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:

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).

Where do product and plan sit in your data?

Product and plan belong to your catalog: they describe your offer. They come to life in your billing through two additional objects — the subscription and the invoice — which link them to a customer and generate your MRR.

Product → Plan → Subscription → Invoice (→ invoice lines)

• The subscription is a specific customer's contract on a given plan, with a service period. This is the level that feeds the MRR recognized by Fincome.
• The invoice is the document issued to the customer. A single invoice can group several lines of different natures (see next section).

💡 An analogy to remember — Think of a car: the product is the model, the plan is the purchase formula (a lease at €300/month or an outright purchase — same car, different pricing), the subscription is the contract signed by a specific customer, and the invoice is the document that can group the monthly payment and a one-off option on the same page.

The invoice: recurring lines and one-off lines

An invoice can mix two types of lines, and Fincome sorts them line by line:

• a recurring line is linked to a subscription. It carries a product AND a plan, and feeds MRR/ARR;
• a one-off line is linked to no subscription. It carries a product, but no plan, and is classified as non-recurring revenue (outside MRR).

Example: a single invoice can contain a "Standard License – Monthly" line (recurring, with a plan → in MRR) and an "Onboarding" line (one-off, no plan → non-recurring revenue).

The rule to remember: a recurring line carries a product + a plan; a one-off line carries a product with no plan. This is why a product sold on a one-off basis has no attached plan.

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)
• Calculate MRR correctly by isolating recurring from one-off
• Analyze the performance of each commercial offer and each billing format
• Break down your MRR movements in detail

This last point is essential: it is the product / plan distinction that lets you read your movements correctly.

• Changing plan within the same product (moving to a more expensive Standard License plan, or a unit-price increase) is an upsell – price effect: the customer still buys the same product, but at a higher price.
• Subscribing to an additional product (adding the Analytics Module to their Standard License) is a cross-sell: a new product enters the basket.

Without this distinction, these two movements would look alike. To go further, see MRR – ARR movements.

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

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

🔌 Pennylane

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

🔌 Chargebee

🔌 Hyperline

🔌 Sellsy

🔌 Excel import (file)

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.

→ My invoice mixes subscription and one-off items: is that a problem?
No, this is normal and well handled. Fincome processes each line independently: lines linked to a subscription (product + plan) count toward MRR, one-off lines (product without a plan) are classified as non-recurring revenue.

→ 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: 17/09/2026