Converting USUs to Purchase Credit
16 May 2007— Helix technical support is available on a pay-as-you-go basis and on an advance-purchase basis. (See our main support page for a fuller explanation.) Advance purchases provide three direct benefits to the buyer:
- You do not have to worry about handling payment when calling for support.
- You can receive a substantial discount (up to 50%) on the cost of support.
- You can apply the advance purchase as a direct price reduction on future purchases.
The purpose of this policy page is to clarify this third benefit.
User Support Units (USUs) are eligible for direct dollar-for-dollar conversion for product purchases, including upgrades. The conversion rate is calculated at the rate you paid for those USUs.
Only advance purchase USUs may be converted in this manner. Complementary USUs that are credited to your account when you purchase new or upgrade Helix products are not eligible. Those were given to you at no additional cost to you and thus have no equivalent dollar value. Those USUs may only be used when contacting us for support.
If you have a combination of complementary and purchased USUs, your complementary USUs are used first, retaining your ability to apply purchased USUs as discounts on future purchases.
How It Works
For example: you purchase a Helix RADE & Server upgrade along with an advance purchase block of 40 USUs. Based on prices in effect at the time of this writing, A 40-USU advance purchase costs $15.00 per USU (a 50% discount) for a total of $600.00. You also receive 6 complementary USUs — 2 for the RADE upgrade and 4 for the Server upgrade — for a total of 46 USUs.
Subsequently you call for support a few times, using 12 USUs altogether. Now you want to purchase an upgrade and apply your outstanding USU credits to the purchase. Here’s the process we apply:
- All 6 complemetary USUs are applied to the support calls.
- 6 advance purchase USUs are applied to the phone calls.
- The balance of advance purchase USUs (40 - 6 = 34) are converted to credit based on the price paid ($15.00 in this example: $15 * 34 = $510.00)
- The credit is directly deducted from your upgrade price.
- The USUs are deducted from your account.
Additional Notes:
- You may use all or part of your advance purchase USUs in this manner.
- The upgrade purchase earns you complementary USUs at the current rate.
- The web store does not automatically convert advance purchase USUs — you must call QSA ToolWorks’ sales office to convert USUs.
Advance purchase USUs are an ideal way to spread the cost of a Helix upgrade out over multiple fiscal years. They are not a ‘donation’ to QSA ToolWorks in any way: you receive an immediate tangible benefit as well as spreading your costs out and ‘softening the blow’ when you are ready to purchase an upgrade.