Publishers don't sell one thing in one way. There's the annual print subscription, the digital-only option, the trial that's meant to convert, the bundle of three titles, and the free copy that goes to a qualified reader because an audit body says your circulation counts. Many systems handle one or two of those well and leave the rest to workarounds.
Avio is subscription management software built for publishers, so it treats all of them as normal orders. The same screens, the same customer record, the same reports.
The order wizard
New orders go through a five-step wizard: billing, delivery, order information, products and payment. It's quick for a simple order and thorough when you need it to be.
- Mixed baskets. One order can hold several products, and you can switch currency per order.
- Order details. Subscription type, sales rep, sales channel, opportunity type, campaign code and agent reference. Fill these in at order time and your analysis reports can tell you which campaigns and channels actually sell.
- Payment. VAT number capture, then card, cheque, direct debit or invoice (proforma or invoiced). VAT itself is worked out by the VAT rules engine.
- Trials. Trials use the same flow, so a trial reader is already a full record when they convert.
Every order lands on the customer's record with status, value, flags, references and service dates.
Controlled circulation, done properly
If you publish B2B titles, free qualified circulation is probably a big part of your audience. It's also the part auditors look at hardest.
Avio has a dedicated wizard for it: order info, products, qualification (demographic) questions, then confirmation. It captures the request source and method, record type, status codes and the answers to your qualification questions. That's the data audit bodies require, recorded at the point of entry rather than reconstructed the week before the audit.
Because qualified and paid readers live in the same database, you can count them together or separately, and audience selection gives you circulation as at any date. For more on how this works and why it matters, read controlled circulation explained. If you'd rather someone else handled audit preparation, our ABC and BPA audit bureau does exactly that.
Managing live subscriptions
Orders change after they're taken. Avio gives your team the everyday tools to deal with that without a support ticket.
- Suspend and unsuspend a whole order or a single line.
- Extend a subscription by extra issues, for example as goodwill after a delivery problem.
- Switch contact to move the order to another person, handy when someone leaves a company.
- Raise a refund request.
- Remove orders, with separate permissions for free and invoiced orders, so not everyone can delete something finance cares about.
- Pay by card against an existing order.
Each of these is recorded in the event log. More on that under security and administration.
Products, bundles and prices
Products sit in families and categories that you set up yourself. Prices are set per currency and flagged as print, digital or both, and the VAT-able percentage is set per price. That's what lets one bundle carry a print element and a digital element at different VAT rates.
Bundles split their revenue by percentage across the child products. So when you sell a three-title package, each title's share of the money shows up where it should in deferred revenue and the month-end pack.
How it fits with the rest
Orders feed almost everything else. They drive renewals, fulfilment and the sales ledger. Orders for organisations with several readers are handled as corporate subscriptions, with named seats and IP access.
Smaller publisher with simpler subscriptions? Adeptis covers subscriptions, renewals and controlled circulation too, alongside your news sites and advertising. Either way, book a demo and we'll take an order or two with you on screen.
Questions
Can one order include several products?
Yes. A basket can hold several products, and you can switch currency per order.
How do bundles work for revenue?
A bundle splits its revenue by percentage across its child products, so each title gets its share in the finance reports.
Does Avio handle controlled circulation for ABC or BPA audits?
Yes. The controlled circulation wizard captures request source and method, record type, status codes and qualification questions, which is the data audit bodies require.
Which payment methods can we take?
Card, cheque, direct debit or invoice (proforma or invoiced). You can also take a card payment against an existing order.