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Key Features of MDF Management

• Program Management. Programs provide the brand owner with the ability to make marketing funds available to partners automatically. The brand owner can define a program, with specific characteristics, such as activation date, expiration date, eligible partners, target markets, target products, fund accrual rules and so on. After the participating partners are identified, the system automatically generates all the program accounts for the participating partners. A pool of money made available to partners for the organization of marketing activities. For example, campaigns or events.
  • Co-Op Program. A program under which the partner accrues credits based on performance. The co-op program is also known as an accrual fund. For example, resellers could accrue 2% of all product revenue into their account set up under this program.
  • MDF Program. A program under which the partner receives discretionary funding from the brand owner. This is a non-performance based program. It is also known as a fixed fund. For example, after approval, this money could be spent on marketing activities for a specific product promotion.
• Program Participant. The account or organization participating in the program. For participating, the partner will receive a program account for accrual of funds according to the program rules. This is temporary data used in selecting the partners that can be used for a program account.

  NOTE:  Participants can only be selected from accounts with the Fund Eligible check box selected. This field can be exposed in the Accounts screen on the list applet.

• Program Account. The individual account associated with the partner. Program accounts are child funds of the program. The partner accrues funds in a program account according to the program rules or the Channel Account Manager deposits discretionary amounts of money into the program account. Each partner can have multiple program accounts, one for each program the partner is participating in. Each partner can only participate in the same program once.
• Credit. A child of the program account used to represent the crediting of money to a particular program account. Credits are created manually.
• Pre-Approval. Request for funds. Partners request funding for marketing activities out of the funds accrued in their different program accounts. A pre-approval can be associated with only one program account.
• Claim. Request for payment against a pre-approval after a marketing activity has been executed. Claims go through an approval process at the brand owner's company. Claims are created against a specific pre-approval. When the claim is approved, the claim debits the program account defined for the associated program account.
• Debit. Debits are read-only and created automatically only after a claim line item is approved.