Overview of ramp deals
A ramp deal is a set of time-based periods where products or pricing can change. You initially set up a ramp deal, and then you make ongoing updates to the set of time-based periods where prices can change.
If the ramp deals are created in the following ways and then collected in Zuora Revenue, Zuora Revenue can recognize the revenue for the ramp deals. Instead of the normal relative allocation, Zuora Revenue will perform ramp allocation for the ramp deals, which can result in more accurate revenue being allocated for the ramp deal line.
- Ramp deals are created in Salesforce via Zuora Quotes and synced to Zuora Billing
- Ramp deals are created via Zuora Orders in Zuora Billing
Here is an example to help you understand the concept of ramp deals in Zuora Revenue. A subscription S-1 is created in Zuora Billing with the recurring flat fee charge C-1. This is a ramp subscription and contains three intervals (charge segments). The price for each internal is as follows:
| Charge Segment # | Price | Start date | End date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1000 | 2019/01/01 | 2020/01/01 |
| 2 | $2000 | 2020/01/01 | 2021/01/01 |
| 3 | $3000 | 2021/01/01 | 2022/01/01 |
In Zuora Revenue, these charge segments are treated as different sales order (SO) lines and will be recognized separately. It means $1000 will be recognized for the year 2019, $2000 for the year 2020, and $3000 for the year 2021. However, customers have the choice to recognize them as ramp deals, which means the revenue can be recognized in this way: $2000 for the year 2019, $2000 for the year 2020, and $2000 for the year 2021.
Create ramp deals in upstream systems
There are many ways to create ramp deals in the upstream systems. For detailed information, refer to the documentation of the upstream system. The following articles are for your quick reference.
For information about how to create ramp deals in Salesforce, see the documentation of Salesforce.
Ramp deal processing in Zuora Revenue
After the ramp deals are collected by Zuora Revenue, Zuora Revenue provides the ramp allocation functionality to identify the ramp deal lines in a revenue contract and perform allocation based on the ramp percentage that is calculated according to the average pricing method of each ramp group. The calculation of ramp allocation is different depending on whether you user Central Revenue or Advanced Revenue.
For more information, see the following articles:
Known limitations
Be aware of the limitations during the whole processing cycle of a ramp deal. Some limitations are imposed by the upstream system while some limitations exist in Zuora Revenue.
- If you use Zuora Quotes to create ramp deals, check Zuora Quotes documentation.
- If you use the Ramps feature provided by Zuora Orders to create ramp deals, see Ramps limitations.
- For known limitations in Zuora Revenue, see Limitations.