The Occupant tab contains the customer’s occupant information, including name, primary phone number and e-mail address, credit status, complaints, and other information. You can view, add, modify, and delete information here. This tab is described in the Occupant section (see Adding an Occupant).

The Subscription tab contains a variety of information about a customer’s subscription, including:

• The publication to which he/she is subscribed.

• The subscription status (e.g., Active, Perm Stopped, Temp Stopped, Vac-Online).

• The billing method (Office Pay, Carrier Collect, Paid Comp, Unpaid Comp). Auto-renew credit card and bank draft subscribers can have different labels (such as “auto renew card” and “auto renew bank”) as defined by Business Rules.

• The current rate.

• The start and expire date of the subscription.

• The delivery schedule, which determines which days the subscriber receives the paper.

• The route, route type and carrier delivering the newspaper (if route delivered) or the label group (if mail delivered).

• The district and carrier, if route delivered.

• The delivery method (route or mail) for each day.

• The current balance and tax remaining in the subscription, the current discount amount remaining (discounts are amortized throughout the length of the subscription) and number of papers (copies) left in the subscription.

• The current premium amount (wallet balance), if the subscriber has purchased premium days in their subscription period. See .

• The Messages tab, containing messages that apply to this subscriber.

• The Auto Pay tab, if the subscriber automatically renews using a credit card or bank account.

• The Billing Info tab, containing the subscriber’s bill-to address, if it is different from the delivery address. Renewal delivery information is also displayed here.

• The Mail-To tab, which will contain the subscriber’s mail-to address if one exists.

• The Gift Subscribers tab, which lists any gift subscriptions paid for by this occupant (i.e., all of the subscribers for which this occupant is the bill-to occupant).

• Additional addresses, delivery directions, delivery instructions, and delivery placement, if applicable, in their own tab.

• The Multiple Routes tab if the subscription is delivered by multiple routes.

• The Deadlines tab, which indicates the time by which the route should be delivered on each day of the week, as well as the cutoff time for dispatched shortages.

• The Carriers tab, showing all carriers associated with a selected subscription.

• The Combined Payments tab, showing a summary of all payments made on a combo subscription (active only for combo subscriptions).

The Contact tab is a centralized area where all customer contact information (e-mail, phone, solicitation) displays. Communication preferences for newsletters and alerts are also displayed here. Current contact information (phone numbers, e-mail addresses etc.) can be modified from this tab, and new contact info can be added. See Entering Contact Information for Occupants for more information on adding contact info.

Use the Demographics tab to view address, occupant, and subscriber demographic questions and answers for this customer. You can also enter and modify answers on these tabs by selecting a question and clicking Modify. The question will appear in the Question field. Enter or modify the answer to the demographic in the Answer field. Click on the button for a list of possible answers.

The Miscellaneous tab is a composite of six different categories of information, which are described below.

Tax Authority

A tax authority is a geographical tax area, such as “MN” for Minnesota state taxes. If a tax authority is set up in a city, county, state, and/or country in which the subscriber resides, that tax will be applied to the cost of the subscription, unless an exemption is entered. Tax authorities and exemption reason codes must be defined in Setup. The Tax Authority panel shows tax authorities and the tax exemption reasons (if any) that apply to a subscriber. Tax exemptions are entered during new starts and billing changes.

Recent Transactions

This panel displays the last start, restart, and complaint for this subscription. The start and restarts are listed with their source and reason codes. The complaint is listed with its complaint code, and the total number of complaints called in for this subscription is shown.

TM Products Delivered

This tab lists of all Targeted Marketing (TM) products delivered to this address. TM products can include grocery store flyers, shoppers, and other commercial items. A TM product is delivered only to certain addresses, targeted by the product’s selection criteria. The selection criteria might include Zip, demographic answers, publication received, or other variables.

Inserts Delivered

If you have InsertPlus, a list of all inserts delivered to this customer, along with the delivery date, is displayed. If the insert has a version, the version also displays. The Runout column indicates whether the customer is in a runout zone for this insert (if the zone is a runout, the customer may or may not have received the insert in their paper). Burt Route Code 1 and Code 2 will display only if used in conjunction with the Burt Export and for sites that export alternate information. These fields will be suppressed for a subscriber who does not have inserts that utilize the Burt codes.

Only inserts for the current publishing date or earlier will be shown. A Business Rule in the InsertPlus section determines the number of days that are initially displayed. Click Selection to change the product or date range (inserts can be viewed for both publications and TM products).

Tax Impact

The Tax Impact query displays the tax on all relevant subscriber transactions, including payments and auto renews, within a date range. This option will be available only if the subscriber has had a payment or other transaction taxed. Click Selection to specify the date range, then click OK. The transactions that were taxed will appear.

Authentication Logins

This tab displays a list of iServices authentication logins for the subscriber within the last 30 days. A Selection button is available to modify the date range for which the user’s logins are listed.

Communication History

Communication history reflects the newsletters or alerts that have already been sent to customers. For example, a customer might call because they have not received their “Sports” newsletter. You can check the customer’s communication history to determine if the communication should have been sent. Initially history for the current date and past 30 days displays. You can change the date range by clicking the Selection button.

It is sometimes useful to view a subscription’s rates historically. For example, a subscriber may call in to complain about a rate increase. By viewing the subscriber’s rate changes, you can see that they were moved, for example, from a “1/2 off” rate, to a “1/3 off” rate, to a standard rate. Rate changes are displayed on the Rate Chgs tab.

The Financial tab contains four sub-tabs.

1. Adjust Days

2. Fiscal Activity

3. Fees

4. Vacation Credits

Adjust Days

• The Adjust Days sub-tab shows the history of expiration dates for this subscription, along with the reasons why the dates were changed. Starts, stops, payments, refunds, expire changes, and complaints are all examples of transactions that can adjust the expiration date. These changes are known as adjustment days. Details about an adjustment, such as taxes, tips, and bonus day premium amounts, can be displayed by clicking the plus icon to the left of a transaction.

Fiscal Activity

• On the Fiscal Activity sub-tab, you can view all of the invoice activity (revenue and grace-owed records) for this subscriber in a specified date range. You can click on a record to see details in the Fiscal Activity Details section of the tab.

Fees

1. The Fees sub-tab displays the status of the fees associated with this subscription. Refer New Start | Fees.

   • The following table describes the fields on this sub-tab.

     Field

     What it means

     Fee Type

     Indicates the type of fee, whether Activation, Printed Statement, or Other.

     Fee Code

     Name of the fee

     Description

     Details of the Fee Code

     Fee Date

     The date when the fee was applied

     Amount

     The fee that was charged

     Remaining Amount

     The amount that is still yet to be paid

     Status

     Indicates the current status of the fee, whether Paid, Waived, Written Off, or Unpaid

     Reason

     Indicates the reason for the status of the fee. This only applies to Waived and Written Off statuses.

     Date

     The date the fee was waived or written off.

2. Below are the options available under Fees sub-tab:

   • Show All Fees—When you click the button, the fees with all statuses will be displayed. By default, only fees with an unpaid status will appear.
   • Show Only Unpaid Fees—When you click the Show All Fees button, it will change to Show Only Unpaid Fees. Click the button to view only the unpaid fees.
   • Write Off Selected Fee—Fees can only be written off for an unpaid fee if the subscription has a processed start transaction.

     1. Select the fee to be written off from the table and click the "Write Off Selected Fee" button.

     2. Select a Source (optional) and a Write Off Reason from the respective drop-down menus, then click OK.
     3. After a fee is written off, the status of the fee is reflected as written off on the fee tab. In addition, a FeeWriteOff transaction will be displayed in the transaction window.

     Note: This is applicable to both Activation and Printed Bill Fees.

   • Printed Bill Fee—To opt out of the Printed Bill fees, click this button.

     1. Click the Modify button.
     2. Select the "Opt out of Printed Bill Fee" checkbox and then choose the "Opt out Reason" from the drop-down menu.

     3. Click OK.

3. Processing a payment towards Fees:

   • When processing a payment, the payment for Fees will be made only after the Grace Amount, if any, has been applied.

   • If the payment is entirely applied to the Fees, the status will be shown as Paid.
   • Or else, the status will remain Unpaid, and the remaining amount to be paid will be shown in the table's Remaining Amount column.

Vacation Credits

1. Subscribers who do not want to get the vacation credit can update the details in this sub-tab.

2. This sub-tab will be enabled only if the Business Rule—Can subscribers opt out of vacation credit rules? (General section) has been set to Yes.

3. Select Modify.

   1. Select the "Opt Out Of Vacation Credit Rules" checkbox and enter the Remarks (optional). Click Submit.
   2. A Note transaction is created as a record of this activity when a subscriber opts out of vacation credit rules or opts back in to vacation credit rules. The Note transaction will appear on the Transactions tab.
   3. To delete or modify the transaction's details, click either the Delete or Modify buttons at the bottom of the Note transaction.

Customers often call to get information about their account; for example, the number of days left in their subscription or their balance. Customer Service associates also find this information useful when trying to solve a service or billing problem with a subscriber. This information is displayed on the tabs in the lower part of the window. Only the tabs relevant to a particular customer will be active. These tabs are described and discussed individually below.

The Rates tab shows the subscriber’s current rate, available rates, and the different rate terms. For example, the following example shows a 1-week term, a 4-week term, and a 13-week term.

The Show On Renewal and Show On Invoice columns indicate whether the term will appear on the subscriber’s renewal notice or invoice: it may always appear, never appear, or appear only if the subscriber previously paid with this term.

If your rates vary by day of week, double-clicking on a rate term will display rate amounts or percentages by day of week. Yearly, quarterly, and monthly terms will have percentages for each day of the week, while day terms will have amounts. Weekly terms can have either amounts or percentages, depending on how the term is defined. Click Find to view rate terms for a different rate.

For combo subscriptions, the amounts by day for each component of the combo are shown when you expand the Amounts By Day. As well, when you expand the Tax By Day, any applicable taxes for any component product are shown.

If any of the rate terms contain bonus day premium amounts (Bonus Day Adjustment), a Premium Day column displays, with the total amount of all premium days included in each term.

Price Quotes

Customers sometimes ask for price quotes; for example, how much they can buy for a given amount of money. To get a quote, click on the Price Quote tab. You can find a quote for a certain number of days, or for a certain amount. For example, the customer might be in town for 40 days, or only want to spend 30.00.

This feature shows potential rates and terms—it does not start or renew subscriptions. The rate and term quoted can be printed on the subscriber’s invoice or renewal (if you click the Create Quote button), but this is the only effect of the operation.

The following table describes the fields on this tab.

Available Rates

The Rates tab can also display rates available to a subscriber (on the Available Rates sub-tab). It uses address, occupant, and subscription information (if available) to find valid rates, based on the subscriber rating rules. This is useful when customers ask what rates and terms are available. To display the rates available to a subscriber, click the Get Rates button, enter the product, delivery schedule and delivery placement (or keep the defaults), and click OK. The available rates are then displayed.

If you need information about a customer’s address, click on the Address tab. You also modify and delete addresses here, as well as view complaints, AAM zones, routes, and other information associated with an address. This tab is described in the Address section.

The Merch tab shows the merchandise associated with a subscription and the current status. Users with the proper security (Transaction Security item “CSMMerchDate”) will be able to modify the fulfillment date of processed transactions.

Background record information about the subscription can be displayed by selecting Subscriber Info from the File menu. This option displays the customer’s address ID and occupant ID (both for delivery and billing). If a transaction is selected, the transaction’s transaction ID also displays. This information can be handy for troubleshooting issues with a particular subscription.

Rewards programs are promotional offers that give consumers credits for purchasing a product. The credits may be air miles, points, or other incentives. Subscribers can be signed up for a rewards program on the Rewards tab. Payments will generate rewards for programs to which the subscriber belongs. See the Offer Code section of the Setup Manual for more information on rewards.

Setting Up a Rewards Program

To add a subscriber to a program:

• Find the subscriber.

• On the Rewards tab, click Add.

• Select the rewards program and enter the subscriber’s account number in the program.

• Click OK to add the subscriber to the program.

Displaying Rewards Information

The subscriber’s current rewards, if they exist, will be displayed on the Rewards tab, in the Reward History area. Each transaction that generated a reward (typically a payment or auto renew) will be shown.

Manually Adding a Reward

Although they are typically generated by payments, rewards can also be added manually on the Rewards tab in Customer Service. This is useful for reward adjustments, or when transferring rewards from some other product or program.

To manually add a reward:

1. Find the subscriber and click the Add Reward button on the Rewards tab. Note that menu security can be defined for this button.
2. Enter reward information in the fields described in the table below.

3. Click OK to add the reward. A reward transaction will be created, and will be processed by transaction processing on the reward date.

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.