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Creating Contracts

You can create a contract with contract line items created from products and plans in your Salesforce OrgSalesforce organization.

Note: Note Notepad
A contract must contain one or more contract line items.

To create a contract using the enhanced Contract Detail page:

  1. Click New or Create New Contract on the Contracts tab.
  2. Enter a Contract Name.
  3. Enter the Account to which this contract belongs.
  4. Enter the Start Date for the contract.
  5. Enter the End Date for the contract if there is one.
  6. Enter the date of the first bill.
  7. [Optional] Enter a Renewal Reminder date.
  8. Enter the Currency of the contract.
  9. [Optional] Select the Company or legal entity in your organization to which this contract belongs.
    Tip: Tip Notepad
    The company you choose is copied to the related billing documents when they are created. If your organization uses Avalara Avatax to calculate tax for billing documents, the Company field must contain a valid company.
  10. [Optional] Enter a description for the contract.
  11. Select the products or plans you want to add to the contract:
    1. [Optional] If the Price Book drop-down list is shown and you are adding a product, select the price book that you want to obtain the default Unit Price from.
    2. Depending on whether you want to add a product or a plan, select the product or plan you want from the Add Product or Add Plan drop-down list.
      Tips: TipsBlue Lightbulb
      If you cannot see the product or plan you want to add, type the first few characters of the product or plan to filter the list.
      If you are adding a product and a Price Book is selected, the drop-down list shows the default price for each product in that price book for the selected currency. The selected Price Book provides a default Unit Price. Unit Prices for existing contract line items are not updated if you select a different Price Book after adding them.
      If a product shows –, this indicates that the price book does not contain a price for the product in the selected currency.
      If a product shows a range of values for the Unit Price such as USD 70.00 - ..., this indicates that a pricing structure applies to that product. You can edit the quantity breaks applied to a contract line. See Applying a Pricing Structure.
      When you add a product to a contract, the Billing Type of that product is added to the contract line item if there is one.
      Long product names are truncated. To view the full product name, hover over that product in the list.
    3. Select the Billing Type.
    4. Select the Pricing Type.
    5. Depending on whether a pricing structure is required for the contract line, enter a Unit Price or click the Unit Price field to enter a pricing structure or edit the existing one.
      Notes: Notes Notepad
      When you use the enhanced Contract Detail page to create a contract line item for a product that is in a price book with a price book structure entry, a copy of the related pricing structure is applied to the contract line item. Editing the pricing structure on a contract line item does not change the pricing structure applied to a price book.
      On the Salesforce Contract Line Item Detail page, we recommend that you create a copy of the pricing structure and apply it to the contract line item manually.
      If the same pricing structure is applied to several contract line items and the quantity breaks on one of the contract lines is changed using the enhanced Contract Detail page, a new pricing structure is created for that contract line item.
    6. If the Billing Type is One-off or Recurring Fixed, enter a Quantity.
    7. Enter a Billing Term for the contract line.
    8. If you did not enter a First Bill Date for the contract, enter a First Bill Date for the contract line item.
      Note: Note Notepad
      To activate a contract, the First Bill Date field on each contract line item must contain a date.
    9. If required, enter a different Start and End Date for the contract line.
    10. If the line is to be billed on a recurring basis, select the billing type Recurring Fixed. If the line is to be billed once, select One-off. If the line is to be billed based on customer usage, select Recurring Variable.
    11. [Optional] If you want to add a description, click the description icon Information icon indicating that there is no description for the liine. This is used to edit and view the description.or Information icon used to edit and view the description., enter the description you want then click Update.
    12. [Optional] Complete the remaining fields.
    13. Repeat these steps for each plan or product that you want to add to the contract.
  12. Click Create.

If the contract contains invalid lines, those lines are highlighted. The fields that contain invalid information are highlighted. If this occurs, hover over the field for information about the problem:

Screenshot showing the cursor hovering over a field in a line that contains invalid data and a validation message.

Salesforce

To create a contract using the Salesforce Contract Detail page:

  1. Click New or New Contract on the Contracts tab.
  2. Enter a Contract Name.
  3. Enter the Customer Account to which this contract relates.
  4. [Optional] Enter a description for the contract.
  5. [Optional] Select the Company or legal entity in your organization to which this contract belongs.
    Tip: Tip Notepad
    The company you choose is copied to the related billing documents when they are created. If your organization uses Avalara Avatax to calculate tax for billing documents, the Company field must contain a valid company when you do so.
  6. Enter the date of the first bill.
  7. Enter the Start Date for the contract.
  8. Enter the End Date for the contract if there is one.
  9. [Optional] Complete the remaining fields.
  10. Click Save.

A contract must contain one or more contract line items.

To add contract line items:

  1. Click New Contract Line Item in the Contract Line Items related list of the on the Contract Detail page.
  2. Enter a Product or Service.
  3. If required, enter a different Start and End Date for the contract line item.
  4. Depending on whether a pricing structure is required for the contract line item, enter a Unit Price or enter a Pricing Structure.
  5. If the line is to be billed on a recurring basis, select the billing type Recurring Fixed. If the line is to be billed once, select One-off. If the line is to be billed based on customer usage, select Recurring Variable.
  6. If the Billing Type is One-off or Recurring Fixed, enter a Quantity.
  7. Choose a Billing Term.
  8. Select Bill in Arrears if you want the contract line item to be billed in arrears.
  9. [Optional] If the line is to be billed based on usage, enter a unit of measure.
  10. If required, enter a different First Bill Date for the contract line item.
  11. [Optional] Enter a Description for the contract line item.
  12. Click Save.
  13. Repeat these steps for each contract line item to be added to the contract.

To add a plan to the contract:

  1. Click Add Plan on the Contract Detail page of the contract to which you want to add a plan.
  2. Enter the name of the plan you want to add or search for it using the lookup icon Salesforce Lookup Icon magnifying glass.
  3. Enter the Start Date for the contract line items to be created.
  4. Enter the First Bill Date for the contract line items to be created.
  5. Click Add to Contract.
Note: Note Notepad
Adding a plan to a contract does not change the end date of that contract. The amount to be billed for the plan is calculated based on the date from which the plan is to be billed and the remaining terms of the contract that have not yet been billed.
View TutorialsView Tutorial

Related Concepts

Contracts

Change Requests

Enhanced Contracts Overview

Related Tasks

Activating a Contract

Adding a Plan or Product to a Contract

Billing for Usage

Calculating Contract Values

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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