Subscription-priced matters allow you to invoice the customer, for example, with a fixed monthly subscription fee. When you define how often the subscription fee is invoiced and how long the subscription pricing is valid, the software creates fixed-price transactions accordingly. Even though the customer receives a fixed-price invoice for the subscription, you can still record billable transactions for the matter. You can either link them to the subscription as zero-priced or leave work outside the subscription to be invoiced separately. This way, you can track the profitability of the subscription-priced matter and pay bonuses to staff based on work performed. You can also show the hours worked to the customer in the invoice breakdown if needed.

The power user can activate the Subscription Pricing feature in the settings, in the system parameters (Application parameters > System parameters > General > Application features > Subscription in use). When using subscription pricing, it is also advisable to set the invoicing period (Business unit parameters > Invoicing > Invoicing period).

NOTE! If the main/sub-matter structure is used, a sub-matter can be subscription-priced only if it is not invoiced through the main matter. Only transactions recorded in the main matter can be linked to the subscription pricing defined for the main matter.

When you have set a subscription price for the matter, the transaction for the current month is created according to the definitions and appears in the Subscription window’s Transactions folder.

When an invoice is created for a subscription transaction, the software automatically creates the transaction for the next month. If the transaction is not invoiced, the next subscription transaction can be created by selecting “Create Next Subscription Fees” from the ribbon. If the invoicing period is not used, the software creates only one transaction at a time according to the subscription terms.

If you change the subscription price definitions, the software asks whether to delete automatically created uninvoiced transactions. Selecting Yes deletes them and creates new transactions according to the new definitions. Selecting No leaves the uninvoiced transactions as they are.

If you want the subscription price to be updated for each transaction added to the matter, you can select it in the matter’s Invoicing tab in the Default Subscription field.

You can, however, change or remove the automatically added default subscription price for a transaction in the Invoicing tab.

Adding Transactions to a Subscription-Priced Matter

You can add transactions to a subscription-priced matter as usual. If a recorded transaction is included in the subscription and should not be invoiced separately, link it to the subscription using the “Include in Subscription” button on the ribbon. The software then sets the transaction price to zero, and its total price cannot be changed. If you later remove the subscription link from the transaction, its total price is recalculated.

Transactions created by the software for the subscription can only be modified to a limited extent. In the Subscription window’s Transactions folder, they cannot be changed, but in the matter’s Transactions folder, you can make some changes. However, you cannot delete them, change their date, or remove their subscription link from the Invoicing tab. 

The views in the Subscription window’s Transactions folder group transactions according to whether they were created automatically as subscription fees or linked to the subscription manually.

Invoicing Transactions in a Subscription-Priced Matter

When an invoice is created for a fixed subscription price, transactions manually linked to the subscription are not automatically invoiced; these zero-priced transactions must be added to the invoice separately.

In the Financial Management area’s Subscription Pricing folder, the “Uninvoiced Fees” column shows whether there are uninvoiced subscription fees (green = yes, red = no).

If you do not want to show zero-priced transactions in the customer’s invoice specification, you can set this in the Invoice Printing Parameters window.

Not all transactions added to the matter necessarily belong to the subscription. If they are not linked to the subscription, they are invoiced as normal billable transactions.

Deleting the Subscription Price and Transactions

Fixed-price transactions created based on the subscription price cannot be deleted directly from the transaction list. Deletion is done as follows:

1. Open the Subscription window and edit some subscription price information, e.g., its amount.
2. When saving the changes, the software asks whether to delete open transactions created based on the subscription price and create new ones.
3. If you answer Yes, the software replaces the previous subscription transactions with new ones according to the new definitions.

The entire subscription can only be deleted with the Delete button if it does not yet have any transactions. Otherwise, the subscription can only be deactivated:

1. Go to the matter’s Subscriptions folder and select the Deactivate button.
2. The software asks whether to delete uninvoiced subscription fees.
3. Selecting Yes deletes all open, subscription-based transactions and deactivates the subscription, but leaves under the matter transactions manually added to the subscription.
4. Selecting No deactivates the subscription but leaves the transactions as they are.

Deleting or deactivating the subscription leaves manually added transactions under the matter as zero-priced and Open. To restore the actual price for these transactions, remove the subscription link from the Invoicing tab. This can also be done as a mass action by selecting transactions from the list, choosing “Include in subscription” from the ribbon, and leaving the subscription value empty, which restores the actual prices for the transactions.

If the subscription is deactivated, the related fixed-price transactions also remain open. They can be deleted from the list of open transactions, for example, by marking them as non-billable. A deactivated subscription can be reactivated in the matter’s Subscriptions folder by selecting the Passive Subscriptions view, the desired subscription price, and Activate. Active and passive subscription prices are also visible in Financial Management (Invoicing > Subscriptions).