Register an Account using Net Terms for a Trial Plan with Rollover to a Paid Plan

Description

A trial plan is a type of plan by which you offer your customers a product or service free of charge for a specified time period. You then automatically transfer (roll over) customers to a paid version of the plan. You can create a trial plan with rollover to a paid plan in two ways:

• Create two different plans. The first plan is a free plan with a duration that you specify. This plan automatically rolls over to a paid plan that you specify. The second plan is a paid plan to which the free plan automatically rolls over after the duration that you specified in the free plan. Example: You can create a 30-day trial plan that automatically rolls over to a paid plan on the 31st day.
  OR
• Create one plan in which you specify that a particular number of days is free. After the free period is complete, this free plan automatically becomes a paid plan. Example: You can create a plan that offers 14 free days and then becomes a paid plan on the 15th day.

Best Practices

This is the recommended process to follow to register an account for a customer who is signing up for a trial plan using the net terms payment method:

1. Create the account.
2. After the completion of the trial period, Aria automatically does the following:

• For a plan that is free, then rolls over to a different paid plan, assigns the paid plan to the customer.
• For a plan that is initially free, then becomes paid, updates the account to the rollover status specified in the plan in Aria6.
• For both types of plans mentioned above, sends the statement to the customer.

Precondition

Use Aria6 to create trial plans with the desired account statuses. For each trial plan, you must do the following:

• For a plan that is free, then rolls over to a different paid plan, specify:
  • The number of free months that you offer in the trial plan.
  • The status that an account should have when a customer registers for the trial plan.
  • The paid plan to which the trial plan will rolls over.
• For a plan that is initially free, then becomes paid, specify:
  • The number of free days that you offer.
  • The status that an account should have when a customer registers for the trial plan.
  • The status that an account should have after the trial period is over and the paid plan goes into effect.

Postconditions

At the end of the account registration process described in the net terms payment flow for trial plans, the following results are achieved:

• A new account exists with a trial plan assigned.
• The customer receives a statement.

Process Flow Diagram

The diagram below illustrates the recommended process for performing account registration for a trial plan that automatically rolls over to a paid plan when the net terms payment method is used:

Registering an Account using Net Terms for a Trial Plan with Rollover to a Paid Plan

Follow the steps listed below to perform account registration using the net terms payment method for a trial plan that automatically rolls over to a paid plan:

1. Use the create_acct_complete call to create an account.

1. Set the client_no field to your Aria-assigned ID number.
2. Set the auth_key field to your Aria-assigned authorization key.
3. Leave the status_cd field blank. The account status is automatically be set based on the status specified in the plan that the customer selected.
4. Set the do_full_invoicing field to true. This allows Aria to send a statement to the customer.
5. Set the pay_method field to the applicable net terms payment value based on what the customer selected. Refer to the pay_method allowable values within the create_acct_complete API documentation for the list of values.
6. Set the master_plan_no field to the number assigned to the master plan that the customer selected.
7. Set the userid field to the user ID that the customer entered.
8. Set the password field to the password that the customer entered.
9. Set additional fields based on your company’s requirements.

2. After completion of the trial period, Aria automatically does the following:

• For a plan that is free, then rolls over to a different paid plan, assigns the paid plan to the customer.
• For a plan that is initially free, then becomes paid, updates the account to the rollover status specified in the plan in Aria6.
• For both types of plans mentioned above, sends the statement to the customer.