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Soft Dates

What is a Soft Date?

In FinancialForce Billing Central, a soft date enables you to calculate recurring dates based on a unit of time such as a week, month or year. Soft dates can consist of:

You can enter a reference, adjustment or both using the format Reference+Adjustment.

Soft dates determine the frequency and duration of plans and the billing period of billing schedules. For example, the billing term on contract lines with a recurring billing type such as Recurring Fixed or Recurring Variable is a soft date. When you activate the contract, billing schedules are created for the contract lines based on the start date, the billing term and the number of billing terms.

Note: Note Notepad
The dates that a soft date generates are adjusted based on the calendar. This means that the resulting dates can vary depending on the interval chosen and the day from which the soft date is generated. For example, If the date is 30th January 2015 and the soft date is +1m, the next date is 28th February 2015 followed by 28th March then 28th April. If the date is on a leap year such as 2016, the dates would be 30th January, 29th February, 29th March and 29th April.

Reference

The reference consists of two letters. The first letter indicates whether the date recurs on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. The second letter indicates whether the date recurs at the beginning or end of the week, month or year. For instance:

Reference

Description

WB

Sets the date to the first day of the week based on the start date.

WE

Sets the date to the last day of the week based on the start date.

MB

Sets the date to the first day of the month based on the start date.

ME

Sets the date to the last day of the month based on the start date.

YB

Sets the date to the first day of the year based on the start date.

YE

Sets the date to the last day of the year based on the start date.

Note: Note Notepad
By default, the start of a week is determined by the locale of your Salesforce OrgSalesforce organization. If a week start day is set in the Soft Date Week Start Day custom field of the FinancialForce Billing Central Settings custom setting this is used instead. See Soft Date Week Start Day.

Adjustment

The adjustment consists of an operator followed by a whole number of one to three digits, which indicates whether to add or subtract from the date. This is followed by another letter that indicates whether to add or subtract months or days.

Note: Note Notepad
If you only enter an adjustment, it must be positive.

Key: xxx – Whole number consisting of one to three digits.

Adjustment

Description

+xxxD

Adds a number of days.

-xxxD

Subtracts a number of days.

+xxxM

Adds a number of months.

-xxxM

Subtracts a number of months.

Soft Date Examples

Here are some examples of soft date definitions:

Example Definition

Description

YB

Returns the first day of the year.

WB+1d

Returns the second day of the week.

ME-12d

Returns a date which is 12 days before the end of the month

+120d

Returns a date which is 120 days after the start date.

+1m Returns a date which is one month after the start date.
+3m Returns a date which is three months after the start date.

ME-12d

The next date returned depends on the input date. For example:
  • An input date of 12th July returns 19th July.
  • An input date of 28th July returns 19th August.

Here are some valid combinations of Reference+Adjustment:

Sample Soft Dates

WB+0d

WB+1d

WB+999d

WB+0M

WB+1M

WB+999M

WB-0d

WB-1d

WB-999d

WB-0M

WB-1M

WB-999M

MB+0d

MB+1d

MB+999d

MB+0M

MB+1M

MB+999M

MB-0d

MB-1d

MB-999d

MB-0M

MB-1M

MB-999M

+1d

YB+0d

YB+1d

YB+999d

YB+0M

YB+1M

YB+999M

YB-0d

YB-1d

YB-999d

YB-0M

YB-1M

YB-999M

WE+0d

WE+1d

WE+999d

WE+0M

WE+1M

WE+999M

WE-0d

WE-1d

WE-999d

WE-0M

WE-1M

WE-999M

+1m

+3m

ME+0d

ME+1d

ME+999d

ME+0M

ME+1M

ME+999M

ME-0d

ME-1d

ME-999d

ME-0M

ME-1M

ME-999M

YE+0d

YE+1d

YE+999d

YE+0M

YE+1M

YE+999M

YE-0d

YE-1d

YE-999d

YE-0M

YE-1M

YE-999M

 

Note: Note Notepad
These are examples. You can enter your own number of days, months and years.
View TutorialsView Tutorial

Related Tasks

Creating a Soft Date

Deleting a Soft Date

Reference

Soft Date Fields

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