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Products vs Plans

What is a product?


A product corresponds to what your company sells, whether it is a physical good or a service.


Examples:

  • Standard License
  • Analytics Module
  • Onboarding service
  • Credit pack


The product represents the "what": the nature of the commercial offer, regardless of how it is billed.


What is a plan?


A plan corresponds to a recurring product to which a billing frequency and a price (amount + currency) are associated


Plan = Product + Frequency + Price (amount + currency)


Example with the Standard License product:


Product

Frequency

Plan

Standard License

Monthly

Standard License – Monthly

Standard License

Annual

Standard License – Annual


Here, the Standard License product has 2 plans. We then speak of a product of power 2: this is the number of different frequencies attached to the same product.


Key takeaway: a plan always belongs to a single product, but a product can have several plans (as many as there are different billing frequencies).



Special cases to know


➤ Product = Plan (power 1)


When a product has only one billing frequency, it has only one plan. In this case, there are as many products as plans in your catalog.
Example: if your "Analytics Module" product only exists with annual billing, then product and plan are one and the same.


➤ One-off product (without a plan)


If a product is sold on a one-off basis (one-shot, non-recurring), it generally has no attached plan. This is typically the case for:

  • Setup or onboarding services
  • Hardware sales
  • Installation fees
  • Non-recurring credit purchases


This revenue is identified in Fincome as non-recurring revenue.



Why is this distinction important?


The product / plan separation lets Fincome:

  • Segment your analyses by product (business view) or by plan (billing and frequency view)
  • Analyze the performance of each commercial offer and each billing format
  • Track conversions between plans (e.g.: switching from a monthly plan to an annual plan on the same product)



How Fincome detects products and plans depending on the source


Each integration uses specific native fields to identify what constitutes a product and what constitutes a plan. Here is the correspondence by data source.


🔌 Stripe


Fincome entity

Stripe field

Product

Product (product object)

Plan

Price (price object, formerly plan) attached to the product, with its frequency (recurring.interval)


The same Stripe product can have several prices (one per frequency), which become as many plans in Fincome.



🔌 Pennylane


Fincome entity

Pennylane field

Product

Invoice line (label / name of the billed product or service)

Plan

Product + frequency combination detected via the subscription's periodicity


Since Pennylane is primarily an accounting tool, plans are reconstituted from the observed billing recurrences.



🔌 Chargebee


Fincome entity

Chargebee field

Product

Item (Product Catalog 2.0) or Plan family (Product Catalog 1.0)

Plan

Item Price (PC 2.0) or Plan (PC 1.0), including the billing_period



🔌 Hyperline


Fincome entity

Hyperline field

Product

Product

Plan

Plan attached to the product, with its frequency (billing_cycle)



🔌 Sellsy


Fincome entity

Sellsy field

Product

Product catalog (name of the item or service)

Plan

Sellsy subscription: product + periodicity (frequency)



🔌 Excel import (file)


Fincome entity

Excel file column

Product

Product column (or equivalent in the Fincome template)

Plan

Price column, which must reflect the product + frequency combination


Best practice for the Excel import: name your plans explicitly, for example Standard License – Monthly and Standard License – Annual, in order to keep a clear reading in your analyses.



FAQ


→ Can a plan belong to several products?
No. In Fincome, a plan is always attached to a single product. If you sell an offer that groups several products, it must either be modeled as a distinct product, or broken down into several lines.


→ What happens if a product has no detected frequency?
It is considered one-off and has no associated plan. Its revenue is then classified as non-recurring revenue and does not enter the MRR calculation.


→ Can I rename a product or a plan in Fincome?
The names come directly from your data source. To modify them, adjust the label in the source tool (Stripe, Chargebee, etc.) or directly in your Excel file before importing.


→ How do I know how many plans each of my products has?
Go to Fincome's Data module: you will see all the objects making up an invoice line, and the plans and products.

Updated on: 03/07/2026

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