Reason

Reason codes are entered with transactions, and explain why a transaction was carried out. Their main use is in data analysis. For example, if a stop was entered in Circulation, there might be several different reason codes set up for why the stop took place, such as “moving”, “poor service”, “no money”, or “don’t read”. A manager could then print a report to determine how many of the stops were because of poor service, and take appropriate action. Another use of reason codes is in tracking promotions and retention via the Start Analysis Report. They can also print on bundle tops and be used in subscriber rating rules.

Business Rules determine whether a reason code is required for subscriber payments, and the default subscriber payment reason code. Business Rules also determine the reason code used for stopping paid subscriptions that expire and are not renewed, stopping “start and bill” subscriptions that are never paid for, autostarting subscriptions by credit card payment, autostarting subscriptions by bank draft, and expire alert transactions.

Reason codes are summarized on the District Manager Summary Report.

Reason codes predefined by NAVIGA

Reason codes are defined for specific transaction types. The following reason codes are required by Circulation and are predefined by NAVIGA:

Transaction Type	Reason Code
Expire	Payment
BillingChg	Payment
Renewal	Payment
ExpireChnge	PermStop

User-defined reason codes

When you set up additional reason codes, you should define the reason code for all appropriate transaction types. For example, each time you set up a “billing change” reason code such as “billmeth” (billing method change), be sure to set up the reason code for Available Refund and Expire transactions (because a billing change could generate an available refund or expire transaction).

Some other reason codes you might set up are:

Transaction	Reason Code	Description
Move In	MoveIn	Moved into Area
Start	New	New Customer
Start	HalfOff	Half Price Promotion
<any>	Misc	Miscellaneous

Note: Never reuse a reason code for another purpose. For example, never change a stop reason from permanent to temporary.

Circulation transactions, and the reason codes that should apply to them, are listed below.

Transaction	Reasons that Apply
Available Refund	Reasons for all permanent stops and billing changes.
Billing Change	Reasons that apply to the following activities: Add/change/delete a bill-to address or bill-to occupant. Change in billing method (carrier collect, office pay, paid comp or unpaid comp). Change a subscriber rate code. Change the Y/N flag for sending renewals or invoices to subscribers. Need to enter a PO number for a subscriber. Change the number of renewals sent or the date the last renewal was sent. Change the AAM column for an individual subscriber. Change auto-renew credit card number and auto-renew term or length. Add/change/delete tax exempt status. All payment reasons.
Bonus Day	Reasons for delivering bonus day papers to subscribers (bonus papers are papers delivered on days, typically holidays, that are not on the subscriber’s normal delivery schedule).
Combo Change	Reasons for entering a combo change.
Day Pass	Reasons for starting a day pass subscription. If the day pass reason code will be used to determine the rate for the day pass, also define a start reason code for each day pass reason code, along with a Subscription Rule that has the start reason code selected in the Reason field.
Day Pass Usage	Reasons for using a day pass in a day pass bundle.
Delivery Schedule	Reasons that apply to the following activities: Delivery schedule change (e.g., Sunday Only to 7-Day). Change a subscriber rate code. Vary the number of copies a subscriber receives on a particular day or days.
Dispute End	Reasons that a disputed invoice has been resolved.
Dispute Start	Reasons that a disputed invoice was recorded.
Draw Change	Reasons that increase/decrease draw on a home delivery route or single copy outlet, or add the initial draw for a single copy outlet.
End Grace	Reasons that end a subscriber’s grace period.
End Grace Change	Reasons that extend a subscriber’s grace period end date.
Expire	All billing change or payment reasons.
Expire Alert	A reason code is necessary in Business Rules if you use expire alerts.
Expire Change	Reasons that extend an office pay subscriber’s expire date (such as office error).
Grace Owed	Reasons for creating grace owed transactions after the grace period has expired.
Grace Paid	Reasons for paying off grace owed amounts.
Grace WOff	Reasons for writing off grace owed amounts, such as Old.
Move Out	Move out reasons: New House, Relocated, etc.
Move In	All move out reasons. You can have additional move in reason codes, such as Out State and Country.
Note	Reasons for notes that customer service reps view on-line, regarding a subscriber or subscription. For example, Contact.
NSF Payment	All payment reasons.
Outlet Note	Store note
Outlet Start	Store opening
Outlet Stop	Store closing
Payment	Payment reasons, including reasons for auto-renew and lockbox payments.
Payment Cancel	All payment reasons.
Payment Decline	Credit card decline reasons such as Over Limit.
Placement	Reasons for a delivery placement transaction (changing placements).
Rate Change	Reasons for changing a carrier collect subscriber’s rate.
Rebill	Reasons for reprinting a renewal notice or invoice.
Refund	Reasons for issuing a refund check.
Refund Export	Reasons for exporting refunds to an accounts payable system.
Refund WOff	Reasons for writing off a refund.
Renewal	All payment reasons.
Reroute	All reroute reasons, such as Reroute Due to Poor Service, Mass Rerouting, and Reroute for Router Correction.
Restart	Reasons for restarting a temp stopped subscription, such as Vacation.
Reverse Draw	Reasons for reversing draw changes.
Shortage	All shortage reasons, such as Carrier Short, Papers Stolen, Draw Error, etc.
Start	All start reasons, such as Contest, Promotion, Telemarketing, New in Town, etc.
Stop	All stop reasons, such as Can’t Afford, No Time To Read, Moving Out, etc.
Suspend	Reasons for temporarily stopping a subscription because the route has been suspended.
Temp Address	All temporary address reasons, such as Renovation, Hospital, etc.
Temp Address End	All temp address reasons. You can have additional end temp address reasons, such as Returned.
Transfer In/Out	All reasons for transferred money (or days) from one subscriber account to another. Note: A reason code of “Unalloc” must be created for use with transfers.
Unsuspend	Reasons for restarting subscriptions because the route has been reactivated.

Setting up reason codes

Follow the procedure below to define a reason code.

To define a reason code:

• In character Circulation, select Reason from the Code menu to display the Reason Setup screen. (Reason Setup is also available in the Graphical Setup module, but only Start and Delivery Schedule Change reason codes can be defined.)

  
• Select Add and complete the following fields.

  Field	Type	What to enter
  TRANSACTION TYPE	predefined	Press F2 and select the correct transaction type. Other fields on this screen become active based on the transaction type entered.
  REASON CODE	open (8)	Enter the reason code.
  START DATE, END DATE	date	Enter the date range during which this reason code may be used. You may leave End Date blank.
  DESCRIPTION	open (30)	Enter a description of the reason code. This description appears on reports and F2 lookups.
  PRINT ON RENEWAL	predefined	Transaction information may print on your renewal notices/ invoices, if your renewal format is one of the “export” formats (as governed by Business Rules). Indicate here whether transactions with this reason code should print on renewal notices in summary or detail, or never print on renewal notices. “Detail” will print every individual transaction, while “summary” will summarize all transactions with the same renewal description (entered in the field below). Up to 10 lines of transaction information can print on a notice.
  RENEWAL DESCRIPTION	open (30)	If transactions with this reason code will print on renewals, enter a description to print on the renewal notice.
  REQUIRE REMARK	yes/no	Indicate whether remarks must be entered by the associate when this reason code is used.
  UPDATE DRAW	yes/no	Indicate whether the carrier’s draw should be updated when this reason code is used in Customer Service. This field is active only if the reason code is for a start, stop, reroute, or delivery schedule change. Enter “no” with caution. You might enter “no” for one or more reason codes to use after Conversion when not all subscribers are known or stored in the Circulation database, but the carrier’s draw is correct. You would then set an end date on those reason codes.
  UPDATE EXPIRE	yes/no	Indicate whether the subscriber’s expiration date should be adjusted when this code is used. This field is active only for reroute, billing change, and delivery schedule transaction types.
  REROUTE	yes/no	Indicate whether subscriptions with this reason code should be rerouted when Utilities | Subscription/Address | Rerouting is selected. This field is active only for reroute transaction types.
  PRINT ON BUNDLE	yes/no	Indicate whether transactions with this reason code should print on bundle tops. This field is active only for starts, stops, restarts, reroutes and bonus days.
  PRINT CODE ON BUNDLE	yes/no	Indicate whether the reason description should print in the message to the carrier on the bundle top.
  SEND EMAIL CONFIRMATION	yes/no	This field opens only for start, stop, restart and payment reason codes. Indicate whether an e-mail conformation should be sent to the subscriber after entering a transaction with this reason code. See the User Manual for more information.
  SHOW ON WEB ENTER ON WEB WEB DESCRIPTION	yes/no yes/no open (30)	These fields are used by iServices. Indicate whether this reason code should display on the web, and, if so, whether subscribers can use this reason code when entering transactions via iServices. If Show on Web is “y”, enter the description that should be displayed for the reason code.
  PERMANENT	yes/no	If this reason code is for a stop transaction type, indicate whether stops with this reason code are considered permanent, i.e., after the stop is processed, the account is considered to be a non-subscriber.
  RESTART REASON	setup	If the reason code is for a temporary stop, enter the default restart reason code that should be used when the subscription is started again.
  CONTROLLABLE	yes/no	If the reason code is for a permanent stop, indicate whether the stop is considered “controllable”. For example, a reason code of “poor service” is controllable, while a reason code of “move” may not be.
  APPLY VACATION RULES	yes/no	If this is a temp stop reason code, indicate whether vacation credit rules (which automatically donate copies for up to a certain number of stopped days when a subscriber is temp stopped) should be applied. Vacation credit rules will only be applied to a temp stop if the reason code has Apply Vacation Rules set to “y” and vacation credit rules are used (based on the Business Rules). The default is “n”.
  VACATION PACK	yes/no	If the reason code is for a temporary stop, this field determines whether Vacation Pack is defaulted to “y” or “n” during a stop transaction.
  ONLINE VACATION	yes/no	If this reason code is for a temporary stop, set this field to “y” if the subscriber should be placed on a digital vacation pack when the reason code is selected. In the case of a digital vacation pack, the subscriber is given access to the online edition of the publication during the vacation period. If a reason code has Vacation Pack set to “y,” Online Vacation cannot be set to “y” (separate codes must be used for regular and digital vacation packs).
  GRACE PAYMENT %	integer (3)	If the reason code is for a permanent stop, enter the minimum percentage of grace owed that must be paid in order to auto start the subscriber (you can set Business Rules to automatically start previously stopped subscriptions if a payment is received). The default is 100% (i.e., the entire grace owed amount must be paid), which is the maximum. So, for example, if a subscriber owes 20.00 in grace, and this field is set to 50%, a payment of 11.00 will auto start the subscription. A payment of only 8.00, on the other hand, will not start the subscription—the 8.00 will simply be applied to the grace owed. See Credit Status and Grace for more information about grace.
  ALLOW AUTOSTART	yes/no	If the reason code is for a permanent stop, indicate whether subscribers who stop with this reason code should be auto-started by the system if they later send in a payment. Note that in order for the auto-starts to occur, the Business Rule, Should a payment auto-start a former subscriber?, (Subscriber Payments section) must also be set to “Always”.
  DID NOT ORDER	yes/no	This field identifies “did not order” reason codes, which are used when entering stop transactions to indicate that the customer did not order the paper. If this field is set to “yes”, the “did not order” validation will occur when entering stop transactions in Customer Service.
  NO CONTACT CODE	setup	For permanent stops only. Enter the “do not contact” solicitation code with which the occupant’s record will be updated when this transaction is processed.

• Select Specifics | Reason Info and enter additional information about the reason code, if needed (see below). Note: If this is a Stop reason code, you can select SPECIFICS | REASON CHG FEE and attach a cancellation fee to the reason code, if needed (see below).

• Select Accept to enter the reason code into the database.

• Set up more reason codes, or press F4 and select Exit to exit to the Setup menu.

Specifics, Reason Info

Additional information about the reason code can be entered in Specifics | Reason Info. You can select this specific if you want to:

• Specify the GL account that should be used for expire change transactions. Expire changes will debit or credit your Unearned Revenue account, and an offsetting debit or credit will be posted to the Expire Change account identified here. For example, if you agree to extend a subscriber’s expire date a week because of poor service, the value of a week’s worth of that subscription will be credited to Unearned Revenue and debited from Expire Change. If an expire change shortens a subscription, on the other hand, Unearned Revenue will be debited and Expire Change credited.

• Specify the GL account that should be used for refund overrides. If a subscriber is refunded an amount greater than the available refund, this account will be debited for the value of the refund override amount.

• Produce carrier collect invoices (see the User Manual); this is where you define the conditions under which a transaction with this reason code should generate a carrier collect invoice if invoices are created in between billing dates.

• Specify valid Zip codes for new start and delivery schedule reason codes. The reason codes will only be valid for the Zip codes you specify. For example, if the delivery schedule “DODS” is valid only for Zip codes that begin with 55, associates will not be able to use the reason code for a subscriber in, say, Zip code 30440.

• Indicate at the publication level whether transactions with this reason code should print on renewal notices, if one of the renewal notice export formats is used.

• Enter reminder messages that should display in a popup window when the reason code is entered (start, stop and restart reason codes only).

To specify reason info for this reason code:

• Select Specifics | Reason Info from the Reason Setup screen to display the Reason Info Setup screen.

  
• Select Add and complete the following fields.

  Field	Type	What to enter
  TRANSACTION TYPE, REASON CODE	display	The reason code and transaction type will display from the Reason Setup screen.
  PRODUCT	setup	Enter the product for which you are entering reason info.
  ZIP CODE	open (5)	If the reason code is for a new start or delivery schedule change, and is valid only for specific subscriber Zip codes, enter a Zip code here. If a reason code is valid in several Zip codes, you will need to enter multiple records (one for each Zip code). Note that in order to limit reason codes by Zip code you must have reason code override security defined (see Transaction Security). Users that have security to override reason codes will be able to use them in any Zip code.
  ZIP CODE EXTENSION	open (4)	Specify the Zip code extension for which the reason code is valid, or enter “*” to include all Zip code extensions of the Zip code entered above.
  DISTRICT ZONE REGION AREA	setup	These fields are available only for ExpireChnge reason codes. These fields allow the general ledger account numbers defined with the reason code to vary by district, zone, region, and area. If you enter a district, the Area, Region, and Zone fields will be set to “*” and skipped. Similarly, if the district is set to “*” and a zone is entered, the region and area will be set to “*” and skipped.
  START DATE, END DATE	date	Enter the date range during which this reason code information is valid. You may leave End Date blank.
  PRINT ON RENEWAL, RENEWAL DESC	predefined open (30)	These fields also display on the Reason Setup screen. If you enter Reason Info for a product, however, these fields will override the settings on the main screen. Enter the Print on Renewal setting and description for the product above.
  GL ACCOUNT	setup	Enter the GL account number that should be used as the Expire Change account for expire changes with this reason code and product. If this field is blank (or no Reason Info records are entered for the reason code), expire changes will be written to a blank GL account. If multiple records are entered (i.e., for different Zip codes), the GL account for the first record will be used.
  GENERATE ARREARS	predefined	Indicate under which conditions a carrier collect invoice should be created if invoices are run for arrears in between billing dates and a subscriber has a transaction with this reason code. An invoice can be produced if CC INVOICE EXPORT is run before batch, after batch, or both. If transactions with this reason code should not cause an invoice to be produced, set this field to never.
  GENERATE ADVANCE	predefined	Generate Advance works the same as Generate Arrears, but it is used when invoices are run for advance in between billing dates.
  REMINDER MESSAGE	unlimited	If the reason code is for a start, stop or restart, you may compose a reminder message here. The message will appear in a popup box when the subscriber enters this reason code with a transaction in Customer Service. For example, the reminder “Remember to ask for NIE donation” might display for a stop reason code.

• Select Accept to enter the reason info into the database.

• Enter reason info for other products, or press F4 and select Exit to exit to the Reason Setup screen.

Specifics, Reason Chg Fee

To discourage early subscription cancellation, a cancellation fee can now be charged to subscribers to reduce the amount of an available refund. Cancellation fees are based on the stop reason, and the amount can vary by stop reason and delivery schedule.

The Reason Chg Fee specific in Reason Code setup allows you to attach a cancellation fee to selected reason codes for Stop transactions. When entering a stop, and the stop reason has a cancellation fee, a message will display the cancellation fee and the final available refund amount. The cancellation fee does not include GST. For example, if the fee is 5.00 and GST is 10%, a total of 5.50 will be taken out of the account.

The cancellation fee will debit Unearned Revenue and credit the GL account associated with the cancellation donation code assigned to the stop reason.

Note: This Specifics option is available only for Stop reason codes.

To define a cancellation fee for a reason code:

• Select Specifics | Reason Chg Fee from the Reason Setup screen to display the Reason Change Fee Setup screen.

• Select Add and complete the following fields.

Field	Type	What to enter
TRANSACTION TYPE	display	“Stop” is displayed.
REASON CODE	display	The reason code is displayed.
PRODUCT	setup	Enter the product to which this fee applies.
DELIVERY SCHEDULE	setup	Enter the delivery schedule to which this fee applies.
START DATE, END DATE	date	Enter the date range for which this fee is valid.
DONATION CODE	setup	Enter the donation code to apply to the cancellation fee.
CHARGE OR CREDIT	predefined	Enter Charge.
AMOUNT	decimal (8)	Enter the amount of the cancellation fee. Either this amount or the subscriber’s available balance, whichever is less, will be charged.

• Select Accept to enter the cancellation fee info into the database.

• Enter additional cancellation fees, or press F4 and select Exit to exit to the Reason Setup screen.