Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

Subscription-based services - billing and managing our services on Dynamics 365

Hi to all you lovely community members!

I put this on the general Dynamics forum and no-one replied, so I’m hoping you’ll be able to help!

I am intending to operate our business on the Dynamics 365 platform, but I sell services as annual subscriptions, and this doesn't seem to be easily managed in Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise.

I am aiming for the following functionality:

See (on account record view) the live/lapsed subscriptions which the account holds
Run (using auto-reminders) the annual renewal process based on remaining time on subscription (actions on [end date]-60, [end date]-30, [end date], [end date]+5 etc)
Allow change of subscription product mid-term, and invoice for difference (option to pro-rate or charge all difference)
Link cases raised against the entitlements relating to the subscription running at that time
- Track case numbers
- Actions at [case number]=50% of [case allowance on current subscription] (etc.)
Save documentation for each subscription to a sharepoint folder for that annual subscription period, including a separate specific folder for the annual declaration we obtain from clients, so this can be auto-pulled into emails generated relating to that subscription period

From my research, Microsoft have licensed the Binary Stream subscription billing plug-in, but it appears to only be available in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, which I don't intend to take (I may upgrade to Business Central if needed for this functionality).

Please would someone let me know what functionality to assist this process (and ideally meet the targeted functionality) is available in Dynamics as standard (whether in Sales, Customer Service, BC or otherwise), and any familiarity with the third party options to meet this (Work 365, Inogic - who are active on the forums, Binary Stream, Abazian, Kwikzand - and any others which you're familiar with).

I have been struggling to find information about the existing Dynamics functionality, as any search involving the words "Dynamics" and "subscription" gives me information about how to manage my subscription of Dynamics, but not how to manage my clients' subscriptions on Dynamics.

Any assistance or pointers (even on just a small part of this) are greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Tim

If you don’t want to use the new subscription module in Finance then it probably will you requiring some customisation to get all the requirements mentioned covered. You can choose to do this in business central with the reocurring invoicing features. This is closest to what you need on the billing side but won’t have the cases, entitlements etc.

D365 Sales would require some change for the orders to include logic when orders are invoiced that they stay in order state and not change to invoiced. An order can be used as a subscription agreement as such and you can link all cases etc to this record. Lastly you could use field service and adjust the agreement entity to fit your purposes. Best fit All depends on the details of your requirements and your roadmap going forward.

mox

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