Set up subscription billing

Path: Business functionality > Set up Business Central > Set up sales > Set up subscription billing · tier official · system sales · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

This section covers the setup steps needed to run subscription billing for customer and vendor contracts. It starts with general setup, where the Subscription Contract Setup page holds defaults such as number series, invoice details, dimensions and posting groups, and then moves to the building blocks of an offering: contract types, subscription packages with subscription lines, and item settings that decide whether sales documents create subscription lines. Supporting pages cover importing existing contracts through configuration packages, scheduling recurring tasks with the job queue, and assigning access through four permission sets.

A sensible order is general setup first, then contract types, packages and lines, and item subscription options. Import, job queue and permissions can follow as needed.

Key points

• Subscription Contract Setup page holds defaults: number series, invoice details, dimensions, posting groups, Overdue Date Formula, Default Period Calculation, Default Billing Base Period and Default Billing Rhythm.
• General setup also includes a Service Start Date setting for warehouse picking.
• Subscription contract types organize customer and vendor contracts and support harmonized billing, contract deferrals, multi-currency, translations and usage data billing.
• Subscription packages group subscription lines with terms, pricing, price group assignment, billing rhythm, initial and subsequent term, and notice period; line templates can be used.
• The item Subscription Option field offers Sales with Subscription, Subscription Item and Invoicing Item to control automatic creation of subscription lines in sales documents.
• Import contracts, subscriptions and subscription lines with configuration packages, using the Create Customer Subscription Contracts, Create Subscriptions and Create Subscription Lines actions.
• Job queue codeunit 8058 can automatically update subscription contract termination dates.
• Four permission sets (SUB. BILLING ALL, ADMIN, BASIC and USER) control access to contracts, packages and billing, at levels from read-only to administrative.

Learn pages

• General setup: There are a few general things to set up for subscription billing.
• Import subscription contracts and contract lines: You can use import contracts and contract lines in subscription billing.
• Job queue: You can use job queue entries in subscription billing.
• Permissions in subscription billing: Learn about the permission settings for subscription billing.
• Subscription contract types: You can use different types of contracts in subscription billing.
• Subscription lines for items: You can use subscription lines for items in subscription billing.
• Subscription packages and subscription lines: You can use subscription lines in subscription billing.

Business Central pages and reports

The pages, reports and queries this hub’s Learn pages name (ms.search.form, API reference), joined to the code by exact object id (data/index/docs-objects.json); a page shows the table it runs on.

• Page 8008 “Imported Service Objects” · captioned “Imported Subscriptions” · on Table 8008 “Imported Subscription Header”
• Page 8009 “Imported Service Commitments” · captioned “Imported Subscription Lines” · on Table 8009 “Imported Subscription Line”
• Page 8013 “Imported Customer Contracts” · captioned “Imported Customer Subscription Contracts” · on Table 8010 “Imported Cust. Sub. Contract”
• Page 8051 “Service Contract Setup” · captioned “Subscription Contract Setup” · on Table 8051 “Subscription Contract Setup”
• Page 8054 “Contract Types” · captioned “Subscription Contract Types” · on Table 8053 “Subscription Contract Type”
• Page 8059 “Service Objects” · captioned “Subscriptions” · on Table 8057 “Subscription Header”
• Page 8061 “Item Serv. Commitment Packages” · captioned “Item Subscription Packages” · on Table 8058 “Item Subscription Package”

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.