Core Concepts
Glossary
| Resource | Description | Resource |
|---|---|---|
| Business | Represents an organization that sells a subscription-based product through ProAbono. | (not an API Live resource) |
| Segment | A sub-division of a Business with its own currency, billing rules, customers, and offers catalog. | (not an API Live resource) |
| Customer | An end-customer — the recipient and/or buyer of a subscription. | Customers |
| Offer | A pricing plan. Subscribing a Customer to an Offer creates a Subscription. | Offers |
| Feature | A component of an Offer: on/off (binary access), limitation (non-resetting quota), or consumption (quota reset at each renewal). | Features |
| Subscription | Links an Offer to up to two Customers: a recipient (who consumes the service) and a buyer (who is billed). | Subscriptions |
| Invoice | A billing document. Issued when a subscription starts, and then monthly if there is anything to bill. | Invoices |
| Balance Line | A credit or debit entry that is used to establish the monthly invoice. | Balance Lines |
| Usage | A snapshot of which Features a Customer can access and at what quantity. Updating a usage may trigger a new balance line depending on whether the related feature is paying. | Usage |
| Quoting | A cost estimate for a billing operation (subscribe, upgrade, usage update, etc.) computed before it is executed. | Quoting |
Shared identifiers
Shared identifiers are designed to save you from storing extra data in your database. Resources are mapped to entities that already exist in your application (e.g. a Customer) or that should be used directly as a fixed identifier, so that the same identifier works in both your sandbox and production environments.
Developers can assign their own identifiers to link ProAbono resources to counterparts in their own system (e.g. ReferenceCustomer=user-42). If none is provided, ProAbono generates one automatically.
| Resource | Field | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Customer | ReferenceCustomer | Mapped to the user or account in the integrating application |
| Feature | ReferenceFeature | Mapped to a protected feature or capability in the application |
| Offer | ReferenceOffer | Used to start a welcome/trial subscription at signup, or for analytics |
| Segment | ReferenceSegment | Used to partition customers by type, region, etc. |
Tip
Once set, a shared reference can be used in place of the internal Id in any API Live call targeting that resource.
Next steps
- Conventions — field naming, pagination, dates, amounts, and error shapes