Search/create discount plan

Volume discount plans help you encourage customers to use more of your services. You can adjust rates for customers based on the amount of services consumed, allocate a certain volume of free service to customers and/or create virtual sub-wallets with separate balances for specific service types. Consequently, a volume discount plan can include:

• Discounts – to adjust prices depending on the volume of service consumed by customers.
• Quotas – to allocate a defined volume of free-of-charge services for your customers.
• Service wallets – to divide a customer’s balance into virtual sub-wallets. Each sub-wallet is designated for a specific service and destination group.

Use the Search panel to find a specific volume discount plan.

Specify one or more of the search criteria and click Apply filters. Click Default filters to reset the search criteria to their initial values. To refresh the search results, click Reload data.

Filter volume discount plans by their name or description. Type a name or a description here.

Filter volume discount plans by the currency used for billing calculations.

Filter volume discount plans according to who provides and manages them.

• Select Any to search among all available volume discount plans.
• Select Administrator only to search for volume discount plans managed by your administrators.
• Select Reseller name to search volume discount plans managed by this particular reseller.

Filter volume discount plans by a destination group set. A destination group set includes destination groups (a list of prefixes) for which a discount, quota or service wallet is defined.

Any means to search among volume discount plans regardless of their destination group sets.

Create a new volume discount plan here. With this tool, you can encourage customers to use more of your services.

A volume discount plan includes discount rules. A discount rule is defined for a particular service and destination group.

Discount rules can be the following:

• Discounts – adjust prices depending on the volume of service consumed by customers.
• Quotas – allocate a defined volume of free-of-charge services for your customers.
• Service wallets – divide a customer’s balance into virtual sub-wallets. Each sub-wallet is designated for a specific service and destination group.

You can use discount rules separately or combine them within a volume discount plan.

To apply a discount to a customer, assign a volume discount plan to:

• Main product – this volume discount plan is available by default for all accounts with this product assigned.
• Add-on product – this volume discount plan is available to a particular account (e.g., as a VAS if combined with a subscription). You can assign several add-ons. Then discounts are sorted according to the add-on products’ priority.
• Customer – this volume discount plan is available for all accounts of a particular customer.
• Account – this volume discount plan is available for this account only.

An account can have several discount rules available via different levels (e.g., via a product and the one assigned to the customer). These levels define the discount rules’ priority. Priority defines the order in which discount rules apply if they are defined for the same service and destination group (from highest to lowest):

• Account
• Customer
• Add-on product
• Main product

This is the name of your volume discount plan.

Define the currency to be used for billing calculations. All discount rules within the plan must be defined in this currency. You can assign this plan to customers and products that use the same currency.

Select how the plan’s discount rules apply to services:

• Individual combinations of service/destination group – each discount rule within the plan applies to a single service.
• Service pool – a single discount rule within the plan applies to several services defined within a service pool. You can create multi-service quotas and service wallets. This option appears if you created a service pool on the Service catalogue > Services panel.

Discounts, quotas and service wallets are defined for a specific destination group. Destination groups are organized into destination group sets. Select the destination group set here. You will use it to define discount rules later.

This describes how PortaBilling matches the charging and discount parameters to apply a discount. Matches are performed based on the destination within the rate against the prefix in the destination group of the volume discount.

• Matches the rate exactly – the rate in the tariff must be exactly the same as the prefix in the destination group for defining a volume discount. For example, if a customer makes a phone call to 4206025551234 and their tariff includes the rate for the 420602 (Czech Republic, Mobile) prefix, the discount applies only if there is a 420602 prefix in the destination group it’s defined for.
• Matches or covers the rate – the rate in the tariff can either be equal to or more specific than the prefix in the volume discount plan. So if the rate in the tariff is 420602 and there is a 420 prefix in the discount plan, the discount is applied to the call. This puts more load on the billing engine, since an extra pattern match must be performed.
• Matches the rate pattern – this method disregards the destination used in the tariff entirely. It matches the components of the rate match pattern against the longest prefix in the volume discount plan starting from the first component in the pattern.

The rate match pattern consists of several components including special destinations and dialed numbers divided by the “|” symbol (e.g., VOICEONNET\RX|420123456789). The dialed number is usually the last component in the pattern.

PortaBilling first matches special destinations (e.g., VOICEONNET) to the prefixes in the volume discount plan and continues to search until it finds the best match. So, if the prefix VOICEONNETRX is included in the destination group for the volume discount definition, the discount is applied.

If no match is found among the special destinations, PortaBilling continues the search based on the number dialed by the customer. The discount is then applied based on the longest full prefix match between the CLD and the prefix in the volume discount plan.

Let’s say the volume discount plan contains the following prefixes: 420, 4202, 42032. The discount is applied based on the 420. If the volume discount plan contains 420602 the discount is applied based on that.

This puts more load on the billing engine, since an extra pattern match must be performed.

You can create volume discount plans either for your own needs or to be used by your reseller.

• Select Administrator only to create a volume discount plan managed by your administrators.
• Select Reseller name to create a volume discount plan to be used by this particular reseller.

Give a short description here. You can use it for searching for this volume discount plan.