Services Credits Business Units Overview
Services credits business units enable you to create separate pools of services credits within a single customer account. This ensures that credits purchased by one department or subunit cannot be consumed by another.
You can view and manage services credits business units from the Services Credits Business Units tab.
What is a Services Credits Business Unit?
A services credits business unit represents a customer account's subunit that has its own restricted pool of services credits. When a single account is shared by multiple internal departments or subunits, services credits business units provide a way to independently manage and track credits for each department. Business units enable you to create "pots" of services credits within a customer account, earmarking those credits so they can only be consumed by the business unit they are assigned to.
It's important not to confuse the concept of services credit business units with the concept of regions, practices, and groups (RPGs). Services credits business units are specifically designed to meet your customers' needs. They enable you to create pools of credits within your customer accounts that mirror your customers' organizational structure. In contrast, RPGs are intended to represent your own organizational structure. For more information about RPGs, see Regions, Practices and Groups.
How Do Services Credits Business Units Work?
To begin using the feature, services credits business units must be created first. Once created, they can be assigned to specific services credits customer purchases and projects. When a business unit is assigned to a purchase, its credits are restricted and can only be consumed by milestones on projects with the exact same business unit.
Business units can also be defined at milestone level. A milestone inherits its business unit value from its associated project. However, if milestones on the same project must be assigned to different business units, the inherited value can be overridden on the milestone record.
Once business units have been assigned, the credits allocation and adjustment processes automatically respect the business unit restrictions. For more information about the services credits allocation and adjustment processes, see Managing Services Credits and Using Services Credits Business Units when Allocating and Adjusting Credits.
The Services Credits Business Units Workflow table describes the services credits business unit workflow.
| Workflow Step | Further Information |
|---|---|
| 1. Create services credits business units. | Creating a Services Credits Business Unit |
| 2. Assign services credits business units to services credits customer purchases. | Assigning a Business Unit to a Services Credits Customer Purchase |
| 3. Assign services credits business units to projects. | Assigning a Business Unit to a Project |
| 4. [Optional] Override the milestone's inherited business unit. | Overriding a Milestone's Inherited Business Unit |
| 5. Allocate or adjust credits by services credits business unit. | Using Services Credits Business Units when Allocating and Adjusting Credits |
Example: The Multi-Department Customer
Imagine a large hospital represented by Central Coast Medical Center, which is a single account record in your system. Multiple departments within the hospital, such as Cardiology, Neurology, and Pediatrics, each purchase their own pool of services credits.
To ensure the credits purchased by one department are not accidentally used by another department, you create a separate services credits business unit for each one. This way, the credits from one department, for example the Cardiology department, can only be allocated to milestones associated with the Cardiology business unit.
Why Use Services Credits Business Units?
Services credits business units are key to customer accounts with multiple departments that need to separately purchase and consume services credits.
Services credits business units give you:
- Greater control over your credit spend: You can ensure that the work associated with a specific department or subunit is funded only by the credits that department purchased.
- More granular tracking and management of credits: You can track and manage credits separately for different organizational subunits.
- Strategic reporting capabilities: You can provide critical business information to customer success managers, enabling them to keep customers informed about their credit spend across all business units during year-end reviews and renewals.
- Organizational flexibility: You can support complex customer requirements without altering your existing account hierarchy or data model.
Considerations When Using Services Credits Business Units
The following considerations and rules apply when using services credits business units:
- When a services credits customer purchase is assigned to a business unit, their credits are restricted to that business unit and can only be allocated to milestones associated with that business unit.
- Milestones associated with a specific business unit can consume credits from services credits customer purchases that are either associated with the same business unit or have no business unit assigned.
- When a milestone is eligible to consume credits from multiple services credits customer purchase records, the expiry date determines the order of consumption. The credits that expire earlier are consumed first.
- You can define business units at project level or milestone level. A milestone inherits its business unit value from its associated project. However, if milestones on the same project must be assigned to different business units, the inherited value can be overridden on the milestone record.
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A milestone can be associated with a different business unit at any time. If you change a milestone's business unit after it has been allocated credits from a purchase that no longer matches the new unit, we recommend:
- Returning the allocated credits to the source purchase record.
- Allocating the credits again from a purchase with a matching business unit.
- Because other scenarios might also result in a business unit mismatch between a milestone and a purchase, we recommend considering the impact of any business unit updates on existing allocations, and correcting any relevant allocations, if required.