Summary of QuickFill's audit features

Definitions:

Most audited business publications have a qualification form (the exceptions are publications for which the only requirement for qualification is that the subscriber pay for the subscription or that the subscriber be included in a business directory). The qualification form is used to determine whether or not subscribers are "qualified" to receive the publication. Each publication develops its own form that is unique to the publication and the field that it serves. Usually you include the form on your order cards and renewal notices or on your requalification requests. When you receive the completed forms from your subscribers, you must enter the data into your fulfillment system so that it can prepare the reports that are required for a circulation audit.

When you set up the definitions that describe your publications in QuickFill, you include information about your qualification form. Once you have entered this description of your form, QuickFill uses it to build the qualification data section that may be accessed through most of the transaction data entry screens in the Audit System. For example, when entering a new order, the qualification data section of the 'Qualdata' tab will look similar to the one below.

 

image\qualfrm3.jpg

Because QuickFill knows about your qualification form, the qualification data section of your data entry screens will reflect the source documents from which you are entering data. This saves you from having to remember complicated coding rules during data entry. For example, let's say that your qualification form has ten questions, five of which the customer must respond to and for which only one answer may be selected. When you define your qualification form, you define each of these five questions as being required and having a value of one (only one answer may be entered for each question). Then when you enter a customer, you will not be allowed to move on to the order entry tab until these five questions have been answered.

Click here for more details on defining a qualification form.

A requalification source code is similar to a renewal effort code.  It is used only with non-paid controlled subscriptions. Like a renewal effort it identifies the means by which you obtained the qualification data that caused you to extend the subscription of a controlled subscription. Because it is used only for non-paid subscriptions it has no offers associated with it.

The 'Requal Sources' definition screen, selected from the 'Renewal' submenu under 'Definitions', is used to define requalification sources, such as issue wrappers, direct mailings, or telephone calls.

Click here for more details on defining requalification sources.

In addition to issue pointers for new and current issues, the Audit System also has an "Audit issue" and a "Controlled expire" issue pointer.

Usually you will mark one issue in each six month period as an audit issue.  Issues that are so marked will cause the issue label update to create a "galley data file" that lists information about the persons that received that issue.  This file includes all of the address data and qualification data for the subscriber.  The publisher's statement report needs this file to print those sections of the report that involve the business occupations, qualification dates and geographic locations of the people who received the audit issue.  You will need to provide a copy of this galley file to the auditor either in printed form or by sending them the data file itself.

The "Controlled expire" issue pointer is used to define a default issue at which controlled subscriptions should expire. You may override this default at the time the controlled subscription is entered.

Click here for more details on defining the "Audit issue" and "Controlled expire" issue pointers.

Transactions:

The Audit System has three transactions designed to handle controlled circulation and qualification data. Many of the regular QuickFill transactions have also been modified to accommodate qualification data.

You use the 'Controlled subs' transaction to enter qualified non-paid subscriptions. It is similar to the 'New orders' transaction except that there are no fields related to pricing, payments, or premiums. Another important difference in the 'Controlled subs' transaction is the way you specify the term of the subscription. When you create a subscription using the 'New orders' transaction, you enter the number of issues to be served. By contrast, when you create a subscription using the 'Controlled subs' transaction, you specify a 'Start issue' and 'Expire issue', and QuickFill computes the number of issues to be served.

Click here for more details on the 'Controlled subs' transaction.

Just as the 'Controlled subs' transaction closely relates to the 'New orders' transaction, so the 'Controlled requal' transaction relates to the 'Renewals' transaction. You use the 'Controlled requal' transaction when you receive a new qualification card from an existing subscriber. It allows you to enter the new qualification data and extend the expiration date of the subscription.

Click here for more details on the 'Controlled requal' transaction.

You use this transaction to make corrections to the qualification data of an existing subscriber without extending the subscription.

Click here fore more details on the 'Adjust qualdata' transaction.

Updates

You use the 'Make subscriptions' update, selected from the 'Controlled subs' submenu under 'Updates', to create controlled subscriptions in bulk from your prospect pool or from expired subscribers.

Click here for more details on the 'Make subscriptions' update.

You use the 'Cancel subscriptions' update, selected from the 'Controlled subs' submenu under 'Updates', to perform cancellations of controlled subscriptions in bulk before they have reached their expiration date.

Click here for more details on the 'Cancel subscriptions' update.

 

Both the 'Make subscriptions' and 'Cancel subscriptions' updates use a qualification data filter that lets you select sets of subscribers or prospects based on their qualification data. In the sample qualification data filter below, we selected subscribers that answered question 1 on the qualification form with a "1" or "2" and answered question 4 with a value between "0" and "100."

 

image\qualfil.jpg

The filter for these updates also allows you to select subscribers or prospects based on the date range in which their qualification data was entered, or, if you would like to, you can select subscriber records that have no qualification data.

Audit reports

The Audit System includes six types of reports to provide the data you need to support your audit.

You use the 'Qualified circulation' report to obtain breakdowns by business or occupation, qualification source, mailing address, or geographical area. You may obtain a report on either your existing subscribers, your prospective subscribers, or any combination of the two. Use this report as a "what-if" tool.  It allows you to see what would happen to the numbers on your publisher's statement if you were to cancel an existing group of subscriptions or add new subscriptions from a prospect pool.

Click here for more details on the 'Qualified circulation' report.

You use the 'Publisher's statement' report to generate statistics for an audit period and for the selected audit issue within that period. The report is in a format that matches the requirements of the audit bureau.  You should run this report at the end of each six month audit period.

Click here for more details on the 'Publisher's statement' report.

The 'Audit issue galley' report allows you to produce a galley of all qualified subscribers that received the audit issue. This report also allows you to produce a test selection (as requested by the auditor) from the galley. It is able to select names at fixed intervals from the galley file that was generated by the 'Issue labels' update.

Click here for more details on the 'Audit issue galley' report.

The 'Credit cancels' report is used to report the number of copies received by customers who have been canceled or suspended for nonpayment, broken down by issue.  For BPA and ABC these numbers need to be deducted from the paid subscription counts shown on the 'Publisher's Statement' report.

Click here for more details on the 'Credit cancels' report.

The 'Requalification analysis' report is used to obtain a count of requalified orders based on requalification sources or channels.

Click here for more details on the 'Requalification analysis' report.

There is a group of 'audit test' reports that are designed to allow you to obtain details that support each section of the publisher's statement. Use these when the auditor points to a section of the publisher's statement and asks you to provide supporting data. For example, suppose the auditor wanted to verify the count of one year subscriptions sold during the audit period. You could run the 'Order Terms' report specifying on the filter screen that you only wanted to view one-year subscriptions. It would then provide a list of all of the orders with one year terms.  This should match the "length of subscriptions" section of the 'Publisher's statement'.

Click here for more details on the 'Audit test' reports.

 

See Also