Creation and Billing of Imported Subscriptions
NCE Subscriptions
All NCE subscriptions can be imported, regardless of whether they are:
Coterminous with another subscription
Their end date is aligned with the calendar month
Partially upgraded
For all NCE subscriptions, the billing cycle of the subscription in the BSS portal will match the billing cycle of the subscription in the Microsoft Partner Center.
When a BSS user tries to import an NCE subscription which already exists on the platform, and has been fully upgraded to another SKU via Partner Center, it will be treated as the same subscription by the import tool. This is because Microsoft assigns the same external ID to the newly upgraded subscription and the tool cannot distinguish between the two.
This behavior does not change even if the original BSS account and their related subscriptions are deleted.
Since NCE subscriptions have price protection for their entire billing cycle, the following scenarios for New Commerce Experience subscriptions may apply when importing a new customer:
Annual or Monthly Subscription starting in the current month - subscription price to be retrieved from the price sheet of the current month
Annual Subscription started in the last six months - the price is retrieved from the price sheet of the month when the subscription was originally created
The annual Subscription started over six months ago – The price for the subscription cannot be retrieved since MS API only provides price sheets 6 months back. For these subscriptions, we apply the oldest price we can get (six months back).
Please see the table below for some examples of how an NCE subscription is imported and billed when the import is executed on 05/07/2022:
Microsoft Subscription | BSS Subsciption | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
MPC Billing Plan | MPC Start Date | MPC Commitment Date | BSS Subscription Billing Cycle | Invoicing |
Annual / Annual | 12/03/2022 | 11/03/2023 | 12/03/2022 - 11/03/2023 | Billing for a full year, for the period 12/03/2022 - 11/03/2023, using the SKU prices from The Microsoft price sheet for March. |
Annual / Annual | 12/04/2022 | 14/10/2022 | 12/04/2022 - 14/10/2022
| Prorate billing for the period 12/04/2022 - 14/10/2022 using the SKU prices from the Microsoft price sheet for April. |
Annual / Annual | 20/12/2021 | 19/12/2022 | 20/12/2021 - 19/12/2022 | Billing for a full year, for the period 20/12/2021 - 19/12/2021, using the SKU prices from the Microsoft price sheet for February since we cannot collect prices more than six month old. |
Annual / Monthly | 12/03/2022 | 11/03/2023 | 12/03/2022 - 11/03/2023 Payment plan: The installments are created with due date every 12th of the month. The prices are from the Microsoft pricelist for March | Billing the installment of the current monthly cycle, for the period 12/06 - 11/07. |
Annual / Monthly | 22/06/2022 | 15/11/2023 | 22/06/2022 - 15/10/2022 payment plan: 5 installments.The prices are from Microsoft’s June pricelist
| Billing the 1st installment, for the period 26/06 - 15/07. |
Monthly | 23/03/2022 | 22/03/2023 | 23/06/2022 - 22/07/2022 | Billing for a full month, for the period 23/06/2022 - 22/07/2022, using the SKU prices from the Microsoft price sheet for June. |
Promotions
For the imported NCE subscriptions, we apply promotion discounts if the subscription in the MS partner center is related to a promotion. Then, we use the promotion information retrieved from Microsoft and apply it to the subscription we create in our system. The promotion details for an imported subscription can be found in the fields we have on the subscription record.
Billing Monthly Legacy Subscriptions
Depending on the billing settings that exist on the accounts and products at the time of import, the system will bill the subscriptions along the following lines:
Account has either no particular "billing date" or Account has a particular "billing date" and the product is set to be "excluded from prorata": The subscription will be imported having as anniversary date, the same as in partner center. The current billing cycle of the subscription will start from the last anniversary date before the import date. If price protection is enabled at the system, then the subscription will be protected until the partner center protected date. E.g.: if the partner center commitment date is 15/01/2018 and the import date is the 21/03/2018, then the subscription will be imported having a billing cycle from 15/03/2018 - 14/04/2018. You can refer to the table below for more scenarios under the same settings:
Product Billing Day | Account Billing Day | Partner Center Commitment Date | Import Date | BSS Start Date |
Exclude from Prorata | Anything | 15/01/2019 | 21/03 | 15/03 |
Exclude from Prorata | Anything | 15/03/2019 | 21/03 | 15/03 |
Exclude from Prorata | Anything | 21/03/2019 | 21/03 | 21/03 |
Exclude from Prorata | Anything | 30/01/2019 | 21/03 | 30/02 |
Account has a particular "billing date" and the product is set to be "Apply Customer's Option": The subscription will be imported having as anniversary date the billing date of the customer. The current billing cycle of the subscription will start from the last customer billing date before the import date. If price protection is enabled at the system, then the subscription will be protected until the partner center protected date. E.g.: if the customer billing date is the 16/01/2018, the partner center start date is 15/01/2018 and the import date is the 21/03/2018, then the subscription will be imported having a billing cycle from 16/03/2018 - 15/04/2018. You can refer to the table below for more scenarios under the same settings:
Product Billing Option | Account Billing Day | Partner Center Start Date | Import Date | BSS Start Date |
Apply Customer's Option | 16 | 15/01 | 21/03 | 16/03 |
Apply Customer's Option | 16 | 15/03 | 21/03 | 16/03 |
Apply Customer's Option | 16 | 21/03 | 21/03 | 21/03 |
Apply Customer's Option | 16 | 30/02 | 09/03 | 30/02 |
Apply Customer's Option | 16 | 15/02 | 09/03 | 16/02 |
Account has either no particular "billing date" or Account has a particular "billing date" and the product is set to be billed at a particular date: The subscription will be imported having as anniversary date the product billing date. The current billing cycle of the subscription will start from the last product billing date before the import date. If price protection is enabled at the system, then the subscription will be protected until the partner center protected date. E.g.: if the product billing date is the 10, the partner center start date is 15/02/2018 and the import date is 21/03/2018, then the subscription will be imported having a billing cycle from 10/03/2018 - 09/04/2018. In case the partner center start date is after the latest product billing date, then the subscription will start in BSS having as start date the partner center date. E.g.: Product billing date is the 10th, the partner center start date 15/03/2018 and import date 21/05/2018. The BSS start date will be the 15/05/2018. You can refer to the table below for more scenarios under the same settings:
Product Billing Date | Account Billing Day | Partner Center Start Date | Import Date | BSS Start Date |
10 | Anything | 15/02 | 21/03 | 10/03 |
10 | Anything | 15/03 | 21/03 | 15/03 |
10 | Anything | 21/03 | 21/03 | 21/03 |
10 | Anything | 30/02 | 09/03 | 30/02 |
10 | Anything | 08/02 | 09/03 | 10/02 |