Consists on tracking all subscribers with their numerous delivery addresses, renewal dates, various publications subscribing to, contact names and receivable accounts.
Subscribers can be normal customers, companies, large size institutions (banks, governments, NGOs…). Subscriptions apply to the free or paid customers (readers).
Every publication needs to be identified in the module prior to the creation of the contracts. The issues frequency and occurrence are defined at this stage.
Issues can be automatically generated based on the parameters of starting and ending period and the publishing time of the publication.
Subscription rates to be applied for the subscribers to any publication are set through a price list per zone, period and currency.
Clients are identified with their complete address information. They can be categorized as corporate, individual or institutions.
A subscription contract between the publisher and a reader (or a company) for a limited period of time can be easily created in the module.
The various publications the client is subscribing to and the period are specified.
The contract mentions the type of media required, internet, paper or other special editions, the total number of copies to be delivered to several readers located in one place or several different locations.
It specifies as well the vehicle for delivery (post, fast courier, air shipment, companies internal staff, distributor..).
Subscription contracts can be renewed as bulk automatically to ease the renewal re-entries. Contracts period can also be extended easily by specifying the contract number and the additional days to prolong.
related to the contracts are posted to Visual Dolphin financial modules, where the receivable module helps tracking the collections.
The subscription module offers various flexibilities such as:
- Changes of delivery addresses (seasonal delivery address, summer or winter).
- Extension of the contract duration (for ex. compensation due to non printing of issues during a period of time…)
- Swapping a client status form paid to free or vice versa.
- Issuing reminder letters for the renewal of the subscriptions: Letters are programmed in a frequency of 3 or 4 times and sent prior to the expiration of the contract.
The distribution module is rich in operational reports. A complete set of reports covers the listing of contracts sold between two periods, invoices issued, list of itineraries by route of distribution, labels…
Another set is related to revenues analysis by client, client type, source of lead, salesman, renewed or new business, branch, region or country, free or paid.
Labels can be printed with the detailed addresses of the subscribers. They are sorted by zone and by the distribution vehicle.