In QuickFill, an audited publication uses fields that are not available in the nonaudited version of QuickFill. When you upgrade to the audit version of QuickFill or change a nonaudited publication to an audited one you must ensure that, for each of your audited publications, all of these fields are set to the proper values. Among the fields that may have to be set are:
Subscription and order records:
Subscription classifications. By default the subscription classifications for nonaudited publications are set to non-qualified. Almost all of these classifications will need to be changed to one of the qualified classifications when the publication becomes audited. Click here for a list of all of the classification codes.
Request types. The request type field for nonaudited publication is set to OTH ("Other sources"). It will be necessary to identify the sources of each order (Personal direct request, Company direct request, Association roster, etc.) and change the request type field accordingly. Click here for a list of the request type codes.
Subscription channels. Audited publications must report the sources of their paid subscriptions (Direct by mail, Publisher's sales person, Association, etc.). The audit reports derive this information from the channel codes in your orders. Since the channel field is optional for nonaudited publications it may be necessary to supply channel codes for paid orders where that information is missing.
Controlled subscriptions. You may want to mark some or all of your free subscriptions as controlled subscriptions. A controlled subscription is a subscription that may be cancelled at the whim of the publisher. The 'Cancel Controlled Subscriptions' update can be used to adjust your circulation by performing mass cancellations of selected subsets of your controlled subscriptions.
Prospect records:
Prospect request type. Prospects do not have a subscription classification code since they are not yet subscribers, but they do have a request type code that identifies the source of the prospect. You may want to set the request type field for your prospects, but this is not essential since the request type can be supplied by the 'Make Controlled Subscriptions' update when the time comes to turn your prospects into subscribers.
Publication code. Prospects that have qualification data must have the publication code set in order to link the qualification data to the appropriate publication.
Qualification data:
Most qualified subscriptions for business publications require qualification data, such as a business or industry code, occupation code or similar information. Paid subscriptions may or may not require qualification data, depending on the publisher's policy. For those subscriptions where qualification data is required the following fields must be set:
Date of qualification
Codes for the responses to the qualification questionnaire
Qualification batch date
Qualification batch number
If you have prospect records that you intend to convert into controlled subscriptions (using the 'Make Controlled Subscriptions' update) then those prospect records will also need to have their qualification data fields set.
Names of added or removed subscribers:
For some types of audits (AAM magazines being the primary exception) you must report the number of copies added or removed from your circulation for each issues. Although QuickFill tracks this information for both audited and nonaudited publications it does not track the individual names of the subscribers added or removed for a nonaudited publication. If your first audit is going to include issues that were served prior to the switch from nonaudited to audited and your auditor says that he or she is going to want to see the individual names that were added or removed for those issues then the missing name records will need to be reconstructed.
Although many of these fields can be filled in using the 'Fix Orders' update, the only way to set the qualification data fields is for CWC Software to write a conversion program based on your specific case. Usually we can reconstruct the missing information based on the tracking codes of the subscriptions or the demographic codes in the customer records. We generally charge in the neighborhood of $500.00 for these conversion programs—the final price depends on the complexity of the job.
Before you change an existing publication to audit, you should contact Technical Support and discuss the specific requirements of your conversion. If you fail to do so, you may find that the system does not perform as expected or that you have not collected the data needed to support your audit. Even if you are only collecting data for new subscribers or have an "All paid" publication that does not require qualification data, you still need to have certain data fields properly initialized.