Orders for Subscription Products are entered in the usual way using the ‘Enter Sales Orders’ function or one of the entry functions in the EnquiryWriter companion. When you enter to an Order Item a Product Code that has been defined as using Subscriptions (ie the Product’s Number of Issues field contains a value), the text ‘SUBS*’ is added to the Invoice No field, the asterisk indicating that the Subscription Details have not yet been created or updated. If you do not want to treat the Item as a Subscription Product for the purposes of this Order, you can simply clear the Invoice Number field.
Issue Dates are created according to the Subscription details of the Product. This is done by selecting ‘Subscription Details’ from the View menu. When this option is selected, the Product’s Subscription details are used to produce Subscription Items records with specific Issue Dates. Information will always be taken from the included list on the Product’s Subscription Details screen (providing it has at least one line of information), and will also be taken from the main section of that screen if the Issued Every… field contains a value greater than zero.
Note that to select ‘Subscription Details’ from the View menu, the File State of the Order must be one which is capable of printing Delivery Notes.
Once the Issue Date calculations have been made, they are displayed in a window very similar to that for the Product Subscription Setup. All of the regular periodicity fields are there for reference only, non-modifiable because they have by this time been converted into the Subscription Items list with specific dates.
If you try to accept this screen when there is a value in the Difference field (which shows the difference between the Order Item’s Sales Amount and the aggregate total of the Billing lines), you will be asked to confirm that you do want to [Continue]. This does not apply for Orders for Products with the Perpetual Issues & Billings check box switched on.
Note that any default Billing Items set up for the Product are only directly copied if the Order Item’s Quantity is 1 and its Sales Price is the same as the Product's Sales Price. If the Order Item Quantity is more than 1 or the Sales Price has been altered, in calculating the Billing amount, Enterprise 6 will take the Product’s Sales Price and apply a quantity multiplier or percentage change. The percentage change will be equivalent to the alteration you have made in the Order Item’s Sales Price. This calculation may be subject to a rounding error.
In the case of a Product where the Perpetual Issues & Billing check box has been switched on, when you view the Subscription Details for the first time, just two Items will have been created: one for the first Issue, one for the first Bill. Both Items will by default be allocated the same Specific Date: the Date for the first Issue is calculated from the details on the main section of the Product’s Subscription Details screen (above the included list), and the first Bill is given this same date. If an entry such as 1*31 was made to the After, Number of Days field for the Product, this will be ignored as this represents the periodicity (for example, monthly) only in this situation.
On returning to the main Order screen, the Invoice Number will have been altered to read ‘SUBS’ to indicate the fact of this creation and to prevent a normal Invoice from being printed for the Order Item. Whenever you modify any of the Order Item fields that are relevant to the Subscription Details, the Invoice Number will revert to ‘SUBS*’ When you next view Subscriptions Details you'll be asked if you want to delete the former details and create new ones. If you say [No], note that the former Details will remain, possibly with incorrect financial totals (depending on which field you have altered).
If you try to accept an Order with Order Items whose Invoice Number contains asterisks (ie, ‘SUBS*’), you will be warned 'There are x Items for which Subscription Details need to be created (with SUBS* in the Invoice No field). Do you want to Create them, Continue anyway or Try again?’. The default choice is [Create them].