Attaching Plan Groups to an Account - m3ter Documentation

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When you attach a Plan Group to an end customer Account, this creates a link between them to create an Account Plan Group. Attaching a Plan Group to an Account implicitly attaches all of the Plans included in the Group to the Account, and the Account is charged in accordance with those Plans.

• Active Account Plan Group. You can set the start and end dates to define the period the Account Plan Group will be active for the Account.

• Account Plan Group Minimum Spend. You can set a minimum spend amount for the Plan Group, which then acts as a cross-product minimum spend at billing for the Account. See Plan Group vs Plan Minimum Spends for more details.

• Attaching Multiple Plan Groups.

• Default Organization setting. You can attach more than one Plan Group to an Account to create multiple Account Plan Groups. However, the default Organization setting safeguards the rule that only one attached Plan per Product can be active at any one time for an Account. Multiple attached Plan Groups on an Account can have overlapping dates only if none of the Plan Groups contain a Plan belonging to the same Product. If you try to attach a Plan Group to an Account which contains a Plan belonging to the same Product as a Plan belonging to another Plan Group attached to the Account and the Plan Group attachment dates would overlap, then you’ll receive an error and the attachment will be blocked.

  • Overlapping Plans in Plan Groups. If your billing use case requires you to attach more than one Plan Group to an Account and containing Plans for the same Product at the same time, then you must first enable the Allow overlapping attached plans setting for your Organization. See Viewing and Editing Organization Configuration for more details.

• Reviewing Plan Group Attachment:

  • When you’ve attached a Plan Group to an Account, you can open a Plan Group Attachment page and review:
    • The details of the Account Plan Group created when you attached the Plan Group to the Account.
    • The Account Plan Group metadata for any Custom Fields, External Mappings, or Integration runs.
    • Details of the Plan Group itself.

• Add Plans to Plan Group and review Plan pricing:

  • From the Plan Group Attachment page, you can also add Plans directly to the Plan Group. This saves you having to open the Plan Group separately and add Plans to it from there.
  • You can then select a Plan that belongs to the attached Plan Group and review:
    • The Plan’s Details.
    • The Plan’s Associated Pricing directly on the page, which saves you having to open the Pricing Editor.
  • Note that you cannot add custom Plans - that is, Account-specific Plans - to a global Plan Group.

• Replacing Plan Group Attachment. You can quickly replace an existing attached Plan Group on an Account. When you do this, the start date you define for the replacement Plan Group is used to automatically end date the existing attached Plan Group.

• Custom Plan Group. You can create a custom Plan Group for an Account, which means the Plan Group can only be attached to that Account. See Creating Custom Plan Groups for Accounts.

Important: Account Plan Group is type of Account Plan! When you attach a Plan Group to an Account, this creates an Account Plan Group. However, the m3ter data model does not support a separate Account Plan Group entity, and an Account Plan Group is a type of Account Plan where a Plan Group id is used instead of a Plan id when it’s created. See the Create Account Plan API call.

This topic explains how to attach a Plan Group to an Account and how to review and manage the Plan Group attachment:

• Attaching a Plan Group to Create an Account Plan Group
• Reviewing Plan Group Attachment
• Adding Plans to Plan Group and Reviewing Plan Pricing
• Adding Attached Plan Groups to or Removing from Contracts
• Replacing a Plan Group Attachment

If you want to delete an Account Plan Group from an Account, you can do this from the Attached Plans tab:

• Deleting an Account Plan Group

Tip: More Details on Plan Groups? See Working with Plan Groups.

Attaching a Plan Group to Create an Account Plan Group

To attach a Plan Group to an Account:

1. Select Accounts. The Accounts page opens.
2. Select the Name text of the Account to which you want to attach a Plan Group. The Account page opens with the Overview tab selected.
3. On the Account actions menu, select Plans>Create plan attachment:

Alternatively:

• Select the Attached plans tab.
• On the Active and pending attached plans panel, select Create plan attachment.

The Create page opens.

4. Select the Plan group radio button. The page adjusts.
5. On the Plan group attachment details card:

• Select the Plan group you want to attach to the Account.

• Select the Start date and End date to define the period you want the Plan Group to apply to the Account for billing purposes:

• Start date is required.

  • If you omit an End date, the Account Plan Group will be applied to the Account perpetually or until such time as you delete the Account Plan Group.
  • End dates are exclusive. For example, if you set the End date of June 1st 2022, then the Account Plan Group ceases to be active for the Account at midnight on May 31st 2022, and any billing is calculated up to that point in time, NOT up to midnight on June 1st. If you want to include end customer Account usage occurring on June 1st for billing, you must set the End date to June 2nd.

6. On the Plan group attachment settings card, configure other optional settings:

• If you want to set the date the first and subsequent Bills are due for the Account using the Plan Group, use the Billing cycle date option. For example, if the Plan Group is configured for monthly billing frequency and you set a Billing cycle date of January 14th, then a Bill will be created for the Account on January 14th and then every month from that date - on February 14th, March 14th, and so on. If you leave this blank then the start of billing defaults to the billing cycle date configured for the Account.
• If you want to add the Account Plan Group to a Contract you’ve created for the Account, use the Contract drop-down to select it. For more details on Contracts, see Creating Contracts for Accounts.
• If the Account is either a Parent or a Child Account, you can select for Account hierarchy billing mode, which determines how billing will be handled and shown on bills for charges due for the Parent Account and charges due for Child Accounts:
• Bill parent account - bill line item per account. Default setting.
• Bill parent account - single bill line item for all accounts.
• Bill child account.

Notes:

• The billing mode options are only operative if the Account is a Parent or Child Account. For a full explanation of what each means when attaching Plans to create Account Plans for Parent or Child Accounts, see Billing Hierarchy Modes for Parent/Child Accounts.
• If you price a Plan using a Counter for unit-based pricing, then Parent/Account billing is not available for the charges or credits due under the pricing.

7. Add any required Custom fields to the Account Plan Group. For more on Custom Fields, see Working with Custom Fields.
8. Select Create Plan group attachment. You are returned to the Account page Attached plans tab and the Plan Group is listed in the Active and pending attached plans panel under Plan groups. Attaching a Plan Group to an Account creates an Account Plan Group. The Account Plan Group will show as ACTIVE or INACTIVE or PENDING and the Start and End dates are also shown:

You now have an Account Plan Group on the Account, and Bills will be calculated for the Account in accordance with the priced Plans that belong to the Plan Group.

Reviewing Plan Group Attachment

When you’ve attached a Plan Group to an Account, you can open the Plan Group Attachment page and review details of the attachment.To review Plan Group Attachment:

1. On the Account Details page, select the Attached plans tab.

2. On the Active and pending attached plans panel, select the NAME hotlink text of the attached Plan Group you want to review. The Plan group attachment page opens:

3. For the Account Plan Group created when you attached the Plan to the Account, you can review the Plan group attachment details:

• Check the dates for the period the Account Plan Group will be active for the Account.
• Read-off the Account Plan Group ID with the option to Copy this directly to your clipboard.
• Select Edit if you need to make any changes to the Account Plan Group, such as update the start and end dates.

4. You can also review the Plan group attachment metadata:

Custom Fields. Any fields created for the Account Plan Group entity are listed:

• Note that because an Account Plan Group is a type of Account Plan, any Custom Fields created at Organizational level for Account Plans will be listed and you can Copy the number or string value of a field directly to your clipboard.

External mappings. Any mappings created for the Account Plan Group are listed:

• The External system and External table mapped to are shown - such as Chargebee - Item in the above example. The External entity ID mapped to is also shown.
• If a listed External mapping is linked to an Integration, under Linked integration a hotlink text will be shown which you can use to open the Integration.
• Under Actions, you can edit or delete the External mapping.
• If the Account Plan Group has multiple External mappings created for it, you can use Search external mappings to search by External table and External entity ID and filter the list.
• You can commence a workflow to Create external mapping for the Account Plan Group directly - see Creating and Managing External Mappings for Accounts for an example.

Integration runs. If you’ve set up an integration that synchronizes the Account Plan Group data with an external system, the date/time and status of the Latest integration run are shown. You can use a text hotlink to open details of this latest run or View all runs. See Reviewing Integration Run Details.

5. If you scroll down the page, on the Plan group details panel you can check the details of the Plan Group you attached to the Account to create an Account Plan Group:

You can review the details of the Plan Group itself and:

• Read-off the ID for the Plan Group and Copy it directly to your clipboard.
• If you want to view a Plan belonging to the Plan Group or add a Plan to it and review the details and pricing configured for the Plan, you can do this directly. See the following section Adding Plans to Plan Group and Reviewing Plan Pricing for details.
• Use hotlink texts to open:
  • The Plan group details page directly.
  • The Product details page for the Standing charge accounting product or the Minimum spend accounting product.

Adding Plans to Plan Group and Reviewing Plan Pricing

When you have attached a Plan Group to an Account, there are two ways you can add Plans to the Plan Group:

• Go to Pricing>Plan groups and open the Plan Group you want to add a Plan to. On the Included plans panel, select Add plans. For more details, see the Adding Plans to Plan Groups section in the Working with Plan Groups topic.
• When you’ve attached a Plan Group to an Account, open the Plan group attachment page from the Account>Attached plans tab and add Plans to the Plan Group directly from there.

This section explains how to add Plans to a Plan Group directly from the Plan group attachment page.To add Plans to Plan Group and review Plan pricing:

1. Open the Account and on the Account page, select the Attached plans tab.
2. On the Active and pending attached plans panel, select the NAME hotlink text of the attached Plan Group you want to review Plans for. The Plan group attachment page opens.
3. Scroll down the Plan group attachment page and on the Plan group details panel, select Add plans. A Select plans dialog appears and lists all the Plans created for Products in your Organization and any custom Plans created for the Account you’ve created the Plan Group for.

• Note that if no Plans have yet been added to the Plan Group, then a blue help text advising you is shown to warn you.

4. Select the Plans you want to add to the Plan Group and select Confirm. The Select plans dialog closes and:

• The Plans are added to the Select a plan drop-down list on the Plan details panel, which is now enabled.
• The blue help text advising you the Plan Group doesn’t currently contain any Plans is no longer shown.
• The Edit linked plans button on the Plan group details panel is enabled.

Warning: Constraints on Adding Plans to Plan Groups!

• Only one Plan per Product: If you try to add more than one Plan for the same Product to the Plan Group, you’ll receive an error message.
• Custom Plans can’t be added to a Global Plan Group: If you try to add a custom Plan (a Plan that has been created exclusively for a specific Account) to a Global Plan Group (a Plan Group that can be attached to multiple Accounts) you’ll receive an error message.

5. To review a Plan and its pricing that you’ve added to the Plan Group, select it from the Select a plan drop-down list on the Plan details panel:

On the Plan details panel, you can:

• Check the details of the Plan.
• Use hotlink texts to open the Plan details page directly and the associated details page for the Plan template or Product.
• Under Associated pricing:
  • If the Plan has been priced, this will be shown and you can review the pricing.
  • Select Details if you want to review full details of the pricing applied to the Plan.
  • Note that you cannot create or edit a pricing for the Plan, since it is not a custom Plan for the Account and might be attached to multiple Accounts. You must go the Pricing Editor or open the Plan details page to do this.

At the bottom of Plan details, you can:

• Read-off the Plan ID and Copy it to your clipboard.
• Check the audit data for the Plan for who Created and Last modified the Plan and when.

Tip: Removing Plans from Plan Group? To remove Plans from a Plan Group from the Plan group attachment page, on the Plan group details panel select Edit linked plans. The Plan group details page opens and the Included plans panel lists the Plans added to the Plan Group. From there you can remove Plans from the Plan Group - see Removing Plans from Plan Group.

Adding Attached Plan Groups to or Removing from Contracts

From Plan group attachment details, you can quickly add the attached Plan Group to a Contract or remove it from a Contract on the Account. This saves you having to open and edit the Plan Group attachment.

Updating a Contract to add or remove an attached Plan Group. Alternatively, you can open the details page of a Contract and add an attached Plan Group to it or remove an attached Plan Group from it. See Adding Account Plans or Account Plan Groups to Contracts. If you do this, then the Plan group attachment details will update accordingly.

To add an attached Plan Group to or remove it from a Contract:

1. Select Accounts. The Accounts page opens.
2. Select the Name text of the Account for which you want to add an attached Plan Group to or remove from a Contract. The Account details page opens with the Overview tab selected.
3. Select the Attached Plans tab.
4. On the Active and pending attached plans panel, select the name hotlink text of the attached Plan Group you want to add to or remove from a Contract. The Plan group attachment page opens and on the Plan group attachment details panel:

• If the attached Plan Group has not been added to a Contract, an Add to contract button is available.
• If the attached Plan Group has been added to a Contract, a Remove from contract button is available.

5. To add the attached Plan Group to a Contract, select Add to contract. A Select contract modal opens and lists the Contracts created for the Account.

6. Select the Contract you want to add the attached Plan Group to and select Confirm. The modal closes and the Contract is shown under Plan group attachment details:

7. To remove an attached Plan Group from a Contract, select Remove from contract. A confirmation popup appears:

8. Select Remove to confirm. The popup closes and the Contract no longer shows under Plan group attachment details.

Replacing a Plan Group Attachment

From the Plan group attachment page you can quickly replace an existing attached Plan Group. When you do this, the start date you define for the replacement attached Plan Group is used to automatically end date the existing attached Plan Group.To replace a Plan Group attachment:

1. On the Account page, select the Attached plans tab.
2. On the Active and pending attached plans panel, select the name hotlink text of the attached Plan Group you want to replace:

The Plan group attachment page opens:

3. Select Replace plan group attachment. The Replace plan group attachment page opens:

• Plan group attachment details:

• The existing attached Plan group will be pre-selected and you can edit this as required for the replacement.

  • Enter a required Start date and optionally an End date.

• Plan group attachment settings. The settings of the existing attached Plan Group are shown and you can edit these as required for the replacement:

• Billing cycle date.

  • Contract.
  • Account billing hierarchy mode.

• Custom fields. Any Custom Fields created for the existing attached Plan Group are shown and you can add, edit, or remove as required for the replacement.

Important: Replacement start date must be before or equal to the existing end date! If you enter a Start date for the replacement Plan Group attachment that is after the existing Plan Group attachment End date, you’ll receive an error when you try to replace the existing Plan Group attachment.

4. Select Replace plan group attachment. You are returned to the Plan group attachment page for the replacement attached Plan Group:

5. Return to the Attached plans tab for the Account:

• We can see that the Start date entered for the replacement attached Plan Group has been used to update the End date for the originally attached Plan Group, which is now listed under Previously attached plans.

Deleting an Account Plan Group

To delete an Account Plan Group:

1. On the Active and pending attached plans panel, select Delete:

A confirmation popup appears.

2. Select Yes to confirm the Account Plan Group deletion.
3. Alternatively, on the Active and pending attached plans panel, select the Name hotlink text of the Account Plan Group you want to delete. The Plan group attachment page opens.
4. Select Delete:

A confirmation popup appears.

5. Select Yes to confirm the Account Plan Group deletion. You are taken back to the Attached plans tab.

Important! Deleting the Account Plan Group does not mean the Plan Group is deleted - the Account Plan Group is created only when you attach a Plan Group to an Account and remains distinct from the Plan Group you attached. If you want to delete a Plan Group, you must go to Pricing>Plan Groups, and then delete it from there.