Payment Rates Report

Click here for a sample Payment Rates report (sorted by list)

Click here for a sample Payment Rates report (sorted by marketing plan)

Click here for a sample Payment Rates report (by channel with effort analysis)

Click here for a sample Payment Rates report (by quarter with effort analysis)

Click here for a sample Payment Rates report (by month with effort analysis by effort responded to)

This report shows you payment rates for orders you have received.  For each block of orders it tells you the percentage of those orders that have been paid, the percentage that were canceled at the request of the subscriber, the percentage that were canceled for nonpayment, and the percentage that remain unpaid while billing continues. In addition the report provides the gross receipts and net receipts from the block of orders. Analyzing your payment rates can be very important if you accept "bill-me" orders. You may find that although the response rate from a source is excellent, the net payment rate is low with an unhealthy percentage that cancel or fail to pay.  By sorting the report on various aspects of the orders you can determine which sources have a better payment rate than the others.

Another good use for this report is in testing changes to your billing series.  Suppose you want to find out whether it might be worthwhile to add more efforts to the end of your billing series on the premise that additional nagging will pay off in the end.  To do this create an alternate version of your standard billing series with the extra efforts.  Then use the 'Change Billing Series' update to change half of the orders with outstanding balances over to the new billing series.  Wait a few months until the new billing series has had time to run its course, then run the Payment Rates report, sorting by billing series.  This will show you the percentage of orders that were paid for, broken down by billing series.  If you check one of the  'Effort analysis' check boxes you can see what percentage of the payments were received in response to the extra bills that you sent out.  That will let you balance the revenue received from those payments against the costs of mailing the additional bills.

General tab:

Primary sort, Secondary sort

The 'Payment Rates' report may be sorted at two levels. The primary sort breaks out orders by attributes of the subscription or order—channel, tracking code, list, term, price and so forth. Within this main category, you can request a secondary sort by month, quarter or year.

Left click once in this field to select from a list of "sort" options.

by Publication

This produces a simple report broken down by publication. It is the default sort order.  Note that even if you select one of the other sort orders the results will always include a top level breakout by publication.

by Original channel

The 'by Original channel' sort order shows you the payment rates for orders broken down by the channel you've specified. You could, for example, separate orders by sources such as direct mail, telephone, or fax. Or you could use channel to show you which salesperson was responsible for generating each new order.

by Marketing Plan

This  shows you the payment rates for orders broken down by marketing plan. Use it to analyze payment rates for mailings you've completed.

by List

The 'by List' version shows you the payment rates for orders broken down by list. Use it to analyze how well customers from a particular list have paid.

by Tracking code

This version shows you the payment rates for orders broken down by tracking code. Use this report to analyze payment rates on orders from very specific sources--for example, orders you got from the Business Week mailing list using a pink marketing package and a Swiss Army knife premium.

As a rule, you'll want to break down your report by tracking codes only when you need to analyze rates for orders from quite specific sources.

by Original package

The 'by Package' version shows you the payment rates for orders broken down by marketing package. Use it to compare the effectiveness of different packages.

by Order channel

This is the same as the 'Original channel' sort order except that it uses the channel code of the order record instead of the subscription record.  These codes will differ only if you include renewal orders in the report.

by Order source

The source code of a new order is the same as the tracking code of the subscription.  The source code of a renewal order is its renewal effort code.  A report that uses the 'Order source' sort sequence will be the same as one using the 'Tracking code' sequence unless you include renewal orders in the report.

by Order service

Service codes are typically used to identify the means of delivery of the subscription.  You might use codes to distinguish postal, fax or e-mail delivery or to identify subscribers that requested special services.

by Premium

Sorting by the premium requested allows you to see how the premiums you offer affect the payment rate.  For example you may have recently sent out a test mailing where half of the pieces offered a digital clock and the other half did not.  If you request a payment rates report sorted by premium you can determine whether the additional inducement of the premium increases the payment rate, thereby offsetting the cost of the premium itself.

by Term

Sorting by the term of the order allows you to compare the payment rates of your short term trials against the regular one and two year subscriptions.

by Price

Sorting by the price of the order lets you compare the payment rates of orders at each price level.

by Agency

Sorting by subscription agency can be very useful in comparing the revenue brought in by the various agencies that you deal with.

by Renewal series

This version shows you the payment rates for orders broken down by renewal series. Use it to compare the payment rates for different renewal series.

by Billing series

The 'by Billing series' version shows you the payment rates for orders broken down by billing series. Use it to compare the effectiveness of different billing series.

Effort analysis by effort sent or by effort responded to

If you request an effort analysis QuickFill will give you the same information as the normal report, but it will also tell you the response you received for each effort in a billing series. For example, if you sent a series of four bills to a customer, the 'Effort analysis by effort sent' report tells you the response you got to each of the four. (QuickFill shows prepayments under effort number '0'.) The effort analysis  is particularly useful for (1) analyzing the effectiveness of each effort in a series and (2) looking at payment rates for series.

You may also request an effort analysis by the last effort sent. Therefore, you are able to count responses by either the last effort in a billing series you sent to a customer or by the bill number he or she actually returned to you. (Historically, fulfillment systems report by one or the other of these methods. QuickFill offers both, so you can choose the method you prefer.)

Example: You mailed four bills to John Jones. Jones stuffed the bills in a drawer and eventually sent back his second bill, not the fourth. The detailed by last effort sent report records his payment under effort number 4.

Subscriptions, Copies

Select 'Copies' if you have group or bulk subscriptions for large numbers of copies so that you will get a more accurate picture of your payments. Otherwise, select 'Subscriptions'.

Include New orders, Renewal orders

Normally the report includes both new and renewal orders.  You can focus on just new orders or renewal orders by deselecting either one of these boxes.

Internet orders

Select 'Include' if you would like to include orders entered on the Internet and imported using the QuickFill Internet extension, 'Exclude' if you would like to exclude Internet orders, or 'Only' if you would like to produce a report only with Internet orders. This field is only active for QFIE customers.

Prepaid orders

Select 'Include' if you would like to include prepaid order, 'Exclude' if you would like to exclude prepaid orders, or 'Only' if you would like to produce a report only with Prepaid orders. An order is considered to be prepaid if the order is paid, if it has been sent no bills (last bill effort is zero) and  the date of the most recent payment is the same as the date the order was entered.

Order dates

Leave the 'Order dates' field set to "All dates," and your report will include payment rates for all orders. Enter dates into this field, and your report will include payment rates for orders entered between the dates you've specified only. You can change the date range by right clicking the 'Order dates' field and selecting the appropriate range. If you wish to use a specific range of dates, select the 'Custom dates' range and enter the dates in the date fields.

Report data file

Enter a file name in this field and QuickFill will create your report and will also generate a data file that contains all of the data that was used to produce that report. This feature is useful if you want to examine the data underlying the report more closely or if you want to present it in formats other than the built-in QuickFill report format. The report data file can be in dBASE (DBF), comma delimited (CSV) or tab delimited (TXT) format. The file name extension that you enter determines the format of the file. The fields in the file are as follows:

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