Explanation
Entitlements represent your customer’s contractual right to use, access, or consume services within an agreed scope and time period. In Zenskar, entitlements act as control primitives that govern what a customer can use, how much they can consume, and whether a capability is available, independent of how revenue is billed or recognized.Entitlement taxonomy
Zenskar supports multiple entitlement types to reflect different commercial and technical needs. Each entitlement type encodes a distinct kind of right and participates differently in usage evaluation and billing.
Each entitlement type serves a distinct purpose:
- Quantity-based entitlements control how much of something can be consumed. For example, 1,000 API calls per month, 50 user seats, 500 GB storage, 100 messages per billing period.
- Credit-based entitlements control how much value can be consumed, without representing real currency. For example, $1,000 of platform credits, 500 AI tokens, prepaid service credits.
- Feature entitlements control whether a capability or service is available at all. For example, SSO access, audit logs, premium API enablement, beta feature activation.
Warnings and best practices
- Off-balance-sheet: Entitlements are not financial instruments. They do not automatically appear in accounting books as assets or liabilities. Treat them as usage rights only.
- Cash refunds: Users must avoid issuing cash refunds for entitlements. Doing so can create a mismatch between the financial ledger and entitlement balances, potentially resulting in accounting errors.
- Time validity: Free units and other entitlements inherit their validity from the pricing model or contract phase. They do not carry independent time semantics.
How-to guides
Add an entitlement from the Entitlements module
- Navigate to Entitlements in the left side panel.
- On the Entitlements page, click on the CREATE NEW ENTITLEMENT button.
- On the Create New Entitlement page, fill in the mandatory fields.
Add an entitlement to a new product
- Navigate to Contracts > Products in the left side panel.
- Click on the + CREATE NEW PRODUCT.
- On the Add New Product page, add a Free Units node.
- Click on the Free Units Name drop-down menu to select an entitlement.
- Optionally, you may click on the Click here to charge overages link to automatically add another free units node that consumes free units to compensate for overages.
- Click on the ADD PRODUCT button.
Add an entitlement to an existing product
- Navigate to Contracts > Products in the left side panel.
- On the Products page, click on the row containing the product you wish to edit.
- On the Edit Product page, add a Free Units node.
- Click on the UPDATE button.
Assign an entitlement to a customer
- Click on Customers in the left side panel.
- On the Customers page, click on the row containing the customer name to whom you wish to assign an entitlement.
- On the page showing customer details, click on the Entitlements tab.
- Click on the + ADD ENTITLEMENT button.
- On the entitlements form, click on the Select Entitlement drop-down menu, and select the desired entitlement.
- Select an expiry date.
- Click on the SAVE button.
Edit or dissociate entitlement assigned to a customer
- Click on Customers in the left side panel.
- On the Customers page, click on the row containing the customer name to whom you wish to assign an entitlement.
- On the page showing customer details, click on the Entitlements tab, as shown below:
- Click on the kebab menu located at the end of the row containing the entitlement you wish to edit or dissociate.
- Click on Edit or Delete.
Delete an entitlement
- Navigate to Entitlements in the left side panel.
- On the Entitlements page, click on the kebab menu located at the end of the row containing the entitlement you wish to delete.
- Click on the Delete menu option.