Bonus Day Setup

Newspapers sometimes offer bonus days to subscribers not on a 7-day delivery schedule. Bonus days are special days (typically holidays) on which the subscriber will receive the paper, even though it is not a normal delivery day for them. For example, if New Year’s Day falls on a Monday, the newspaper might still offer to deliver a special edition to subscribers with weekend-only delivery schedules. In this case, Monday, January 1st would be marked as a “holiday bonus” day.

Bonus days can be easy to managed and track in Circulation. The bonus day feature works as follows:

• Using this option, bonus days are defined separately for each delivery schedule. Newscycle recommends defining bonus days for at least as far in the future as your longest subscription term. For example, if your longest term is 1 year, you should define premium days for at least the next year (and ideally for the next two years).

• Run the Bonus Day Delivery utility to create the bonus day transactions for existing subscribers.

• When a start or billing change is entered, the subscriber can be flagged to receive bonus days, or not. Flagging a subscriber to receive bonus days will cause a bonus day transaction to be created for each bonus day for which the subscriber qualifies. Mail and third party subscribers are not eligible for bonus days. Hybrid subscribers are eligible only on bonus days that are route-delivered. Online subscribers are eligible for bonus days only if Valid for Online is set to “y” in Bonus Days setup (described below).

• You may wish to run the Bonus Day Delivery utility the day before each scheduled bonus day to update bonus day transactions with the most current route information and add bonus day transactions for subscribers who qualify, but do not already have them.

• Bonus day transactions will be processed by Transaction Processing. If bonus day transactions are processed after the bonus day, a suspended draw adjustment batch will be created for the transactions. Business Rules determine the draw adjust code used with the batch. The batch must be accepted in Route Adjust.

• The Route Delivery List can include bonus day papers to be delivered on the run date. Bonus day messages can also be printed on the bundle tops, depending on the bonus day reason code and Business Rules. A bonus day message will be printed if a subscriber has a bonus day transaction for that day.

• Subscribers can optionally be charged a premium for the bonus day using the Bonus Day Adjustment utility. This can apply both to subscribers who would not normally receive the paper on the delivery day, and subscribers who would receive the paper but are being charged a premium amount for a special edition delivered on the bonus day.

• Special account rates can be set up to charge and credit home delivery carriers for bonus day papers.

• Bonus days affect the account GL. Subscriber GL accounts are affected only if Bonus Day Adjustment is run.

To define bonus days for a delivery schedule:

1. Select Bonus Day Setup from the Subscription/Address menu in Graphical Utilities to display the Bonus Day screen.

   
2. Click the Add icon and complete the following fields.

   Field	Type	What to enter
   PRODUCT	setup	Select the product for which you will delivery a bonus day paper.
   DELIVERY SCHEDULE	setup	Select the delivery schedule that will receive the bonus day paper, or enter “*” to multi-select delivery schedules in the Delivery Schedule popup window.
   BONUS DATE	date	Enter the date for the bonus day.
   ALL DISTRICTS	yes/no	Bonus days may be defined for specific districts, or include all districts. Check this field if the bonus day paper will be delivered to all districts. Note: If you charge for bonus days using the “premium day” method (see Premium Day), bonus days cannot be set up for specific districts. All Districts will display as checked and District will display as“*”.
   DISTRICT	setup	If the bonus day will only be delivered to specific districts, leave All Districts unchecked and specify the district here (enter “*” to multi-select districts). Only subscribers on the selected delivery schedules who are delivered by routes in these districts will receive the bonus paper for that date.
   PAID CIRCULATION	yes/no	This field controls whether bonus day papers for a delivery schedule/district should be counted as paid or unpaid draw on the AAM reports. If “y” is entered here, the bonus day draw will be stored with the subscriber’s billing method (office pay, carrier collect, etc.). If “n” is entered, the bonus day draw will be stored as sample draw.
   INCL OPT OUT SUBSCRIBERS	yes/no	Indicate if you want to include subscribers who have opted out of bonus days. For this field to be available, the Business Rule, What is the default reason code for bonus day transactions for subscribers who opted out of bonus day papers? (Customer Services section), must be set. The field is not available if you charge for bonus days using the “premium day” method.
   PROJECTED	yes/no	If bonus days have been copied from an old year to a new year (see Copy Bonus Day Setup), the new bonus days will have Projected flagged to indicate that they are projected bonus days and need review. The bonus day can then be modified and Projected unchecked to indicate that it has been reviewed. Projected will be inactive when adding a new bonus day (rather than copying). Note: Having Projected checked does not prevent bonus day transactions from being created for a bonus day; the field is for reference purposes only.
   DELIVERY METHOD	yes/no	Indicate whether subscribers who are delivered by route, mail, online subscribers, or “*” (for multi-select window) should receive this bonus day paper. Online subscribers qualify for receiving bonus days on any day of the week if their address can be delivered by route. For example, it is possible to schedule a bonus day print delivery for online subscribers on a weekday for which they also have online access.
   LABEL GROUP	setup	For a mail-delivered subscription, enter the mail label group for this subscriber.
   ADJUSTMENT TYPE	predefined	This field pertains only if you charge for bonus days using the “premium day” method. Indicate whether the bonus day charge should be “Additional” (in addition to the subscriber’s copy rate for that day, if they receive the paper) or “Final” (total charge for the bonus day paper). See Premium Day for an example of premium day charges using the different adjustment types. If the bonus day is free or if you use the “traditional” method for charging bonus days, leave this field blank (Amount and Renewal Description will remain grayed out).
   AMOUNT	decimal (5)	This field pertains only if you charge for bonus days using the “premium day” method. Enter the premium amount for the product, delivery schedules and delivery methods selected.
   RENEWAL DESCRIPTION	open (30)	This field pertains only if you charge for bonus days using the “premium day” method. Enter the description that should print on renewal notices for the bonus day. The field will be exported with other premium information to the Detailed Export 2 format, if the Business Rule— Should premium day detail be exported in renewals? is set to “yes”.

3. Click OK to enter the bonus day information into the database.

4. To create bonus day transactions for the bonus day, run the Bonus Day Delivery utility.