Media Plans and Orders

Media plans and Orders

This manual will give you an introduction to creating media plans and orders in Marathon.

Media Plans

Media plans and plan drafts are created in this program. The orders in the plans can be mailed directly to the media. Plans and material lists can be printed out as PDF or to Excel from the start page.

Click on Media plans on the start page

Quick search	Search optional information in the list of media plans.
New	Create a new plan.
Open	Open selected plan.
Print	Print selected plan/plans.
Material list	Export material list, possibility to make a selection.
Search plan	Search a certain plan.
Search	Search a certain order.
Export	Export plan details to Excel.
Batch change	Enables changes in several selected plans at one time.
Only active	Shows only active plans.
Only own	Shows only plans where you are stated as owner.
From insertion year	Limits the list to chosen year.
Owner	Choose owner to see their plans.
Group	Choose one or several groups to see their media plans.

When creating a new plan, fill in the information in the plan'General tab, such as client, product, plan name, agreement etc.

When all details are entered, save the plan with the SAVE function. Undo with the RESET function.

Copy plan

You can copy an existing media plan. Click on COPY PLAN and select a plan from the list.

When you copy a plan, everything registered on it will be copied.

If you want to copy parts of a plan, select plan and then one or several orders.

General

When you click on NEW you are directed to the General tab. Fill in the general plan information here. When you have created a new plan you can either make a draft or create orders.

Product	Plan printouts and invoices can be divided per product. They can be useful for statistics.
Campaign	You can connect several plans into a campaign and use in printouts and reports.
Contact	Can be printed on invoice.
Project	If the plan shall be connected with a project, select project here.
Reference number	Printed on the plan, the invoice and in reports.
Agreement	Agreement is a mandatory subject. This agreement sets the conditions on all the plan's orders, unless a certain order or a price row has an own agreement.
Inv date	You can enter a special invoice date'that differs from your ordinary invoicing routine.
Inv currency/rate	See separate manual about currencies in Marathon.
Group	Can be made a mandatory field if for example revenues shall be reported per group (department). You can fetch the group from the client register and set it as default.
Owner	The employee that owns the plan. If you tick the box ”Only own”, the list shows plan owners. Owner is also a selection in reconciliation of media invoices.
Active	Deselect if the plan no longer is active. Inactive plans are not shown when ” Only active” is selected. However, inactive plans can still be invoiced.
Comment	Internal comment shown in the plan's general tab.
Approved by and Date	Shows person approving the plan ad date of approval. Shown only in the general tab.
Calculate credit...preliminary orders	Select if also preliminary orders shall counted in the credit limit of the client.
Plan label 1, 2, 3	Own optional labelling that can be printed out in reports.
Table registration	See separate manual.

Draft

The plan draft fetches information from the media database and calculates CTC according to the selected agreement. It is not possible to send orders to media from the draft; it is not connected to ordinary bookings.

You can create several drafts as campaign suggestions and then convert one of the drafts to real orders on the plan, thus not having to create orders manually. Status of these orders will automatically be preliminary. You can print out the draft as PDF or export it to Excel.

How to create a draft:

Open the tab Draft.

• Click New, write draft name and optional comment.

• Select media, click on Media database. Choose placement, format, colour, number of insertions, insertion dates. A gross price will be presented to you.

• Press ”Update order” while in the media database. Your chosen placement is now updated to your draft.

• Enter the negotiated discounts.

• Insertions in TV, radio, search engines, internet and cinema have to be registered manually outside the data base.

• Save.

Printout

Customised printout templates enables printing detailed financial plans based on your draft. Print as PDF or to Excel.

Graphic plan

You can see an overview of the insertions per day or per week in the Graphic plan, provided that you have entered dates in the draft. Click on Spreadsheet for export to Excel.

Create orders from draft

When the draft is approved, you can create orders of it with the function Create orders. The system checks that the orders not already exist, if that is the case, you will get a warning.

Register order

An order consists of several parts.

General	General information about the order.
Insertion	Insertions that in their turn consist of different price rows.

Functions in the order tab:

New	To create new order.
Open	Opens existing order.
Delete order	Deletes order; only Preliminary orders can be deleted.
Split	Split one order into several orders.
Make definitive	Change status to a definitive order.
Printout	The printout can be sent to the media directly from Marathon.
Import	Import an order from another plan. Note, that the order will disappear from the original plan.
Credit	Shows client's credit limit and how much of it that has been used.
Batch change	Select several orders and click Batch change. Make changes in the fields you want to change, remember to tick the box in front of every such field. All selected orders will have that information saved.
Commissions	Shows the different commissions concerning the media on the order. You can edit commissions here.
Search order	Search a certain order in the plan.

Use the Media database as your support when creating new orders. The subjects fetched from the database are: section, placement, unit, width, height, format and colour. See separate manual about the Media database.

Fields in the General tab:

Product	Same as product on plan, unless you have chosen to have different products on orders.
Ref no	Same as on plan, unless you have chosen to have different reference numbers on orders.
Alt. Order no	Here you can enter the order number that you received from the media. It is helpful later when matching the order with the media invoice.
Heading	Printed on the order, plan, invoice, reconciling list and in reports.
Instruction	You can write an instruction to the media, that will be printed on the order.
Inst on inv	Select if the instruction also shall be written on the plan and the invoice.
Mat.delivery	Choose material delivery method.
Mat.deliverer	Will be printed on the order. If this information is written on the client, it will be automatically printed out on new orders.
Order status	The different order statuses can be displayed as a code or a name.
P	Preliminary
R	Definitive order
X	Alteration (Changed) order
I	Cancellation order
RF	Order split on several clients

Insertion

This tab is for registration of new insertions, and opening/editing existing insertions. If you have been using the media database, the insertions are shown automatically. If not, you have to register them manually.

If you want to add prices, discounts and commissions on several insertions, keep the Ctrl key pressed while you click on the insertions in the list. Then click on the function Price/ Discount or Commissions.

Insertion status	Insertions on a definitive order can have their status changed to S - do not invoice and A - Pre-invoice. The accounting department can also help to create new insertion statuses in the Base registers (Base registers/Med/Insertion status codes)

There are two more statuses: P – Preliminary and I - Cancelled.

Added value	At the time of ad check you can register the real placement that the advertisement got, and count out possible additional value.
Reporting code	You can label an insertion to show in reports.
Credit allocation	See separate manual (Media Accounting)
Debit allocation	See separate manual (Media Accounting)
Credit	See separate manual (Media Accounting)
Add surcharge	Here you can add another costs, additional to media cost, on the insertion.

To create a new insertion, Click NEW and fill in insertion date and, if it is a print media, the issue number. On other kind of media, choose start- and end dates.

The tabs Other, Reconciliation and Correction show information about ad check, reconciliation and allocations.

Price row

If you are adding a price row manually, click on NEW in the insertion tab and fill in the information needed. Colour surcharge and other surcharges shall be registered on separate price rows.

If you want to delete a price row, open it and click the Delete button. To delete a compleet insertion, go to the insertion and click on Delete insertion.

When you are ready with the registration, save the insertion with Save.

Allocation

You can allocate plans or orders. Choose which one in the tab Allocation in a media plan. If you choose Order, the same tab will be activated in the Order list.

Check ”Use allocation template on new orders” if you want the allocation model to be suggested for each new order on the plan.

You can add an insertion fee manually, if the amount differs from the amount on the agreement. You can also adjust the insertion fee manually if the clients in the allocation normally have different insertion fees.

You can also enter reference numbers, headings and order fees on the allocation.

Media combination

If the media on the order is a combination, a package of several media, the Media combination tab will be activated.

New	Add a new media in the combination.
Open	Open a media to edit information, if for example it has a different format or insertion date etc.
Delete media/Delete unmarked	Remove media from the combination
Batch change	Make selected changes on several media at one time.
Allocation/Combination

In this tab you can choose which allocation clients that shall be in which media.

Other

This tab shows information about currencies and some other things.

Order date	The date that the order was created.
Currency	The order currency.
Rate	See separate manual for currency handling.
Invoicing rate	See separate manual for currency handling.
Invoicing currency	The currency that is used when invoicing the client.
Rate	See separate manual for currency handling.
Agreement	In case another agreement than the one on the plan shall be used.
Group	In case the order has another group than the plan.
Invoice with insertions from	The invoicing can be limited to a certain insertion date.
Recalc. method/price changes	Select between recalculation or no recalculation when price has been changed.
Recalc. method/yearly agreements	Select between recalculation or no recalculation when the yearly agreement has been changed.

When the order is saved you will return to the media plan where you can continue creating new orders.

Make definitive/Print

You can print out an order after making it definitive.

Local printout	Print to PDF.
Fax/E-mail	Send via Marathon's sending queue per fax or e-mail. The adress is fetched automatically from the media database. It is however possible to write the number/address manually. The used addresses are saved in the system and you can fetch them by clicking on the list symbol in the Fax/E-mail field.

The column Printed shows the printing status of the order.

P = printed to PDF.
F = faxed
M = mailed
N = not printed

If the letters are in red, the orders have not been sent. Open the order and go to the Sending queue tab to find out the reason for not being sent.

Printouts

You can print out plans, material lists and export plan data to Excel from a media plan.

Plan printout	Before printing a plan you can make a selection of what to show; order, product and insertion period. You can also choose to print order instructions, allocations and a line for the signature. Choose also sorting order.

Print the plan as PDF or send directly by fax or e-mail.

Print graphic plan

A graphic plan is a printout designed by yourselves that can be printed as PDF or exported to Excel. You can select among other things on plan, client and order. You can also print out several media plans in the same graphic plan. If you have several graphic plans, select the right one in the field Print template.

Export

Select one or several plans that you want to export. Then choose which columns that shall be exported. You can select on order and insertion period and select what column the export should be sorted on.

The export is printed to Excel.

Material list

Yo can print a material list for one or several plans. You can also select so that th eprintout only concerns one order, some orders or a certain insertion period.

Sending queue

Orders, plans and invoices that are sent (or faxed) from Marathon go through the Sending queue in System: Sending queue. Here you can see if they have been successfully sent or not.

Status	Sending status; sent, waiting in queue or cancelled.
User	User code of the sender.
Company	Sending company.
Type	What has been sent, for example order, alteration order, plan, reminder, invoice, claim, etc.
Recipient	Name of recipient.
Fax/E-mail	Number/address of the recipient.
Attempts	Amount of sending attempts. After 25 failed attempts, the status is changed to ”In queue”.
Latest attempt	Last time of attempted sending.
Error	If failed, the reason to it.
Created	Time of latest attempt to send.

You can stop a certain document in the queue from being sent by selecting it and clicking on the function Cancel. Click Restart to make a new attempt to send. The function Show shows an image of what has been sent with sender and recipient information.

Queries

In Media: Queries, you can search information with different selections and pressing Search. The program shows a list og insertions and you can deepen into orders and plans.

Search	Searches according to your selection.
Save default	Saves selections as default so that they will be suggested next time you log in.
Reset	Resets selections to default.
Reset to zero	Resets all selections to zero.
Save selection	Save a selection with a name and fetch later from a list.
Import selection	Gets saved selections from the list.
From year	Choose from what year insertions shall be shown.

Open	Open to see an insertion and deepening in it. This is a read -only view, no editing is possible.
Batch change	This function allows to change insertion status on one or several insertions. Requires authorisation.
Mae definitive	For making one ore several insertions definitive. Requires authorisation.

The Invoices tab shows what you have invoiced the client. Select an invoice and ckilck on Show.

The Media invoices tab shows invoices that you have received from the media. Open an invoice to see how the amounts are allocated concerning gross, discounts, net, commissions and net-net. If you scan media invoices into Marathon you can see acopy by pressing Show. You can also see the invoice amounts in Excel with the Export function.

In the Reconciliation tab you can see what has been invoiced from client versus what the media have been invoicing you. You can choose to see amounts for the insertion or the whole order of the insertion.

Reports

Reports are printed from Media: Reports (see separate manual on building reports). You can make selections just as in Queries; the difference is that each media report is predefined to show certain information.

Show	Click Show to see the report. It can be shown directly in Marathon, as PDF or in Excel, choose in the lower right corner.
Reset	Resets all settings. If the selections are predefined in the reports, all info are reset to these.
Reset to zero	Resets the selections.
Save	Saves a copy of the report with current selections. The copy will be added to the list of reports.

Select subtotals, for example per order and insertion, client, media, media type, etc.