Transactions

The Transactions tab is where you view detail about customer transactions, such as new starts and stops. You can also modify and delete transactions here, if the transaction has not yet been processed by transaction processing or, in the case of payments, subscriber payment processing. Refunds cannot be modified, because they are processed immediately. To view a transaction, select it in the Transactions tab in the upper right corner of the Customer Service module.

To display the payment amount breakdown, click the Details button next to the Payment Amount field. The Payment Amount Details will also display the amount processed towards Fees (Printed Bill and Activation Fees) and the premium amount.

System-Created Transactions

When viewing transactions added by an associate, such as new starts, stops, payments, or billing changes, the fields displayed will be the same as when entering the transaction (see Transactions for more information). Other transactions, however, are created by the system. These include:

Expire transactions

These transactions indicate the date an office pay subscription ends, and are pushed back by payments or other adjustments. Once an expire transaction is processed, the subscription is expired, and the subscriber will be stopped or go into grace until another payment is received. Expire transactions can be modified if they have not yet been processed.

End Grace transactions

When an office pay subscription expires, newspapers often have a “grace” period where the paper will still be delivered, in the hope that the subscriber will eventually send a payment. If grace days are used, an End Grace transaction will be created by the system when the Expire transaction is processed. The End Grace transaction date will be the date the grace period ends—if the End Grace transaction still exists on this date, it will be processed and the subscription will be permanently stopped or turned over to carrier collect. End grace transactions can be modified if they have not yet been processed.

Grace Owed transactions

If an End Grace transaction is allowed to expire, the system will create a Grace Owed transaction. This is the grace amount the subscriber still owes the newspaper. If no payment subsequently arrives, it will probably be written off eventually (see Grace WriteOff). Grace owed transactions are display-only—they cannot be modified.

Grace Paid transactions

If a payment does arrive for a subscription that has ended its grace period, the grace-owed amount will be deducted from the payment—this will create a Grace Paid transaction. Grace Paid transactions are display-only—they cannot be modified.

Grace Export transactions

If you run renewal notices with Print Grace Owed set to “yes”, a Grace Export transaction will be created. The Export Grace button allows you to export a rebill transaction for this subscriber. When you click this button, the message “Grace information successfully exported” is displayed, and a rebill transaction is exported to a file located in the default exchange directory. A Business Rule, To which subdirectory under the ‘exchange’ directory should grace owed generated from customer service be exported? (Subscriber Billing section), is used to identify this directory. If the Grace Export run is subsequently undone, the rebill and grace export transactions will be removed. The format of the export file is the same as the grace export format

Renewal Notice

1st, 2nd, and 3rd Renewal or Invoice transactions, created when a renewal notice is issued to a subscriber. The information that was printed on the renewal notice or invoice is displayed. If you are viewing a 1st invoice, 1st renewal, or rebill transaction, and these transactions were exported, an Export Renewal button will be available to export a replacement. The location of the export is defined in Business Rules—To which subdirectory under the ‘exchange’ directory should renewals generated from customer service be exported?

When running Subscriber Renewal Notices, if a subscriber is selected for an Invoice/Renewal and qualifies for a Printed Bill fee, the Printed Bill fee is applied when the Invoice/Renewal transaction is created. When you select the Invoice/Renewal transaction, you can view the subscriber's Activation Fee and Printed Bill Fee.

HTML (dynamic) renewal notices

• If HTML (dynamic) renewal notices can be viewed in iServices, the same notice or invoice can be displayed from Customer Service by clicking the View Renewal button in the screen shown above. The notice will display in your default browser. If you have more than one website defined you will be prompted to select a website; the dynamic renewal notice template for that website will be used.

  
• Auto Pay transactions, created when a subscription is automatically renewed.

• MarketTerm transactions are created for subscriptions on a marketing term (see Subscription Rates in the Setup Manual). Each one represents the point at which a marketing term rate becomes effective. They contain information such as the rate code; number of days owed, paid, or remaining; the copy rate by day; and other information. The “CSSMarketTerm” transaction security item determines whether users can view MarketTerm transactions (by default, the transactions are set to not display).

• Auto Renew Statement transactions, created when an auto-renew statement is generated for the subscription (this is similar to a Renewal transaction).

• Expire Alert transactions created so that expire messages appear on distribution documents. There is no detail for these transactions other than their date, so they cannot be viewed.

• CollectXprt transactions are created when a subscriber is exported by the Collectech interface. Like Expire Alert, there is no detail for these transactions.

• PreviousDelivery transactions, created when a subscriber should receive a previous day’s paper.

• BonusDay transactions, created when a subscriber should receive a paper even though it is not a normal delivery day for the subscription (this happens most often on holidays). BonusDay transactions can be created as part of new starts, billing changes, and delivery schedule changes, or by the Bonus Day Utility. The source and reason code for the BonusDay transaction are determined by Business Rules.

• Suspend transactions, created when the subscriber’s route is suspended. This is really just a variation of a temp stop.

• Unsuspend transactions, created when the subscriber’s suspended route is reactivated. This is really just a variation of a restart.

• Suspended Start transactions, which are New Starts created in iServices Subscriber that need to be reviewed in Customer Service before they are processed.