Setting up your program lines

Once you have created and configured a trading program, you will now need to create a program line within it. This is the third and final stage involved in setting up your trading agreements. A program line is essentially the main aspect of Enable that actually ‘earns’ your business rebate.

You can follow our video on how to create a program line.

To create a new program line, simply navigate to the Program lines tab on the trading program's view/edit page and then click on the ... button and select 'Manually create program line' (see screenshot below).

You will then be taken to a page (which will look similar to the screenshot below) where you will be able to configure your new program line for the program you have just created.

Here you will be required to configure your program line settings, select a mechanism and configure the mechanism's settings. Once these 3 steps have been completed and you have finished setting up your program line, simply click on the Save button at the bottom of the page.

Please note — Program lines can be edited further after creation if required.

Configure your program line settings

When creating (or editing) a program line, you will be presented with the settings page. This page enables you to configure a program line in Enable. Each setting (found on the left of your page) is explained for you below. Don’t forget to click the Save button at the bottom of the page when you have finished editing!

Reference

This is a free text entry field where you give the program line a reference. The reference will then be shown in program line listings and can be used as a filter in reports, as well as the program PDF. This reference does not need to be unique.

Description

This is a free text entry field where you can give the program line a description.

Start date / End date

A start date and end date must be given to a program line to determine the eligibility of the transactions for the included dimensions. For example, if the program line is on purchases into stock and the start and end date are the 1st and 31st of January, then only purchases into stock between those dates will earn the rebate specified in that program line.

Enable does have a setting which will either allow or disallow the start and end dates to fall outside of the date range of the parent trading program. However, this is configurable only by Enable’s system administrators.

Please note — Transaction data that is created in Enable will be matched to program lines. Part of this matching is based on the date of the transaction, in that it must fall within the period for the program line.

Program line type

Some settings, such as assigned program line types, are useful for reporting purposes. It is possible to filter by program line type in the reports area of Enable, which can also be useful for allowing program line earnings to be allocated funds.

A list of program line types will be pre-configured by Enable’s system administrators and added to on request.

User permissions can also be controlled on a program line type basis. For example, you may have a ‘Promotions’ type that you only want senior members of your team to have visibility of.

Mechanism

This is a dropdown menu where you can select the mechanism you require. Each mechanism will contain unique calculations and be configurable appropriately. See the mechanisms section for more information.

Notes

This is a free text entry field where you can save notes against a program line.

Please note - These notes will be seen by your trading partner on the program PDF.

Contra earnings

For every program line, regardless of which mechanism plug-in it uses, you will have the option of ticking the Contra earnings box.

For example, suppose a program line has a fixed percentage rate of 5% and a total value across the matching transaction lines of $100,000 and the Contra earnings box is not ticked.

For this program line, calculating the earnings will involve both of the following, regardless of whether the contra earnings box is ticked:

• Multiplying the percentage rate (5%) by the transaction value for the program line ($100,000) to derive a program line-level result for earnings ($5,000).

• Multiplying the percentage rate (5%) by the transaction value for the transaction line to derive an earnings result for each of the matching transaction lines.

Now suppose the Contra earnings box is ticked. Enable will include an additional step in the earnings calculation that involves multiplying each of the following by -1:

• The program line-level result for earnings (to give an earnings result of -$5,000).

• The earnings result for each of the matching transaction lines.

The step of multiplying by -1 is always applied as the final step, after the program line-level and transaction line-level results have been calculated. Except for this final step, the earnings calculations for a program line where the Contra earnings box is ticked are identical to those that would be performed for the same program line if the Contra earnings box was not ticked. 

As the contra earnings step always involves multiplying the calculated earnings by -1, ticking the Contra earnings box will:

• Generate negative earnings where a positive result would have been returned for a program line where the contra earnings box is not ticked.

• Generate positive earnings where a negative result would have been returned for a program line where the contra earnings box is not ticked.

Post period

This setting only applies if it has been switched on by Enable’s system administrators. Please contact Enable’s Customer Success team at the first instance its use becomes necessary.

You will notice a single select drop-down list of either This period or Next period for ‘Post period’. This allows you to identify the period in which the associated earnings will be posted to your business’s account. The default option is This period.

Payment frequency

This setting only applies if it has been switched on by Enable’s system administrators. Please contact Enable’s Customer Success team at the first instance its use becomes necessary.

The Payment frequency option is a single select drop-down list containing the following options:

• End of program line.

• Annual.

• Monthly.

• Quarterly.

• Six monthly.

• N/A.

This setting controls the generation of payment lines so that one payment line is generated per payment frequency. For example, if a program line runs for 12 months and has a quarterly payment frequency then four payment lines will be generated, whereas a program line that runs for 6 months and has a monthly payment frequency will have six payment lines.

Each payment line will have a calculated earnings value and payment lines are used in the Finance app for payment allocation.

Please note — This setting cannot be modified once the program line has been locked due to starting workflow.

Claim point

This setting only applies if it has been switched on by Enable’s system administrators and the Finance app is enabled. Please contact Enable’s Customer Success team at the first instance its use becomes necessary.

When the Claim point setting is enabled and the mechanism chosen for the program line is one for which it applies, a single select drop-down list will be available containing the options ‘In arrears’ (the default) or ‘In advance’.

Please note — this setting cannot be modified once the program line has been locked due to starting workflow.

Payment lines are generated based on the payment frequency assigned to a program line and, generally, payment is expected at the end of each payment line period, e.g. the end of a month or quarter. In some cases, payment may need to be raised at the beginning of the frequency period, e.g. at the beginning of each month.

A program line which has a claim point of In arrears will have payment lines with a claim date being equal to the end date of the payment line. Conversely, a program line which has a claim point of In advance will have payment lines with a claim date being equal to the start date of the payment line.

The setting is only applicable if the chosen payment frequency generates payment lines for the program line. For example, it will not apply if N/A is chosen as the payment frequency.

Cash process

This setting only applies if it has been switched on by Enable’s system administrators. Please contact Enable’s Customer Success team at the first instance its use becomes necessary.

With the current Finance app functionality, payments appear in the Finance app so that cash can be received and allocated to these program lines in a process referred to as ‘Receive & allocate’.

Some Enable clients may be configured with a number of additional cash processes, where these cash processes can be permitted to the client’s configured mechanisms. Your selection of a cash process will, therefore, drive how the program line interacts with Enable’s Finance app.

Source program line

This setting only applies if it has been switched on by Enable’s system administrators and the Finance app is enabled. Please contact Enable’s Customer Success team at the first instance its use becomes necessary.

When a program line is assigned a cash process of type ‘Flow-through payment’, an additional setting will become available to the right of the Cash process field. This is labelled Source program line and provides the user with an option to select and pair up the existing program line with another program line of the same trading program.

Processed

Program line processing control may be configured as either ‘Manual’ or ‘Automatic’ by Enable’s system administrators. If it is set to Manual, then you will notice an editable tick box field is available.

If, however, program line processing is set to Automatic, this field will be read-only and set automatically when payment lines are edited (adjustments are applied), or receipts are allocated in the Finance app.

Once it has been marked as Processed it will be impossible to:

• Delete the program line.
• Change the start date of the program line.
• Change the payment frequency of the program line.

However, it will be possible to edit the end date of this processed program line if:

• The containing trading program is unlocked.
• The new end date of the program line does not come before the end date of the most recent program line entry with cash allocated to it.

Support

If you would like some support setting up your program lines, please raise a Helpdesk ticket or book an appointment with our Customer Success team.