When a proration action (e.g., cancellation or downgrade) that results in net negative charges occurs, this parameter allows you to configure whether to issue service credit, cash credit, refund or discard.
Usage Example
For example, suppose a plan subscription on an account is cancelled or the units of the plan are decreased in the middle of a billing period. In this case,the balance on the account was invoiced based on previous rates, and as a result of less owed on the account after changes, it was overpaid by the client. Generally, a negative balance indicates that your bill was overpaid and that you may be eligible for a refund. In addition, the client had configured the system or directed at the transactional level that proration should occur. This type of scenario is a likely one for the possibility that a net negative amount will result.
Value Descriptions
The behavior depends on which of the four values are set in the client parameter:
- Produce Corresponding Service Credit (default) — By default, when proration results in a net negative, Aria will universally produce service credit for the proration. The service credit will be immediately consumed by the prorated invoice (i.e., if there is any), and any excess will be consumed at later date. This also was implemented for backwards compatibility, as this is what Aria did automatically before this parameter was available.
- Produce Corresponding Cash Credit — Aria will produce a cash credit on the account in the same amount of the net-negative. This will result in an immediate credit effect on the account’s outstanding balance, functionally identical to the receipt of a payment in that amount. The cash credit is consumed by the prorated invoice, with any excess being consumed at a later date. Works in tandem with Refund for Proration Credit client parameter for automated cash credit refunds.
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Produce No Credit — Aria will “discard” the net-negative amount and perform no further actions. In API methods that return values to the caller reflecting the net proration result of a mid-period plan subscription change, having this parameter set to value “Produce No credit” will universally yield a net proration result amount of 0 (zero) when the actual results of proration would have otherwise been a negative amount.
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Produce Cash Credit for Net Negative Amount — This option is for setting net negative amounts to produce cash credits. For example, a prorated action might include an overpayment, plan cancellation or downgrade to a less expensive plan. To enable automated refunds, the Refund for Proration Credit client parameter works in tandem with this cash credit upon net-negative amount option.
Reason Codes
When Aria ;generates a cash or service credit, the system will populate a reason code that signifies the cause for the credit; for example a cancellation of a plan. The reason code on statements makes it easier for the customer to understand why the credit was granted.
