Usage and Pricing
Fixed charges on a deal price themselves from the records you have added. Call spend is harder, because it depends on how the customer actually uses the service. The CRM works it out from the tariffs and discount plans genuinely assigned to the deal’s numbers, so the figure is grounded in your real pricing rather than a guess.
What you need: the Sales section and the Usage Pricing feature. Buy rates, cost and profit figures additionally need Wholesale & Profit Tracking.
Estimated usage
Section titled “Estimated usage”The Estimated usage panel on a deal lists one line per anchor number, with the minutes expected each month and the profile describing how those minutes split across call types.
Columns are the line, the monthly minutes, the monthly sell value, and (with profit tracking) the monthly buy value and profit. Each line carries a status and an expandable How this was derived trail showing exactly which tariff won, at which stage it was resolved, and which discount plans were applied or rejected and why.
Adding a line
Section titled “Adding a line”Start from the Add usage link on one of the deal’s number rows. The panel will tell you to do this if you try to start from the panel itself, because a line has to be anchored to a number to be priced.
Required: the Usage Profile and the Monthly Minutes.
Optional: a Label for the line, and manual figures - a monthly amount, a sell rate or a buy rate - where you need to override the derivation.
Important: manual figures need the Manual Usage Rates capability. Profiles that require manual rates are simply not offered to operators without it.
Deriving from history
Section titled “Deriving from history”Derive Usage from History builds the estimate from what the customer has actually spent, which is the strongest basis available on a renewal.
Required: the History Window (3, 6 or 12 months) and which Numbers to Include - only the ones this deal renews or replaces, or all the customer’s live numbers.
What happens: call records over whole months are aggregated by call type and re-rated at your proposed pricing, with the observed mobile-origination share taken from the real data. What the customer was actually billed is recorded alongside as a reference. Any previous history-derived lines are replaced, and the confidence is set to Based on actual usage.
Confidence
Section titled “Confidence”Update Usage Confidence records how much the figure is worth:
- Verified from a bill - you have seen a recent bill.
- Customer estimate - the customer told you.
- Based on actual usage - derived from their call history.
- Assumption - a working guess.
The confidence shapes the wording the customer sees on the proposal. Where it is set to Assumption, the deal page reminds you to ask for a recent bill.
When a rate is missing
Section titled “When a rate is missing”A line that cannot be priced says so in plain English rather than quietly reporting zero. You may see:
- Call type not recognised
- No supplier cost rate for this call type
- No price list covers this call type
- Price list still being prepared; recalculate to retry
- Priced as a percentage over cost, but the supplier cost rate is unknown
- No rate found for this mobile network
A tariff that has not been built reports as missing, never as free. That is deliberate: an unpriced call type must not quietly become a zero on a proposal.
Things to know
Section titled “Things to know”- Estimate lines are shared demand for the whole deal group. Edit them on the primary deal; each alternative gets its own derived result from the same minutes.
- Lines carry a revision stamp, so a stale form is refused rather than overwriting a colleague’s figures.
- All usage figures are estimates. The customer sees a single estimated figure with wording matching your confidence, never your buy rates or margin.
Usage profiles
Section titled “Usage profiles”A usage profile describes how a block of minutes splits across call types - for example a mix of UK landline, UK mobile and international, or an inbound profile, or a mobile-origination mix.
Each profile carries a name, a description, a Customer-Friendly Label shown on proposals, and its components as percentages that add up to 100. Where the label is blank the customer sees no profile description at all.
Built-in profiles cover the common mixes and cannot be deleted. Add your own for the patterns you sell most.
Profiles are maintained under the CRM Packages permission, in the platform settings.
Profile
Section titled “Profile”Name, description and availability of this usage profile.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Usage Profile | Name of this usage profile as shown to operators |
| Description | What traffic pattern this profile represents and when to choose it |
| Customer-Friendly Label | Optional label shown to the customer on proposals (for example "A typical UK calling pattern"); when blank the customer sees no profile description at all |
| Active | Whether this profile can be selected on Deals; retired profiles remain viewable |
| Display Order | Order this profile appears in selection lists |
| System Key | Set on the built-in profiles supplied with the platform; built-in profiles cannot be deleted |
Components
Section titled “Components”How minutes are split across destination components and how each component is rated.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Components | The destination components of this profile as JSON: a list of {sharePercent, operatorLabel, ratingSpec} entries whose shares sum to 100 |
System Information
Section titled “System Information”| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Last Modified | Timestamp of the most recent modification to this usage profile |
| Created | Timestamp of the creation of this usage profile |
Current Provider analysis
Section titled “Current Provider analysis”Where your package includes Current Provider Analysis, record what the customer pays today so the proposal can show the saving.
Add Current Provider or Update Current Provider on the primary deal takes:
- Comparison Label - defaults to “Current Provider”.
- Supplier - who they are with.
- Current Fixed Monthly Spend and Current Usage Monthly Spend.
- Reconciled Monthly Total - when set, this overrides the fixed and usage figures. Use it where you have a bill total but cannot split it.
- Current One-off Spend.
- Contract Notes - internal only, never shown to the customer.
What you get: an Expected saving by Deal option table comparing each option’s proposed fixed, usage and all-in figures against the current spend, showing the saving monthly and over the term, including any difference in one-off costs.
Remove Current Provider deletes the comparison and asks you to confirm you understand what that means.
Things to know:
- The comparison lives on the primary deal only, and can only be changed while the deal is open and editable.
- A per-proposal toggle decides whether the comparison is snapshotted onto the PDF and web page. Buy rates and profit are never exposed.
- Turning the feature off hides the panel and drops the comparison from newly generated proposals, but stored comparisons survive untouched.
Profit and margin
Section titled “Profit and margin”With Wholesale & Profit Tracking, deal cards show monthly cost, gross profit and margin percentage, and a pricing state of OK or N warnings. Warnings feed the Deals needing attention queue and the red dot on the Deals list.
Across the whole live base, the Margin Watch report flags records billing below their recorded carrier cost.
Important: every figure on this page is a sales estimate. None of it changes billing, rating or what happens at go live.