Soft Dates

Clicking the Soft Dates tab displays the Soft Dates home page where you can view a list of soft dates matching specific criteria, and perform actions such as creating soft dates. .
  • Click to open the List View drop-down menu, then select the list view you want.
  • Use to manage your list views.
  • From the list, click a record's name to go to its detail.
  • To edit a value, hover over the field until appears, then click the field. Press Enter to apply your edit, then click Save (shown below the list view).

What is a Soft Date?

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

  • A reference that determines the unit of time, and whether the dates fall at the beginning or end of that unit of time
  • An adjustment to the reference that determines the number of days or months to add or subtract

You can enter a reference, adjustment, or both using the format Reference+Adjustment. You can specify the unit of time in upper or lower case, for example, we+3d, MB-1D.

Soft dates determine the frequency and duration of plans, and the billing period and billing date 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. For more information and examples, see Calculating Billing Periods and Billing Dates.

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 January 31, 2019, and the soft date is +1Month, the next date is February 28, 2019, followed by March 31 then April 30. If the date is on a leap year such as 2020, the dates would be January 31, February 29, March 31, and April 30.

Warning:

Permission to edit soft dates ought to be restricted to a small number of users because changes to them can impact your organization's billing process.

Reference Definition

The reference determines a unit of time and whether the dates fall at the beginning or end of that time. Within the ‘definition' field this will display as two letters in upper or lower case. The first letter indicates whether the date recurs on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, traditional quarterly, or yearly basis. The second letter indicates whether the date recurs at the beginning or end of the week, month, quarter, traditional quarter, or year. For example:

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.
QB

Sets the date to the first day of the quarter based on the start date.
QE Sets the date to the last day of the quarter based on the start date.
TB

Sets the date to the first day of the traditional quarter based on the start date.
TE Sets the date to the last day of the traditional quarter based on the start date.
HB

Sets the date to the first day of the half year based on the start date.
HE Sets the date to the last day of the half year 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.
Notes:

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

Quarter dates are January 1- March 31, April 1 - June 30, July 1 - September 30, October 1 - December 31.

Traditional quarter dates are March 25 - June 23, June 24 - September 28, September 29 - December 24, December 25 - March 24.

Half year dates are January 1 - June 30, July 1 - December 31.

Yearly dates are January 1 - December 31.

Traditional Quarters

Traditional quarters support English quarter days which fall on significant dates that have been observed since the Middles Ages, and are approximately three months apart:

  • Lady Day - March 25
  • Midsummer Day - June 24
  • Michaelmas - September 29
  • Christmas - December 25

A common use of traditional quarters is for billing property rental.

Note:

When using traditional quarters, you cannot bill and charge at different intervals. For example, if your billing term uses a traditional quarter soft date, you cannot apply a charge term that uses a monthly soft date.

Adjustment

The adjustment consists of + or - followed by a whole number between 0 and 999, then the letter D or M indicating whether the number to be added or subtracted is days or months. For example, +1D, -10d, +999d, -1m, +3M or all valid adjustments.

If you only enter an adjustment when creating a soft date definition, it must be positive.

Soft Date Examples

Here are some examples of soft date definitions.

Example Definition

Description

+60d

Returns a date that is 60 days after the start date.
+1m Returns a date that is one month after the start date.
+3m Returns a date that is three months after the start date.

WB+1d

Returns the second day of the week.

ME-12d

Returns a date that is 12 days before the end of the month.

The next date returned depends on the input date. For example:

  • An input date of July 12 returns July 19.
  • An input date of July 28 returns August 19.

QB+7d

 Returns a date that is 7 days after the start of the quarter.
QE-2d Returns a date that is two days before the end of the quarter.
TB Returns the first day of the traditional quarter: March 25, June 24, September 29, or December 25.
TE-14d Returns a date that is 14 days before the end of the traditional quarter.
HB Returns the first day of the half year, either January 1 or July 1.
HB+2M Returns a date that is 2 months after the start of the half year.

YB

Returns the first day of the year, January 1.
HB+2d Returns a date that is two days after the start of the half year, either January 3 or July 3.