Billing

• Sources and datasets
• How much does Pascal cost
• How to change your products
• How to update your billing details in Pascal
• How to upgrade your organisation to paid
• Why do I need to add a payment method when using credits
• How invoices are composed
• The AM AI PEP Dataset

Sources and datasets

This documentation, including images, videos and text, is accurate as of Version 6.0 of Pascal.

We strive to keep our documentation up to date with each release to ensure it remains a reliable resource for our users. However, given the dynamic nature of our software development, there might be instances where changes introduced in subsequent versions are not immediately reflected in this documentation. We encourage users to refer to the latest release notes and to use the feedback mechanism for any discrepancies or requests for clarification.

Pascal has six different categories: Sanctions, Enforcements, PEPs, Media and Other. In these sources, hits can be found in during screening.

The sources and dataset Pascal provides are:

• Sanctions; with the provided dataset Insight: Sanctions.
  Sanctions are penalties issued by a government imposed as a tool to enforce compliance or influencing behaviour. Sanction screening aids in identifying individuals or entities subject to economic sanctions, enabling compliance with legal obligations and preventing unauthorized transactions with sanctioned parties.
• Enforcements; with the provided dataset Insight: Enforcements.
  Enforcements ensure compliance to laws and rules through penalties for non-compliance. Enforcement screening plays a vital role in identifying and assessing legal restrictions and penalties applicable to individuals or entities, ensuring compliance and minimizing potential legal risks.
• PEPs; with the provided datasets Insight: PEPs and PEP Desk (by Info4c).
  PEP (Politically Exposed Person) is an individual who is or has been entrusted with a prominent public function or is closely associated with someone in such a position. PEP screening helps identify individuals with prominent political positions or connections, enabling enhanced due diligence measures to prevent corruption, bribery, and illicit financial activities.
• Media; with the provided dataset Insight: Media.
  Adverse and negative media screening plays a crucial role in identifying negative news or information about individuals or entities, enabling proactive risk assessment, reputation management, and fraud prevention.
  
• Other; with the provided datasets Insight: ICIJ and Insight: Yale CELI.
  Screening on non-categorisable datasets plays a vital role in gathering comprehensive information, enabling a holistic view of risk and facilitating effective risk management and control measures.

How much does Pascal cost

This documentation, including images, videos and text, is accurate as of Version 6.0 of Pascal.

We strive to keep our documentation up to date with each release to ensure it remains a reliable resource for our users. However, given the dynamic nature of our software development, there might be instances where changes introduced in subsequent versions are not immediately reflected in this documentation. We encourage users to refer to the latest release notes and to use the feedback mechanism for any discrepancies or requests for clarification.

At the right side of the Billing and Products page, your current usage is shown.

For environments originating from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, changing your products and plan is possible from the Microsoft Azure SaaS subscription page.

On the left side of the current usage, your current products are shown. Here you can see your current plan and change them as needed by selecting the Edit plan button. This will open a new dialog where the plan can be changed as desired. To save changes, the Save changes button should be pressed. If changes are made which you do not want to save, the Cancel button can be pressed.

Cost breakdown

Prices in the My plan card are shown per month for each dataset per search in your Pascal environment. Searches are performed when cases are created, cases are being monitored or when the update button in a case is used to manually update the found results in a case.

Enabled datasets can be chosen to search on when creating and monitoring cases. These don't have to be identical as the enabled datasets in your plan. You have the option to turn on or off sources when creating each case, in the case specification after the case is created, or even changing the default used sources in your environment's settings. You are only paying for datasets which are searched in the cases.

In the above case, only the sources Sanctions, Enforcements and PEPs are turned on. Even though all sources and datasets are activated in the Pascal environment's plan, only the datasets within these three sources will be charged for this search. In this case, the datasets Insight: Sanctions, Insight: Enforcements, Insight: PEPs and PEP Desk are searched, as only these datasets fall within the sources turned on in this screening.

The Current usage card shows your next invoice date, costs made during this invoice period and how many searches are preformed. By clicking on Show breakdown next to Searches performed, you can see how many searches of each dataset are preformed, as well as the total cost of the individual dataset. At the bottom of the breakdown, the total cost is presented as well.

If the usage in a billing period is below €49, a minimum of €49 is charged.

Discount scheme

Pascal has the option to provide discounts based on the volume consumption of an environment. If and what discount scheme is active in your environment can be viewed in the Billing details page of the Billing Settings. Below an example of a discount scheme that can be active.

Discount schemes can have multiple tiers based on the cost of the monthly order. In addition, start and end dates can be set, which will indicate from when the discount scheme is active and until when it will be applicable. If the start and/or end date have the value Not set it indicates that there is no date at which this discount going active and/or expires.

How to change your products

This documentation, including images, videos and text, is accurate as of Version 6.0 of Pascal.

We strive to keep our documentation up to date with each release to ensure it remains a reliable resource for our users. However, given the dynamic nature of our software development, there might be instances where changes introduced in subsequent versions are not immediately reflected in this documentation. We encourage users to refer to the latest release notes and to use the feedback mechanism for any discrepancies or requests for clarification.

For environments originating from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, changing your products and plan is possible from the Microsoft Azure SaaS subscription page.

At the top of the Billing details page in the Billing section in Settings, your current usage, discount scheme and plan are shown. At any time, you can change the datasets you want to be available in your plan.

Enabling and disabling datasets are applied directly to your environment. Of course, a disabled dataset will still be charged for the searched made during the billing period before it was turned off.

How to change your products

1. Click on your initials in the top right corner.
2. Select Settings besides your Pascal environment's name.
3. Navigate to the Billing details page in the Billing section.
4. In the My plan card, select the Edit plan button.
5. Change the Datasets you would like to add or remove in your plan.
6. You can see the total price per search of your selected datasets in the selection screen and the summary page.
7. When changes have been made, the checkbox for accepting the terms and conditions needs to be selected before the changes can be saved with the Confirm order button. A new dialog will open, you can optionally apply the changes to existing cases.
8. If you like to continue with your made changes, press the Confirm changes button in this screen as well.

After a change in your plan has been made, the new order summary will be send to all users which have access to the billing page in the application.

How to update your billing details in Pascal

This documentation, including images, videos and text, is accurate as of Version 5.12 of Pascal.

We strive to keep our documentation up to date with each release to ensure it remains a reliable resource for our users. However, given the dynamic nature of our software development, there might be instances where changes introduced in subsequent versions are not immediately reflected in this documentation. We encourage users to refer to the latest release notes and to use the feedback mechanism for any discrepancies or requests for clarification.

Environments originated from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, cannot edit any billing information. This needs to be done via the subscription page in the Microsoft Azure SaaS solution.

The Billing details can be found in the Billing section in the Settings of Pascal. Here, some preferences can be set regarding the billing address, when you would like to receive invoices in the month and who should receive the notifications regarding billing information.

When using a free account, the Billing details page looks quite different, for information on the Billing detials page in a free account, read the How to upgrade your organisation to paid article.

Overview

Each billing period starts and ends on the first day of the month and an invoice is sent via email on the preferred invoice date. In the Billing section, some other information is shown as well. First of all, on the Billing details page, you can find the Current usage, Discount scheme, Billing address, and My plan here in the top of the page. Then, your payment method can be found in the Payment methods page, invoices in the Invoices page and settings about payment or billing notifications in the Notifications page.

Please note that accounts who agreed to a separate contract, will not receive generated invoices like Pay as you Go accounts, and are unable to change their plan. Accounts within a contract type are also unable to see invoices, payment methods and notifications in the Pascal application.

Updating billing information

In the Billing details card, located at the bottom of the screen on the Billing details page, some invoicing information can be found. Here, you can update the billing address, provide a tax id and set the date you would like to receive the invoice. Below the editable fields, some information about the tax, validated tax id and applied tax rate are displayed.

If your organisation is located outside of the EU, tax is not handled and the applied tax is 0%, regardless of the valid or blank tax id provided. If your organisation is located inside the EU, the corresponding tax rate of your country is applied. When a valid tax id has been provided, the applied tax is 0%.

In the Notifications page, notifications can be turned on or off for the following events:

• When credits have expired.
• When a certain threshold has been reached.

A soft threshold can be defined, which will trigger a notification when reached, but will not impede Pascal from continuing to operate.

Who will receive these notifications, can be set in the field to the right. Here, the notifications can be sent to the following user roles: Billing manager, Admin and Owner. Notifications can also be send to specific users by entering their email address.

If any changes have been made to these settings, the Save button at the bottom of the page should be selected.

Updating or adding a payment method

Your Pascal environment needs a payment method to stay active. Even if there are credits available to cover the invoices, a payment method is needed for the platform. If no valid payment method is provided the Pascal platform will deactivate after 90 days. The environment cannot be accessed anymore unless a valid payment method is provided, then the platform will activate again, and all your cases and settings will still be there. If no payment method has been provided after the Pascal platform has been deactivated for 90 more days, the Pascal platform will be deleted. 

This is why it is very important to provide a valid payment method at the start of using Pascal, and to update the payment method when needed. Updating or changing your payment method can be done by navigating to the Payment methods page in the Billing section in the Settings. On this page, two types of methods are available to add to the platform: SEPA Direct Debit and Credit card. A payment method can be added by selecting the Add or Change button in the respective payment option. In the dialog that opens, you can follow the steps to add and confirm the payment method.

How to upgrade your organisation to paid

This documentation, including images, videos and text, is accurate as of Version 5.12 of Pascal.

We strive to keep our documentation up to date with each release to ensure it remains a reliable resource for our users. However, given the dynamic nature of our software development, there might be instances where changes introduced in subsequent versions are not immediately reflected in this documentation. We encourage users to refer to the latest release notes and to use the feedback mechanism for any discrepancies or requests for clarification.

For environments originating from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, upgrading your plan is possible from the Microsoft Azure SaaS subscription page.

In the Billing details page in the Billing section of Pascal's Settings, some information about your free account can be found. The Current usage card shows how many searches are still left to perform in the current month and the Reset search usage shows the date when the searches that can be performed will be renewed to 50.

On the left, there is an option to upgrade your Pascal account with the Upgrade now button. This enables you to perform more searches than only 50 per month, which gives you access to more monitoring capabilities and more new screening room.

How to upgrade

Upgrading your account to a Pay as you Go account has great benefits such as more monitoring capabilities, access to more searches which enables you to have more datasets enabled or creating more cases. Before you can use Pascal unlimited, your organisation needs to be upgraded to a paid version.

You can start the upgrade procedure in the Billing details page in the Billing section of your Settings with using the Upgrade now button or via the Upgrade now option in the blue banner at the top of the page. All the settings that are saved in the upgrading process will be available next time you come back, but will not be enabled until you go through the upgrade flow fully.

1. Select the Upgrade now button.
2. Fill in the Organisation details page and select Continue.
3. Add your preferred Payment method by selecting the Add button for the presented method of your choice.
   
4. Review the order summary shown in the final page, accept the terms and conditions and click on Confirm order.
5. Select the Confirm button in the next popup.

Now your account is converted to the paid version of Pascal. If you'd like to change the datasets enabled in your environment, you can do this after upgrading by choosing the Edit plan button in the My plan card.

Why do I need to add a payment method when using credits

This documentation, including images, videos and text, is accurate as of Version 5.12 of Pascal.

We strive to keep our documentation up to date with each release to ensure it remains a reliable resource for our users. However, given the dynamic nature of our software development, there might be instances where changes introduced in subsequent versions are not immediately reflected in this documentation. We encourage users to refer to the latest release notes and to use the feedback mechanism for any discrepancies or requests for clarification.

For environments originating from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, a payment method is not needed in the Pascal application, as the payments go through the Microsoft Azure SaaS subscription.

A payment method is always required to ensure the Pascal environment of the organisation remains active, even when using credits. If a valid payment method is not provided Pascal will be deactivated after 90 days. If no valid payment method is provided within 90 days after deactivation the environment of the organisation will be deleted. Accepted payment methods include SEPA Direct Debit and credit card.

When an organisation uses credits to use Pascal, they will not be charged on their provided payment method unless their bill exceeds the credits or the credits are expired.

How invoices are composed

This documentation, including images, videos and text, is accurate as of Version 6.0 of Pascal.

We strive to keep our documentation up to date with each release to ensure it remains a reliable resource for our users. However, given the dynamic nature of our software development, there might be instances where changes introduced in subsequent versions are not immediately reflected in this documentation. We encourage users to refer to the latest release notes and to use the feedback mechanism for any discrepancies or requests for clarification.

Invoices are applicable for Pascal organisations using the application in the Pay-as-you-go system.

In Pascal, the billing period runs from the start of the month to the end of the month. You can change the date you receive the invoice, in the Billing details of the Billing Settings.

The invoice is send to the recipients mentioned in the Send emails to setting in the Notifications section of the Billing Settings. Invoices can also always be redownloaded via the Invoices section of the Billing Settings.

The invoice shows information regarding the billed month. At the top of the invoice, the invoice number, reference invoice date and due date for the payment are displayed. Below details of the billed month are provided, including the type of searches performed, the amount of those searches, the price for a single search of that type, the price of all the searches of a specific type and whether or not VAT is applied to your invoice.

Pascal has a minimum commitment of €49 per invoice. In the example above, the usage in the billing period does not exceed this minimum commitment threshold. Thus the remaining amount of €40,50 is added for the total of €49.

Whether or not VAT is applied to your invoice. depends on your country and Tax ID filled in the Billing details which can be found in the Billing Settings. Taxes are applied when the country is inside of the European Union and no valid Tax ID is submitted in the Billing details. Taxes are also applied when the country is Netherlands, regardless of a valid filled in Tax ID. We do not handle taxes outside of the EU, so regardless of a submitted Tax ID, the tax rate will be 0% for countries outside of the EU.

The AM AI PEP Dataset

Politically Exposed Person (PEP) screening is essential for maintaining adherence to know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) regulations, as well as for mitigating risk and fulfilling regulatory requirements. In essence, effective PEP screening requires a risk-based approach, focusing resources on higher-risk individuals based on various factors which can be time-consuming to gather and analyse.  

As a response to this challenge and to make the job of our partners and clients easier, Vartion developed its very own PEP data source for the use within Pascal, our complete compliance eco system designed to streamline and enhance KYC and AML processes for businesses. This dataset, called AM AI PEP, leverages artificial intelligence to identify PEPs, as defined by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), through analysis of publicly available media. This is crucial for addressing data bias in proprietary lists, ensuring a more comprehensive and accurate identification of politically exposed persons. 

By placing a risk-based compliance approach at the centre of the development of the PEP data source, we have embraced the perspective of the FATF, which acknowledges that PEPs, owing to their positions and influence, are susceptible to exploitation for purposes such as money laundering, corruption, bribery, and terrorist financing. However, identifying individuals and establishing their connections to such events can be time-consuming and tedious, especially with the growing volume of media data today, much of which lacks a clear connection to risk-relevant events and connections. Therefore, AI AM PEP addresses this by linking identified PEPs to adverse events, aligned with FATF guidelines and ESG principles, resulting in higher quality PEP hits as only risk-relevant individuals are identified. It also maps the network structures of individuals and organisations connected to PEPs, enabling more precise risk assessments. This approach not only enhances compliance but also reduces operational costs while mitigating legal and reputational risks.  

"The Financial Conduct Authority in the UK (FCA) expects firms to make use of information that is reasonably available to them in identifying PEPs, family members or known close associates. This could include the following: Public domain information such as websites of parliaments and governments, reliable news sources and work by reputable pressure groups focused on corruption risk such as Transparency International or Global Witness. Firms should use a variety of sources where possible." 

Under this premise, Vartion has successfully developed, and a PEP identification and generation pipeline powered by AI, supplemented with rule-based controls, a project recognised for its innovative character and hence receiving support from the Dutch government (MIT) and indirectly from the European Union (EFRO), both aimed at fostering impactful innovation. Furthermore, the pipeline aligns with ISAE 3402 Type 2 standards, reinforcing its reliability and ensuring rigorous controls in the identification and management of data. 

Key Features 

Benefits

Specifications