There are multiple ways to manage discounts on recurring sell price services in The Layer. If you want to provide a flexible recurring buy and sell price to apply a discount, please refer to the article here.
We'll be focusing on subsidy payments, which are ordinarily applied to tariffs where there isn't any flexibility from the billing provider in how the service will be charged.
This relates to mobile providers (or anyone who bills on your behalf and can't flexibly change pricing) where the billing provider dictates the monthly cost.
If you want to offer the customer a discount against their line rental, you can use the Subsidy feature to calculate the net cost to the customer and also to determine how much of the profit will be deducted. It's now possible to set up payment frequency, specify the first payment interval and also to manage expected payments in the customer record (and finance module) for newly applied subsidies only.
Existing subsidies will be managed in your current way (by customer transactions or bulk updating Data Manager).
Subsidy is applied to each line in order to calculate the net recurring cost, however if you'd prefer to provide a general discount to the customer it is possible to do so using the general fund instead.
Scheduling a subsidy payment in quotation
You can apply a tariff subsidy in addition to specifying the payment terms of subsidy in the quote builder and on the customer quotation output template.
This information can also be presented on customer's proposal.
Click on Subsidy in the quotation builder screen to view all subsidies applied to the quotation.
Conversion to sales order
Once the quotation is converted to a Sales Order the Subsidy Fund and Payment the Schedule is converted through also.
The subsidy fund is visible in the sales order header tab under Finance Incentives.
Only users with permission to Update Sales Order Financial Incentives are able to amend applied subsidies.
Click View Subsidies to access the Subsidy payments that were scheduled by the Salesperson.
To review and amend any subsidy payments at the order stage, click on the 
pencil icon to update the required fields, then click on the 
check button to save your changes.
Selecting the Start Date of the Subsidy
Convert the financial incentives from sales order to customer balance.
On the conversion screen, you can specify the date when the subsidy payment should be commencing. The Delay specified within the quotation will be respected.
Once the subsidy is scheduled and the Order is converted, you will not be able to amend the schedule.
🚩Note:
The February Rule:
Once a payment due date encounters February, the system permanently adjusts the due date for all future payments:
If you initially select the 30th and February has 29 days (leap year):
February payment = 29th
All subsequent payments = 29th of each month
If you initially select the 30th and February has 28 days (non-leap year):
February payment = 28th
All subsequent payments = 28th of each month
If you initially select the 29th and February has 28 days (non-leap year):
February payment = 28th
All subsequent payments = 28th of each month
The system adjusts to the last available day in February and then maintains that new due date for all future months. This is a permanent change to the payment schedule, not just a one-time adjustment for February.
Converting to a customer subsidy fund
After the subsidy has been converted from the sales order, the customer balance is updated accordingly:
Finance transactions will be created automatically via the sales order reference number.
Payment auto-created in the Subsidy queue for the Finance team to manage
Finance team will use the Manage option within the customer record to view the subsidy payments scheduled for a particular customer.
Alternatively, they can view all customer scheduled subsidies from the Finance Module via the Subsidy Queue button.
Then they will be presented with the payments that are due and upcoming in the next 5 days.
Using additional filters, the finance team can download all subsidies which are Due, Paid and Voided.
Subsidy payment grouping
Subsidies are grouped by sales order and date, meaning that if multiple payments are due for the same order on the same day, they'll be shown together. These will be applied to the customer's balance individually.
Managing payments in the subsidy queue
From the subsidy queue, the finance team is able to manage the payments on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. The values are grouped by sales orders and dates, summarised together to present you with the end value due. Export the subsidies queue if required.
Finance team can then make payment to customers via an accounting software (Sage, Xero, Quick Books etc.) or bank transfer and also update the payments in The Layer accordingly.
Find out how to do this here