Business Policies

Business policies are the place in the system where settings for invoicing, suspension, and self-service are collected.

The purpose of business policies is to provide the ability to define different payment terms and permissions at the product, campaign, or subscription level. For example, large customers may be given a longer payment deadline, introductory campaigns may have strict payment rules, and private customers may be granted access to self-service.

The main (default) business policy is linked to the business entity (Account menu → Primary settings). This policy applies to all subscriptions/memberships under the business entity unless it is overridden by another business policy at the product, campaign, or subscription level.

Additional business policies are created and managed via Sales → Business policies in the left menu.

The hierarchy of business policies works in such a way that a business policy at the subscription level overrides any business policy at the campaign level, which in turn overrides a business policy at the product level, which overrides the main business policy at the business entity level.

The hierarchy can be illustrated as follows:

Subscription > Campaign > Product > Standard business policy

It is not necessary to fill in all fields in the additional business policies. If a field is not filled in, the setting specified in the corresponding field in a business policy one level up is used.

If a campaign contains multiple products with different business policies, a conflict may occur — meaning it will not be possible to determine which product policy should take precedence.

A possible solution is to create an additional business policy for such campaigns, where the desired settings are explicitly defined.

Another solution is to assess whether all products require a specific policy. Often, there is one physical and one digital product. For example, settings for the digital product can be specified in the standard policy instead of a separate product policy. In this way, when the two products are part of the same campaign, the policy of the physical product will take precedence over that of the digital one (Product > Standard business policy).

In this field, you specify the email address used when Iteras sends invoices to customers.

The email address is checked to ensure it meets the requirements for DNS settings. Read more about email settings here.

Preferred invoicing method: Specifies which invoicing method is used by default (we recommend email).

Invoice lines: By default, there are no invoice lines in the standard policy, as the amount customers pay is defined in the campaigns. Invoice lines are typically used in an additional business policy linked to a subscription if you want to override the campaign’s invoice line for that specific subscription.

In this section, you can define which information should appear on the invoices.

Invoice title: Typically “Invoice”, but it can also be, for example, “Membership charge” – depending on the type of subscription business.

VAT on invoice lines: Specifies whether the price on invoice lines should be shown including or excluding VAT. See also the article about VAT.

Message to recipient on invoice: The introductory text displayed before the invoice lines. For example, “We hereby send you an invoice for your subscription.”

Extra note on foreign invoices: Here you can specify information such as IBAN and SWIFT, allowing customers who cannot use local payment methods to make a direct bank transfer.

This text is only displayed on invoices sent outside the publisher's country.

Contact information on invoices/reminders: This text is displayed at the bottom of the invoice. It may be useful to include the customer service email address and phone number, as well as a link to the self-service portal.

In this section, you can set when subscription periods should be invoiced. Most often, “At period start” or “So that the payment due date is at period start” is selected.

Here you define the standard payment term for this business policy — that is, how many days the customer has to pay the invoice before it becomes due. This number of days determines the payment due date shown on the invoices.

In this section, you specify how the system should respond when the payment deadline has passed and the invoice remains unpaid.

Read the guide on setting up reminder procedures.

See also the article on handling unpaid invoices.

In this section, you set the standard subscription termination rules.

Commitment term: Here you can define how long a person must have been a subscriber before the subscription can be terminated. By default, this field is empty.

Cancellation notice period: Specifies how far in advance the customer can terminate. We recommend setting this field to “After the latest started or paid period,” as this results in the fewest credits and refunds.

Payment when stopping mid-period: This setting only applies when termination is done through the publisher interface, unless immediate termination through self-service has been enabled. “Pay up to the stop date” will in most cases be the most common choice.

Here you set which vacation options are allowed for subscriptions under this business policy — i.e., whether a pause in the subscription is permitted and how it is handled.

In this section, you specify what subscribers can do through the self-service portal and which information is displayed to the customer.

Timing of campaign switch: specifies whether a campaign change should take effect immediately or only at the end of the current period. By default, campaign changes take effect immediately, but in some cases it makes more sense to let the change occur at the end of the period — for example, when a gift subscription is to be continued or if the subscription is free.

Allow subscription cancellation in self-service: Here you can set whether customers are allowed to cancel their subscription through the self-service portal. If the setting is set to “Allow cancellation,” you also have the option to define how the system attempts to retain the subscriber — for example, by offering a pause or a switch to another campaign.

Allow restart of subscriptions in self-service: Read more in the article about restarting.

By default, the payment link is displayed on the invoices. However, it can be removed if you prefer customers to pay via bank transfer – thereby avoiding fees from the card acquirer.

This function can be used if you want all subscriptions to start and renew at the same time — for example, on January 1st or at the beginning of each quarter.

Include already paid amount on invoices: By default, this setting is enabled, but for EAN/GLN customers it is often better to receive invoices without the already paid amount. Read more here.

Manual approval of invoicing and manual processing of overdue invoices: by default, Iteras handles both invoicing and reminders for unpaid invoices automatically. However, you can choose to make this process manual.

This can be useful during transition periods to Iteras, where you want to ensure that invoicing is done correctly – or in cases where prices are negotiated individually, and you therefore want to postpone invoicing until the price has been agreed upon.

If an external customer service company is used to handle customer inquiries, refund approval can be activated to increase security.

Here you can set whether payment agreements should automatically be canceled for inactive subscribers.

This is an internal field where you can write a detailed comment about how the policy should function and when it should be used.