all of these conditions for a specific subscription, to continue charging your customers for the days when they could not use the service.

The service provider Panda Telecom offers a 100-minute bundle to European destinations for a $30 monthly fee. Panda Telecom doesn’t charge the subscription fee for the days when customers are unable to use the service in all the cases specified above, except for the last one (no funds available). Here’s why: when the customers’ balance reaches the credit limit (no funds are available), the customer may still have available minutes of the 100-minute quota in the current billing period, so they can continue using these minutes. Since the service is still provided, Panda Telecom wants to charge the customers the subscription fee when their balance reaches the credit limit (postpaid customers) or runs out of available funds (prepaid customers).

To choose the condition, e.g., “No funds were available”, when credits should not be issued (so the customers are still charged for their subscription):

1. Go to Subscription plan > General configuration panel > Issue credits for the days when option.
2. Clear the checkbox for the No funds were available condition.

With the Issue credits for the days when option, service providers gain tighter control over charging subscription fees and, thus, can avoid revenue leakage.

If PortaBilling is configured to issue credits for the days when customers were unable to use the service, you have the option to choose whether these credits should be issued in every billing period or if they should be skipped for the first, last, or regular billing periods.

Let’s say Panda Telecom resells their partner’s IPTV services to end users for a monthly subscription fee. The content provider charges Panda Telecom a full monthly fee for each customer, even if a Panda Telecom’s customer cancels the subscription in the middle of the month or is unable to use the service, e.g., due to suspension.

To cover their costs, Panda Telecom also charges their customers a full monthly fee, even if a customer:

• Subscribes for the service in the middle of the month or cancels the subscription before the first/last month ends.
• Was unable to use the service due to suspension, block, etc.

This allows Panda Telecom to prevent revenue leakage, for example, in situations when customers subscribe to an expensive IPTV package only for the days when a sport competition is taking place and then cancel the subscription once their favorite team is eliminated or the competition comes to an end.

On the other hand, Panda Telecom wants to encourage their long-time customers to continue using the service after the period of suspension, block, etc. and not to charge them (issuing credits) for the days when no service was available. So, Panda Telecom configures PortaBilling to:

• Issue credits for the days when customers were unable to use the service during the regular billing periods; and
• Skip credits for the days when customers were unable to use the service during the first billing period (new subscribers) and last billing period (customers that canceled the subscription).

For PortaBilling not to issue (skip) credits in the first and last billing periods, the Panda Telecom’s administrator needs to:

1. Go to Subscription plans > General configuration > Skip credits, charge in full option.
2. Select the checkboxes for the first and last billing periods.

Service providers can tailor subscription plans to their business requirements. For example, to balance the cost and revenue side while reselling the partner’s services with a recurring fee, they can charge their customers the full subscription fee to avoid revenue leakage.

A customer may cancel a subscription prior to the end date of the period that has already been charged for (e.g., the customer already paid for all of May but cancels his subscription on May 20th). In this case, if you charge a prorated periodic fee for incomplete billing periods, a credit will be issued for the “unused” subscription time (e.g., 11 days).

After the end date of the subscription plan, the credit is calculated and applied to the customer’s balance not later than the following day. The credit is reflected on the customer’s invoice at the end of the billing period.