Bundles and recurring charges

Increase your profitability by billing resellers based on the products they sell and not just on service usage. You can charge your resellers a set recurring fee for every customer they sign up for a product. For example, as a service provider, you create a product with a call recording feature, sell this product to a reseller for a $10 monthly fee, and recommend reselling it at $20. The reseller can then offer this product at the recommended price or a marked-up price. They can also sell a product at a lower price than what they pay you, e.g., to enter the market. Whatever your reseller charges their customers, you always receive your $10 per month even if customers do not use the service (e.g., the service is suspended).

The administrator creates a product/add-on product with:

• reseller subscription – contains a recurring fee that you charge the reseller for each customer account;
• account subscription – contains your recommended recurring fee that resellers can charge their customers for each account.

Note that the billing period of the customer and reseller may differ, and each of them is charged according to their billing period. Subscription charges do not synchronize.

Reseller subscriptions and account subscriptions are independent and may be configured differently. For example, a reseller subscription activates immediately after assigning the product to the account, while the account subscription becomes active upon the account’s first usage date.

The reseller can adjust a recurring fee for an individual account. The reseller can provide a discount or mark up account subscription. Change in price (or any other change) for an account subscription doesn’t influence the price of a reseller subscription.

By default, the reseller’s recurring fees stop for a specific customer under the following conditions:

1. The account has become closed.
2. The reseller replaces the account’s product with one that doesn’t include the reseller subscription.
3. The reseller subscription is removed from the product.

To charge resellers recurring fees for a product with call recording, the administrator performs the following steps:

1. Creates a reseller subscription:
   • Defines a $10 recurring fee;
   • Selects Admin for Managed by option;
   • Leaves At the given start date for Activation mode  so that a reseller subscription activates immediately after adding it to the account;
   • Selects the Can be applied more than once checkbox.
2. Creates an account subscription:
   • Defines a $20 recurring fee;
   • Selects Admin for Managed by option;
   • Turns on the Share with resellers toggle (mandatory for subscriptions managed by administrator).
3. Creates add-on product (or main product):
   • Selects Admin for Managed by option;
   • Turns on the Share with resellers toggle;
   • Charges > General info > Subscription  > selects an Account subscription and Reseller subscription ;
   • Additional information > Add-on product is allowed with > turns on the Any main product toggle;
   • On the Voice calls configuration panel, turns on the Call recording  feature.

Now the reseller can assign this product to accounts. Note that subscription charges apply to a reseller only if they assign this very product to the account. The scenario above can be configured the other way – when the main/add-on product, account subscription, and reseller subscription are managed by a specific reseller. In this case the reseller can edit the main/add-on product and account subscription (reseller subscription is read-only). But the other resellers have no access to this very product.

Service providers can increase their profitability by selling services via resellers.

If the main product/add-on product is managed by administrator, the reseller can’t replace the account subscription.

You can ensure that you are not on the hook for costs when a reseller’s customers go over their bundle limits – this is especially useful when dealing with bundles each having a certain volume of minutes or data. When a reseller sells such a product with service volume and the customer uses services within this volume, that customer is not charged extra – and nor is the reseller. As soon as the service volume is used up, the reseller starts charging the customer for those service overages – and you start charging the reseller as well.

Service providers can receive revenue that is proportional to the revenue of the reseller.

To configure a package that includes a quota that affects charging the reseller, the administrator must perform the following steps:

1. Set the LoadModules option on the Configuration server.

   Go to BillingEngine > Custom > LoadModules > specify affil=Porta::Extra::AffiliateDiscount.

2. Create a code group.

   Note that the name must contain the ;AFFILIATED suffix, e.g., “Europe;AFFILIATED”.

   Go to Service catalog > Rates codes > Code group sets > create the Europe;AFFILIATED code group and assign the European prefixes to it.

3. Add a bundle item with a specific service volume and the Europe;AFFILIATED code group.

   • Go to Service catalog > Bundles > add a new bundle of the Renewable by calendar type.
   • Open Bundle items, click Add, and fill in the bundle item details.
     • Volume measured – select Service used, minute.
     • Code group – select Europe;AFFILIATED.

4. Create the “EuropeCall” package according to the configuration above. The package must contain the reseller and account subscriptions.

5. Assign the bundle to the “EuropeCall” product.

   Open Product > Charges > General info > Default bundle > select the previously created bundle.

1. The code group name must contain the ;AFFILIATED suffix, e.g., “Europe;AFFILIATED”.
2. The bundle item must be based on the volume of service used, e.g., minutes or GB.
3. Make sure that no bundle is assigned directly to a reseller if a bundle with an affiliated code group is used for the reseller’s customers. Otherwise, credits would be issued to a reseller.
4. Charging resellers for subscribers’ quota overage works with a multi-level network of resellers.
5. Resellers must have sufficient funds/credit limit to authorize the calls of their customers. The bundle applies only when the call is ended.