Integrations

In this chapter the integration of bill-to into the business central standard is described.

Item

The Integration into items is explained in detail in the chapter Subscriptionitem.

Vendors

On the vendor card, you can enter information on the ‘Subscription’ tab that will be taken into account in the subscription or subscription request.

Abb. Vendor Tab Subscription

Field	Description
Vendor Type	Specifies whether the vendor is a distributor, reseller, or ISV.
Order Portal URL	Defines the URL of the licence order portal for a distributor or reseller. This URL is used if you want to access the dealer portal directly from the lines of a subscription request to order licences.
Create purchase document	Creates either a purchase invoice or a purchase order when subscriptions are generated from subscription request lines and this vendor is stored in one of the lines. This programme behaviour can be changed again on the request lines themselves.
Vendor type	Specifies whether the vendor is a distributor, reseller, or ISV.
Order portal URL	Defines the URL of the licence order portal for a distributor or reseller. This URL is used if you want to call up the dealer portal directly from the lines of a subscription request in order to order licences.
Create purchase document	Creates either a purchase invoice or a purchase order when subscriptions are generated from subscription request lines and this vendor is stored in one of the lines. This programme behaviour can be changed again on the request lines themselves.

Customer

On the customer card, you can enter information on the ‘Subscription’ tab that will be taken into account in the subscription.

Abb. Customer Tab Subscription

Field	Description
Customer Type	Specifies whether the customer is a reseller or an end customer, or does not belong to either category.
Customer Subscription Group	Displays the customer subscription group that can be filtered in the invoice batch.
Subscription Invoice Email	Sets the default email address of the customer to which a subscription sales invoice should be sent.

The following actions are available on the customer card and list in the bill-to action group

Action	Description
New Subscription	Create a new subscription for the customer.
Subscriptions	Open the list of current subscriptions for the customer.
Update subscriptions and documents	Updates subscriptions and sales documents associated with the customer in a sales-to and invoice-to role.
Update subscription fields	Updates fields associated with the customer's subscriptions in a sales-to customer role.

Purchase Integration

The Quantity and Value % of sales subscriptions can be directly influenced from purchase orders and purchase invoices. There are numerous integration points for Subscriptions in both Documents. As these are largely identical, the integration between purchase invoices and subscriptions is shown below.

Calling up Purchase Documents

Unposted purchasing documents can be accessed from the Subscriptions Manager role center via the Documents action group:

Ill. Roll center Calling up Purchase Documents

Posted purchasing documents can be found in the Documents - Posted Documents action group:

Ill. Document Posted Purchase Invoices

The purchase receipts associated with the respective subscription can also be called up from each subscription card:

Purchase Receipt

Purchase orders and purchase invoices offer rich integration points with sales subscriptions. Purchase of a Subscription Item or Service can directly update the Sales Subscription in Value or Quantity and Value.

In this example, a BC Premium license is purchased from CSP provider ADN: wird eine BC Premium-Lizenz bei CSP-Provider ADN eingekauft:

Ill. Purchase Invoice Card

For subscription integration, the following additional fields are available on the purchase invoice Line:

Ill. Purchase Invoice Line Billing Frequency Code and Subscription Period Code

Ill. Purchase Invoice Line Subscription Integration

They have the following meaning:

Field	Description
Subscription Period Code	Specifies the term of the Subscriptions. The field can also be used in purchase price determination.
Billing Frequency Code	Specifies the billing frequency of the subscription. The field can also be used in purchase price determination.
Subscription Starting Date	Specifies the Subscription Starting Date.
Subscription Ending Date	Specifies the Subscription Ending Date.
Assigned Subscription No.	Indicates the sales subscription to which this shopping line is linked.
Assigned Component Identifyer	Specifies the exact subscription line to which this purchase line is linked.
Assignment Type	Specifies how the Purchase to Sales Subscription assignment should be handled. The following options are available: <empty>: There is no connection between Purchase and Subscriptions. In this case, the Assigned Subscription No. and Assign-to Component Identifyer fields must also be empty. Quantity & Value Update: The sales quantity on the subscription line is increased by the purchase quantity. In addition, the purchase value is written back to the Subscription Ledger Entry and assigned to the subscription line so that revenues and costs can be evaluated together. The simultaneous change of Quantity and Value is useful if the sales quantity is not to be controlled via the Subscriptions but via the Purchase. Value update: The purchase value is written back to the Subscription Ledger Entry and assigned to the subscription line so that Revenues and Costs can be evaluated together. However, the sales quantity on the subscription line is not changed. Changing only the value, but not the Quantity, makes sense if the sales quantity is controlled in advance via the subscription.

All changes to the sales subscription made by Purchase are written when the purchase invoice is posted.

Further integrations are available in the Subscriptions action group via the actions in the purchasing document line:

Ill. Purchase Document Line Action group Subscription

The following actions are available:

Action	Description
Show Subscriptions	Calls up the sales subscription linked via the Assigned Subscription No. field.
Select subscription assignment	Allows the supported filling of the Assigned Subscription No. and Assigned Component Identifyer fields on the purchasing document line. Here, the subscription lines matching the purchase item are Filtered in an overview, which can also be filtered according to which Customer the Sell-to is intended for.
Subscription Item Statistics	Shows comparative statistics of Purchase and Subscriptions sales of the Item selected on the purchase document line. This comparison can be used to determine whether the sales margin is still profitable in relation to the current purchase price.

In the fact boxes for the purchase invoice, details from the linked subscription and the linked subscription line are also displayed directly without having to branch to the subscription document.

Resource integration

A subscription line can now be stored in the Resources Journals when booking. This means that a resource booking automatically increases a consumption line in the subscription for Billing.

Ill. Resource Book sheets Subscription

Sales Quotes

Setup

Basic setup for Quotes from which Subscriptions are to be created can initially be made in the document setup.

Ill. Setup Document Setup

Ill. Document Setup Transfer of sales offer to subscription

There are three fields on the Transfer sales quote to subscription tab that can be used to control the details of the transfer of a sales quote to subscriptions.

The fields have the following content:

Field	Description
Subscription Features Available	This field controls whether and when subscription functions are available in sales quotes. The field has three options: Subscription Quotes Causes specific subscription features to only be available in quotes that are marked as such by ticking the Subscription Quote box. This seems very useful if there are both sales quotes that are made in the context of subscriptions and those that are not intended to lead to subscriptions but to normal Sales Orders. All Quotes Causes specific subscription functions to be available in all sales quotes. This can be useful if only sales quotes that are to lead to subscriptions are created. Never This means that subscription functions are generally not available in sales quotes. This option is useful if Subscriptions should never result from sales quotes.
Skip Quote Text Line	This field controls whether or not text lines from sales quotes should be transferred to Subscriptions as a default. The field has four options: All All text lines from the sales quote are transferred to the subscription as a default. Before the first item line Lines of text from the sales quote that appear before the first item line are not included in the subscription. This makes sense if Quotes are always introduced with offer-related formulations such as "We are pleased to be able to offer you the following" or similar, which have no place in the subscription. After the last item line Lines of text from the sales quote that appear after the last item line are not included in the subscription. This makes sense if quotes are always ended with offer-related formulations such as "Our offer remains valid for two weeks" or similar, which have no place in the subscription. Before the first and after the last article line Lines of text from the sales quote that appear before the first or after the last article line are not included in the subscription. In principle, there is no reason why the setting should not be set to All. Before the sales quote is transferred to the subscription, a dialog is displayed that allows the user to select specific lines that should or should not be transferred. Lines of text that are not suitable for the subscription can therefore also be manually suppressed when creating the subscription. Finally, it is of course also possible to fully edit the resulting subscription manually.
Create Subscription Prices	Specifies whether subscription-specific prices and discounts should always be created when creating subscriptions from sales quotes. If this field is not activated, subscription-specific prices and discounts are only created if the sales prices or line discounts offered currently differ from the calculated standard sales prices.

Subscriptions Sales Quotes

Sales Quotes can always be turned into Subscription Quotes by activating the Subscription Quotes field:

Ill. Sales Quote Subscription Quotes

If this field is activated, these are displayed as Subscription Quotes on the Quotes tile in the "Subscription Manager" role center:

Ill. Roll center Sales Document Subscription

Quotes that are newly created via this tile are automatically marked as Subscriptions quotes. If you want to create a sales quote for a subscription, it is therefore advisable to click on the Quotes tile in the role center and then on +New. This will automatically create a new sales quote with the target Subscriptions. Alternatively, new sales quotes with the target Subscriptions can also be created from the actions in the role center:

Ill. Roll center Sales Quotes

In the sales quote itself, the Subscription Quotes field can only be changed if either a quote line already exists or the quote lines are not yet editable; the latter is the case, for example, if the Customer has not yet been entered in the quote. If the sales quotations have been called up via the Quotes tile, the Subscription Quote field cannot be edited at all.

Depending on the settings in the Subscription Features Available field in the voucher setup, additional subscription features may or may not be displayed in the sales quote. In the following, we assume that the subscription features are available in the sales quote.

Subscription Functions in the Sales Quotes

If Subscription Features Available in the sales quote, additional fields and Functions are available in the header, Line. and Actions of the sales quote.

Subscription Function in the Header of the Sales Quotes

If Subscription Features Available in the sales quote, the following additional field is available in the header:

Ill. Sales Quotes Function Number of subscriptions

Field	Description
No. of Subscriptions	This field shows the number of Subscriptions linked to the sales quote. By clicking on the number, the subscriptions themselves are displayed in the Subscription offer connections overview. From there, you can branch to the subscriptions.

The Requested Starting Date field is used as a default field for the Subscription Starting Date.

Just for comparison: This is what the header of the sales quote looks like when the Subscription Features Available are not available:

Ill. Sales Quotes Tab General

Subscription Functions in the Sales Quote Line

If Subscription Features Available in the sales quote, the following additional fields are available on the Line:

Field	Description
Text Type	If the Line Type is a field of the Comment type, this field can be used to specify what type of Text the Subscriptions should be. The options are: <empty> General Comment Internal commentary Group Heading Group total Subtotal Bundle total These options correspond to the text options from the Subscription line Type field.
Subscription Period Code	Specifies the term of a Subscriptions, e.g. One Year or Three Years
Billing Frequency Code	Specifies the billing frequency of a Subscriptions, e.g. Monthly or One Year.
Percent %	In this field, the percentage value determined or to be offered for Subscription Items with the Calculation Method Maintenance is saved.
Subtotal Amt.	This field shows Amounts that do not increase the total value of the Quote. The field is used for the following Settings: Type Item The field is only filled if the line is a Bundle Item. Text Type Group total The field shows the total of all items from the last Group Heading. Text Type Subtotal The field shows the total of all the Items before this Line. Text Type Bundle total The field shows the total of all items from the last Bundle Item onwards.

Functions of the subscription lines are also transferred to the sales quote. One Line. of a sales quote could look like this, for example:

Ill. Sales Quote Lines

This example shows that the functionalities known from Subscriptions are also available in the sales quote. For example, you can work with Group Heading and Group Totals or with Bundle Totals. When entering a bundle item - in this example 1008 "All-round carefree package" - the Subscription Items and the bundle totals line associated with the bundle can be unfolded automatically. This also applies to normal subscription items that have an automatic subscription item parts list. Items that belong to a bundle are also highlighted in color.

In addition, it is also possible to define ad hoc bundles in the sales quote in the same way as for subscriptions. For this purpose, the same Update assignment to bundle action is available on the sales quote lines as on the subscription lines:

Ill. Update sales offer function Assignment to bundle

In the sales quote, the expanded pricing logic of the subscription takes effect. So if there are prices that depend on the term or the Billing Frequency Code Filter of the Subscription Item, these only need to be stored on the offer line so that different prices are determined. This allows alternatives to be offered, e.g. prices for a three-year term and one-year advance calculation versus prices for an annual term and monthly calculation:

Pricing logic

It should be noted that a subscription only allows one combination of term and billing interval. If a subscription with an annual term and Monthly Billing Frequency Code Filter is created from a Quote, then this should not contain a Quote line with a three-year term and annual Billing Frequency Code Filter. bill-to supports the user in this by only suggesting those Quote lines to be adopted when creating subscriptions from Quotes that correspond to the term and billing logic of the subscription to be created. However, this could be overwritten manually. If quotation lines with different terms and Billing Frequency Code Filters are accepted by the customer, then several subscriptions must be created from the quotation accordingly.

Subscription Functions in the Promotions of the Sales Quotes

If Subscription Features Available in the sales quote, the following additional actions are available in the header:

Ill. Sales Quote Action group Subscription

All additional Functions can be found in the Subscriptions Group. They are:

Action	Description
Create Subscriptions	Opens a dialog that can be used to create, add to or update the Subscriptions.
Calculate everything	This split button is used to perform calculations of subscription-specific values in sales quotes. The following actions are available: Calculate all Calculates the maintenance items first, then the Bundle Items and then the Group and Subtotals Calculate Bundle Items Calculates the Bundle Items first and then the Group and Subtotals. Maintenance items are not calculated. Calculate maintenance items Calculates the maintenance items first and then the Group and Subtotals. Bundle Items are not calculated.
Subscriptions	Displays all subscriptions linked to the sales quote. Functions of this action correspond to clicking on the No. of Subscriptions field in the sales quote header.

Create and Refresh Subscriptions via Quotes

Which fields are available in the Subscription Options header is controlled by the settings in the Subscription Target field. The field has the following three options:

Ill. Sales Quote mark Document Line

Which fields are available in the Subscription Options header is controlled by the settings in the Subscription Target field. The field has the following three options:

Options: New Subscriptions A new Subscriptions is created from the offer lines.

Options: Add subscription lines The offer lines are added to an existing Subscriptions.

Options: Refresh subscription line The Quantity of an existing subscription line is updated via an offer line. If this option is selected, only one offer line can be used as the source for updating.

If the New Subscriptions option is selected in the Subscription Target field, the following fields are available in the subscription options header:

Field	Description
Subscription Starting Date	Specifies the date on which the Subscriptions should start. The field is pre-assigned by the Desired delivery date field from the sales quote.
Subscription Period Code	Specifies the term of the subscription. The field is pre-assigned by the Subscription Period Code field from the Subscription Setup.
Billing Frequency Code	Specifies the Billing Frequency Code Filter of the Subscriptions. The field is pre-assigned by the Billing interval code field from the Subscriptions Setup.
Auto-Renew	Specifies whether the subscription should be automatically renewed or not. The field is pre-assigned from the Auto-Renew Default field of the Subscriptions Setup.

If the Add Subscription Lines option is selected in the Subscription Target field, the following fields are available in the subscription options header:

Field	Description
Subscription No.	Specifies the subscription to which the subscription lines are to be added. Any existing subscription can be selected. If the AssistEdit functionality of this field is used, those Subscriptions to which the Quote is already linked will be preselected.
Subscription Starting Date	Specifies the date from which the quantities of the subscription lines are to be invoiced. The field is pre-assigned by the Desired delivery date field from the sales quote.

If the Update subscription line option is selected in the Subscription Target field, the following fields are available in the subscription options header:

Field	Description
Subscription No.	Specifies the subscription whose subscription line is to be updated. Any existing subscription can be selected. If the AssistEdit functionality of this field is used, the subscriptions to which the Quote is already linked are preselected.
Component Identifyer	Specifies the exact subscription line to be updated. Any existing subscription line of the specified Subscription No. can be selected. If the AssistEdit functionality of this field is used, the check mark in the Transfer to Subscription field of the correct offer line is immediately set by the application.
Subscription Starting Date	Specifies the date on which the Quantity of the subscription line is to be updated and invoiced. The field is pre-assigned by the Desired delivery date field from the sales quote.

Let's take a closer look at the Line. proposed for creating a Subscriptions:

Ill. Sales Quote Suggested lines

We see all relevant Line. of the sales quote here. The Transfer to Subscription and Subscription Qty. fields are of particular importance here. These are explained in more detail below:

Field	Description
Transfer to Subscription	Only proposal lines for which the Transfer to Subscription box is checked are actually transferred to the subscription. This allows you to control exactly which lines from the Quote should be used to create or update a subscription and which should not be included.
Subscription Qty.	Specifies the subscription item quantity to be invoiced via the subscription line. It must be equal to or less than the Quantity Quote.

The dialog for creating Subscriptions from Quotes has two actions:

Ill. Actions Select document lines

The action has the following effect:

Action	Description
Subscriptions	Displays all subscriptions that are already linked to the sales quote via the Subscription Quote Connections overview.
Switch Transferred	If none of the Lines are checked as Transfer to Subscription, this action sets the checkmark for all Lines; otherwise, this action sets the checkmark for all Lines.

If a line from the sales quote is not to be transferred to a subscription, the check mark in the Transfer to Subscription field in this line must be removed for this purpose. The Line. is also dimmed to make it easier to recognize that it has not been taken into account:

Ill. Transfer to subscription Lines

If you decide that you do not want to create or update a subscription after all, simply click Cancel at any time. If you click OK, the creation or updating of a subscription is triggered:

Ill. Confirmation

If you click OK to create a subscription from the example above, the following subscription will be created:

Ill. Subscription Card

You can see that the lines for which Transfer to Subscription was not checked were not taken into account when the subscription was created.

If there are values in the fields Currency Code, Payment Terms Code and Payment Method Code in the sales quote that differ from those in the Bill-to, then a New Subscriptions is created with the corresponding values from the sales quote.

At the same time as the subscription, the link to the sales quote is created, which can be viewed from both the subscription and the Quote:

Ill. Subscription-Quote Link

It is also noted in the document history of the subscription that the subscription was generated from a sales quote:

Ill. Subscription change log

Sales Quote from Subscription

Through the action Create Sales Quote in the action group function you can create an Sales Quote from an subscription.

Sales credit memo

The way in which a sales credit is created for a subscription has different effects on the subscription. If a sales credit note is created by cancelling a sales invoice, the component items are cancelled. If you want to create a sales credit note that does not affect the component items, you must use the Additional payment action in the subscription.

Service item integration

Service item integration is controlled via the service integration setup.

Service integration setup

Fig. Service integration setup

The setup has the following fields:

Field	Description
Enable service integration	Turns service integration on or off.
Subscription configuration	Specifies a default subscription configuration that is used to create subscriptions from service items. This setting can be overridden by a corresponding entry in the subscription service item group. The setting is only valid for subscriptions that are created from the service item card.
Transfer prices	Specifies whether general prices for subscription items should be converted to subscription-specific prices. This disables best price finding in favour of prices that are defined exclusively for the subscription. The setting is only valid for subscriptions that are generated from the service item card.
Open subscription immediately	Specifies that subscriptions created from the service item card are opened immediately.
Set filter to customer	Filters service items to be assigned to a subscription line based on the customer of the subscription.
Filter on open service items	Filters service items to be assigned to a subscription line based on whether they are still open or already assigned to another subscription line.

Subscription service items

This overview shows all service items assigned to a subscription. The following fields are available on this page:

Field	Description
Service item no.
Service item description
Start date	Specifies the date from which the assignment applies.
End date	Specifies the last date until which the assignment applies.
Subscription no.	Specifies the number of the subscription set by the alias.
Component ID	Specifies the component ID set by the alias.
Subscription item no.	Specifies the number of the subscription item according to the stored number series.
Subscription item description	Defines a description of the subscription item.
Calculation method	Specifies the calculation method for the subscription item.

Subscription service item groups

The subscription service item groups are used to define different subscription configurations.

Field	Description
Code	Specifies a code that uniquely identifies this subscription service item group.
Description	Provides a more detailed explanation of the subscription service item group.
Subscription configuration (default)	Provides a more detailed explanation of the subscription service item group.

Service item card

The following fields have been added to the service item card.

Field	Description
Subscription service item group	Specifies the code of the subscription service item group to which this service item belongs.
Subscription assignment	Specifies whether the service item is currently assigned to one or more subscription lines or whether it is blocked for subscription assignments.
Block for assignment to subscriptions	This can be used to block the assignment.
Number of assignments	Shows the number of subscription lines to which the service item is assigned.
Subscription turnover	Shows the number of subscription lines to which the service item is assigned.
The actions have been expanded to include the bill-to action group:
Action	Description
:-	:-
Create subscription	Creates a subscription from this service item.
Subscription assignments	Shows the subscription lines to which the service item is linked.
Subscription service item items	Shows the items that have been created by subscription transactions.

Subscription line

The following actions have been added to the Function action group for the subscription line:

Action	Description
Link service item	Links the line to a service item.
Replace service item	Replaces the service item associated with the line.
The subscription line is extended in the Calculation Method action group with the following action:
Action	Description
:-	:-
Service item	Opens the last service item that was associated with this line.

Accruals and Deferrals

Especially for Subscriptions that are billed in advance for longer Periods, it is necessary to post accruals and deferrals. For example, if a subscription is billed for a year in advance, the entire revenue should not flow into January (or whichever starting month), but should be split over the twelve periods of the year.

For this purpose, Business Central offers the default functionality of accrual templates, which ensure that a transfer posting is automatically made to the defined periods. However, Business Central only recognizes a predefined number of Periods in the Default, such as 12 Months for an annual invoice.

However, the situation can be more complicated with Subscriptions. It is possible, for example, for 10 users to be billed for a calendar year (= 12 Periods), but for user licenses to be added in the middle of the Billing Frequency Code Filter. If, for example, another 5 users are added in October, then these may not be accrued for 12 periods, but only for 3 periods (October, November, December).

In order to be able to map this case, the functionality of the accrual templates in bill-to has been expanded.

Accrual templates can be accessed directly from the Subscriptions Manager role center via Documents - Finance:

Ill. Roll center Invoice Deferrals

An accrual template specifically for Subscriptions can be set up here:

Ill. Deferral Template Card

This is characterized by the fact that the Subscription limit field is activated. If this is the case, the fields Calculation Method, Starting Date and No. of Periods can no longer be edited. This is because when such a Deferral Code is used, the number of Periods to be taken into account is not predetermined, but is calculated flexibly by bill-to from the context. For example, this can be 12 periods if licenses have to be split over a complete One Year, or correspondingly fewer periods if Interim Billing is used.

Field	Description
Subscription calculation type	The following options are available for this field: Linear: The accrual is distributed linearly across all periods. Days per period: The regular accrual amounts are calculated based on the number of days in the period. Exact per period: Each period has the same accrual amount. Per financial year: The accrual is distributed across one entry per financial year, the first of which is posted on the selected start date and the other in the first period of the next financial year. The amount is distributed across both financial years on a daily basis.
Start date	The following options are available for this field: Start of period The calculation starts at the beginning of the period. Posting date The calculation starts on the posting date of the invoice. End of period The calculation starts at the end of the period. Start of next period The calculation starts at the beginning of the next period.
Start of next calendar year	Only for Start date Posting date. Specifies whether the first accrual period is calculated from the start of the subscription billing period or from the posting date. This setting is ignored for interim invoices.
Evenly distributed 1st month	Only for Start date booking date. Specifies that the amount for the first accrual month of a subscription that is invoiced after the start of the billing period is not accumulated over the previous months.
For interim invoices, the Start of accrual period field appears on the subscription, allowing it to be adjusted.
Examples of the different calculation types are shown below.

Examples

In the examples, an item is billed from 15 March 2026 to 14 March 2026. This results in a bill that must be taken into account in two financial years and has 13 periods, due to 2x March.

Straight-Line

Ill. Straight-Line

A distribution over 12 periods with the same value is calculated. The March amount in 2026 has a higher value, calculated to the day, than the March amount in 2027.

Days per Period

Ill. Days per Period

The accrual is calculated per day and divided among the respective periods, which means we have a different value every month.

Equal per Period

Ill. Equal per Period

Each period has exactly the same value, regardless of its length. As a result, March has a higher value across both years.

Per Accounting Period

Ill. Per Accounting Period

---

Personal support www.ckl-software.de/