Click here for a sample Duplicate Subscription report
The 'Duplicate subscriptions' report lists customers who have more than one subscription to the same publication where it appears that they will receive duplicate copies of an issue. Customers with multiple subscriptions that do not overlap are not reported.
Here are some examples:
A renewal received from John Smith was inadvertently entered as a new order. As a result Mr. Smith has an active subscription that expires in June and another active subscription that begins in May. These subscriptions will be included in the report.
John Doe had a subscription that expired in January. In September he sends in a renewal order. Because he has missed more than six months of service the renewal is entered as a new subscription beginning in October. As a result he now has an expired subscription and an active subscription. This combination is not reported since Mr. Doe will be receiving issues from the active subscription only.
Jane Smith is a member of an active group subscription that will expire in June. She responded to a renewal notice that was sent to her individually and an individual renewal was entered that will start in July. Although Ms. Smith has two active subscriptions she will not be included in the report because the subscriptions do not overlap. But see the discussion below regarding individual renewals and grace issues.
The report is sorted by customer number and lists the customer number, company name (if there is no company name, the customer name is reported), the publication code, status, expiration issue, tracking code, subscription date, and quantity for each duplicate subscription found.
Note: quantity reported
For single subscriptions, the number of copies to be served with the next 'Issue labels' update is reported in the 'Quantity' column. If a subscription is inactive, it will be reported as having a quantity of zero. For two-party and group subscriptions, the total number of copies in the group member's record is reported in the 'Quantity' column; the number reported will not be affected by the status of the two-party or group subscription.
Pubs/statuses
Your report will include customers with duplicate subscriptions to the publications and with the statuses (active, graced, etc.) you enter in these fields. The status field modifies the publication immediately to its left.
If you leave both the publication and status fields blank, your report will include all duplicate subscriptions regardless of publication and status.
Also report subscriptions as duplicates if they might overlap as a result of post-expiration gracing
Subscriptions are reported as duplicates if a customer will receive an issue more than once as a result of overlapping subscriptions. Normally, subscriptions are considered to overlap only if the intervals between their start issues and expiration issue overlap. If you check this box then grace issues will also be taken into consideration,
Example: John Smith has a subscription for 12 months that starts with issue 20 and ends with issue 31. Mr. Smith renews, but by mistake this is entered as a new subscription scheduled to start with issue 32 instead of as a renewal order to his original subscription. The publication policy is to serve two grace issues after a subscription expires. When issue 32 is served Mr. Smith might receive two copies of that issue, one from his original subscription and one from his renewal. If you don't check this box on the Duplicate Subscription report, the possibility of grace issues will be ignored and Mr. Smith will not be reported as having duplicate subscriptions.
Why not always report overlaps resulting from grace issues? There is a downside to doing that. Consider this example: Betty Smith buys a gift subscription for her two sons, John and Edward Smith. The subscription is for 12 months starting with issue 20 and ending with issue 31. Betty Smith does not renew the gift subscription so you send individual renewal notices to John and Edward. John accepts the offer so you enter an individual renewal for John alone that is tied to start with issue 32, dovetailing nicely with the expiration of the gift subscription. Now John will receive two copies of issue 32, one from his own subscription and one as a grace issue from the original gift subscription. This is a common occurrence, so if you have a lot of gift or group subscriptions you might not want to consider grace issues when searching for duplicates.
Click here for information on combining subscriptions.
Click here for more information about Filter screens and Options for running reports.