How it Works...
Product Catalog
The Dynamics Billing Product Catalog module provides for user-flexibility when introducing or changing product and service offerings. A product can be any type of plan, service, contract, bundle and each can be hierarchical in nature.
The ease of use with the Dynamics Billing product catalog is via its intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) which makes it easy to add, modify, or terminate new product offerings and services. The product cataloge is easily configurable and able to synchronize with any external upstream or downstream systems.
Hierarchies
Simplify your pricing management
Manage one pricing plan instead of hundreds. With Dynamics Billing hierarchies you can reduce the number of pricing plans you manage by building a single plan for a product grouping and let Dynamics Billing automatically manage the assignment of the pricing plans to each similar product in the hierarchy.
Bundles
Hierarchies also give you a way to neatly and clearly bundle your offerings any which way you please.
Product Attributes
Capture Product Attributes
When creating a product, you can define a set of attributes that can be used for different purposes:
1) Store product details. Use this feature to refine your reporting or simply to keep neatly organized product information.
2) Configure how a product is sold and billed for. Configure "Instance attributes" to capture important details at the point of sale (quantities, phone numbers, etc.) or "usage attributes" to instruct the system to send certain information to the billing engine - don't worry, it's easier than it sounds.
Client data as a pricing factor
We've configured CRM to allow attributes (product or client attributes) to be factored in at the time of billing. This gives Dynamics Billing tremendous versatility. See the Rules and Behavioral Billing in the Plans section below for more detail.
Pricing
Dynamics Billing's ability to handle any pricing model for any industry is driven by the flexibility of the billing engine. Charge-Options and Charge Sub-Options are used together, or in multiple combinations to construct simple to advance pricing scenarios
When setting up pricing for any product or service, you’ll find eight Charge Options to select from. You can set up something as simple using a single Charge Option, or something incredibly complex using a mixture of any.
Charge Options
Volume
Cap
Volume
Commitment
(Unit Based)
Volume
Commitment
(Rev. Based)
Transactional Discount
Volume
Discount
Usage
One-Time
Recurring
You can configure each of the above Charge Options using different Sub-Options. Again, this can be simple or incredibly intricate.
Charge Sub-Options
Structure
Formula
Discount
Basic Charge
Rate
Table
As Dynamics Billing is built into Microsoft Dynamics CRM – a Customer Relationship Management platform - we’ve designed the solution to allow Client Data to influence the pricing, if you so choose. Allow use to elaborate...
Take creative freedom to the next level by using the rules builder to create pricing configurations that utilize data from anywhere in the system to influence the final price.
Rule Building & Behavioral Billing
Rules
Here's a simple example showing how the user can configure a rule which allows client data to influence pricing
Here, we have client Attributes collected from CRM. Note the "VIP Status" Attribute - in this case, representing a customer loyalty rating
Then, simply configure how Dynamics Billing interprets and reflects the change. In this case, a change in VIP status causes different pricing options to be applied
In the Product Catalog, you can configure different Pricing conditions
Taking Rules one step further, you have Behavioral Billing. In the "Bundling" example below, we've shown how consumption of one product can affect how another product is billed. Here's how it works:
Behavioral Billing
Counters
Using Counters
Using aggregated product usage data, either in the form of dollar amounts or units, you can track consumption for any defined period. This data can then be used to apply volume discounts, volume caps, and volume commitment (true-up) charges.
Behavioral Counting
Used in conjuction with rules, you can have plans set to automatically pull counter data when calculating a charge or discount for a different product owned by the same account. The result is usage data for one product affecting the price of another.
Billing Scenarios
A few examples
Basic Subscription
Create and manage your recurring subscription charges on any daily, weekly, monthly, or annual interval
$40/mo
$60/week
$3,000/quarter
An internet provider Charges $40 per month
An Online grocer charges members $60/week
A consulting firm charges clients $3,000 per quarter
Per-Unit Recurring
Using fixed dollar amounts, charge the client based on what quantity of products or services they require. You can set this to recur at any interval.
$50/seat/mo
$500/phone
$200/server/mo
A SaaS firm charges customers a $50/seat per month
A phone manufacturer charges a business $500 per phone purchased
A web hosting company is charged $200/month per server
Combining Charges
Combine any number of different pricing types to construct unique pricing configurations
$8/mo + $10/hr
(Max $80/day)
A car sharing company charges customers $8/month plus $10/hour of usage with a maximum charge set to $80/day
Charge for consumption utilizing any unit of measure
A cloud billing vendor charges clients 1.5% of monthly revenue
A hydro company charges their residential customers $0.132/kWh for usage
A phone service provider charges clients $40/month for 1,000 minutes of call time plus $0.08/min for every additional minute
Usage Based Billing
1.5% of Revenue
$0.132/kWh
$40/mo + $0.08/min
A Marketing firm offers clients a quarterly services package containing consulting, social media management, and website design
A SaaS company offers the ability to select and bundle any 3 out of 8 components from a Software Suite
Marketing Services Bundle
Bundle any 3
Drive sales by creatively bundling your different product offerings
Bundling
Bundling Beyond!
Dynamics Billing provides for Behavioral Billing which allows you to adjust how the pricing of one product is influenced by the consumption of another.
As an example...
Behavioral Billing
A customer purchases a bundle of services from a telco…
Phone Service
Media Streaming
Internet
Pricing can be set that, if the customer watches 5 foreign films using their movie streaming service...
...they get a, let’s say, 10% discount on all international calls made during that month. Pretty neat, eh? Note that behavioral billing is applicable to many billing scenarios, not just bundling.
Billing
The event-based billing module is highly automated, very easy to operate, and loaded with a number of options to help you produce that perfect invoice
Here is a visualization of the billing process. Simply select a bill period and execute a bill run to generate your invoices!
Accounting & Finance
Taxes and Accounting
Taxes
Use the Dynamics Billing tax capabilities or integrate to one of our 3rd party tax partners for your taxation requirements.
Accounting
Dynamics Billing captures all general ledger relevant data and makes it available in a file for easy accounting system integration. APIs are also available for native integration if required.