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Contracts

Note: Note Notepad
When you view or edit a contract or change request, the Salesforce or enhanced Contract Detail page is displayed. Some features of Billing Central are not yet available in the enhanced Detail pages. To access these features, you must use the Salesforce version of the page. See Switching between Enhanced and Salesforce Detail Pages and Setting up Default Detail Pages.

What is a Contract?

In FinancialForce Billing Central, a contract is an agreement between your organization and a customer to provide them with a product or a service. Contracts contain the sales information agreed with the customer such as terms, product and service details, price, billing schedule and usage information.

When you create a contract, it is created with a status of Draft. You can activate draft contracts when ready to do so.

You can create billing documents from active contracts that contain one or more contract line items. When you activate a contract, billing schedules are created. Billing schedules enable you to automatically generate billing documents from contracts. When required, you can create billing schedules for contracts and contract line items that have not yet been billed. See Billing Schedules. You can analyze the contract revenue based on related billing documents that are marked Complete. See Billing Documents.

The actions that you can carry out on a contract are determined by its type and status:

Contract Types

Contract Type

Description

Contract A contract that is not a change request for an active contract.
Change Request A copy of an active contract on which you can propose changes to that contract.

When you apply a change request to a contract, the changes on that change request are applied to the active contract. The change request then becomes a superseded contract and contains the contract as it was before the change request was applied. In addition:

Complete billing documents and billing schedules that are associated with complete billing documents are not deleted.

For more information, see Change Requests.
Statuses

Status

Description

Active

When you activate a contract, billing schedules are automatically created for its contract line items. You can create billing documents based on billing schedules that are due to be billed.
  • Once a contract is active, you may need to create a change request to edit the contract depending on the options your administrator has chosen. See FinancialForce Billing Central Settings and Contract.
  • You can renew the contract.
  • You cannot change the status.
  • You cannot delete the contract.

Draft

The initial status of contracts and renewals. Contracts are created with this status. In draft status:
  • You can edit, delete and add lines.
  • You edit and delete the contract.

Expired

Indicates that the end date of the contract has been reached. The status of a contract is also set to expired if it is ended early and the new expiry date has been reached. You can carry out these tasks on an expired contract:

  • Renew the contract
  • Generate billing schedules
  • Create billing documents
  • Calculate the total contract value

On an expired contract you cannot:

  • Activate it
  • Add plans or products
  • Apply a change request
  • Change its status
  • Create a change request
  • Delete it
  • Edit it. This includes custom fields that your administrator has added to the contract.

Your administrator can schedule a job to expire contracts where the end date has been reached. See Setting up a Job to Expire Contracts.

Superseded This is a contract that has been replaced by another contract. You cannot edit a contract with this status or calculate its total value.

Contract Lines

Contract line items contain the detail of a contract. Each product, service or plan that forms part of the contract is contained within a contract line item. You can create contracts with contract line items based on products and plans available in your Salesforce OrgSalesforce organization.

Related Contracts

When you apply a change request to a contract, the changes on that change request are applied to the active contract. The change request then becomes a superseded contract and contains the contract as it was before the change request was applied. The Related Contracts related list on the Salesforce Contract Detail page shows related superseded contracts.

Next Contract

If the contract has been superseded or renewed, the Next Contract related list on the Salesforce Contract Detail page contains the next related contract.

View TutorialsView Tutorial

Related Concepts

Renewals

Change Requests

Enhanced Contracts Overview

Related Tasks

Activating Renewals

Renewing Contracts

Applying a Change Request to a Contract

Creating Change Requests

Submitting and Approving Change Requests

Activating a Contract

Adding a Plan or Product to a Contract

Billing for Usage

Calculating Contract Values

Creating a Contract

Creating a Contract from a Plan

Deleting a Contract

Editing a Contract

Ending Contracts

Creating Billing Documents from Contracts

Creating Billing Schedules from Contracts

Reference

Contract Fields

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