How to Align Contract Line Items

You can only align contract line items in certain circumstances. For details, see Aligning Billing Dates When Adding Lines to an Active Contract.

To align contract line items that you are adding or editing via the Edit Selected Products page:

  1. Decide which existing line on the contract will be the controlling lineClosed A contract line item that other line items on the same contract are aligned to for billing purposes.. Make a note of its contract line item number.
  2. On the Edit Selected Products page, select the lines that you want to align to the controlling line.
  3. Click the Align for Billing button. A list of existing lines that are eligible to be the controlling line is displayed. The first line is selected by default. (This button is only available if your permissions allow you to edit the Align for Billing field on a contract line item.)
  4. Select the line you decided to use as the controlling line.
  5. Click Align. The following fields on each aligned lineClosed A contract line item that has been aligned to another (controlling) line item on the same contract for billing purposes. are populated from the controlling line: Billing Term, Recurring Bill Date, and Align for Billing which is set to the controlling line's contract line item number.
  6. Click Save on the Edit Selected Products page.

Alternatively, you can align a contract line item by editing its Align for Billing field directly. To do this:

  1. Decide which existing line on the contract will be the controlling line. Make a note of its contract line item number.
  2. On the line you are adding or editing, click in the Align for Billing field.
  3. Enter the contract line item number of the controlling line, or select it from the list.
  4. Save your edits.

The controlling line's Billing Term and Recurring Bill Date are copied to the aligned line, overwriting any values you might have entered in those fields. The values in these fields must be the same on both lines, but their charge terms can be different. If the aligned line has no charge term, it is charged and billed at the frequency defined by the controlling line's billing term.

Note:

We recommend the following contract line item fields are visible and editable: Contract, Billing Type, Billing Term, Recurring Bill Date, Align For Billing. You might need to edit one or more of these fields if a validation error occurs when aligning lines.

Undoing an Alignment

When adding lines to an active contract via a change request, if you set up an alignment but then decide to undo it before applying the change request, clear the Align for Billing field on the new line to remove its controlling line. You should also review the Billing Term and Recurring Bill Date values on the new line because they were defaulted from the controlling line and might no longer be appropriate.

Note:

Once an aligned line has been billed you cannot undo its alignment.