Managing Services Credits

To redeem services credits against pieces of work, you must create milestones that are funded by services credits only. This is done by populating the Services Credits field on the milestone. You can then allocate the assigned services credits to the milestone or adjust the existing allocated services credits using the Manage Services Credits button.

  • When you allocate services credits to the milestone for the first time, clicking the Manage Services Credits button displays the window to allocate services credits.

  • When the services credits have already been allocated, clicking the Manage Services Credits button opens the window to adjust services credits.

Note:

Ensure that the PSA - Manage Services Credits Allocations permission set is assigned to you if you want to allocate services credits or adjust the allocation.

Allocating Services Credits

Before you can allocate services credits to a milestone, the customer account linked to the milestone's project must have purchased services credits and you must have created the relevant services credits customer purchase records.

To redeem services credits against a milestone:

  1. On the milestone record, in the Services Credits field, enter the number of services credits you want to allocate.
  2. Click Manage Services Credits. If the customer account has sufficient services credits available in the same currency as the project, a confirmation window opens.
  3. Click Allocate. The services credits are allocated to the milestone.

Related services credits consumption and allocation records are generated to store details of the credits that have been allocated to the milestone. These records are read-only and cannot be created or edited manually. They are automatically generated as a result of the allocation, allocation adjustment and expiry processes.

When a milestone is set up to be funded by services credits, the actual date on the milestone cannot be specified until the allocation of credits has been done. You must allocate services credits to the milestone before it is marked as complete. This is to avoid risk of work being done without having enough credits to fund it.

In addition to that, you can also define which milestone statuses do not require the allocation of services credits to be performed. This is controlled by the Milestone Status: No Allocation Required field in the Services Credits Settings custom setting. By default, milestones with the status of "Planned", "Canceled" or "--None--" allow you to determine the number of services credits without allocating them. You can update this field and include all the relevant statuses that apply based on your own use case.

If you want to update the milestone and select a different status that is not listed in the Milestone Status: No Allocation Required field, you must allocate the services credits assigned to the milestone first.

Allocation Process

When you allocate the services credits to a milestone, the process identifies the first services credits customer purchase record with:

  • Available services credits
  • The same currency as that of the project of the milestone
  • A start date on or before the allocation date, and that has the earliest expiry date.

The available services credits from the eligible services credits customer purchase record are allocated to the milestone. This generates a services credits consumption and services credits allocation record.

If the first eligible services credits customer purchase record does not have sufficient services credits, the allocation process finds the next eligible purchase record and allocates from that one.

The process ends when the required number of services credits are allocated to the milestone.

Notes:

Once the services credits are allocated, the milestone is updated as follows:

  • The Services Credits Allocation field is automatically populated with the services credits allocation record that has been created.
  • The Milestone Amount field is automatically updated with the total internal value of the services credits allocated. The existing value in this field is overwritten. You cannot edit this field.
  • The milestone is excluded from billing and you cannot edit the Exclude from Billing checkbox.

For more information, see Services Credits Allocation Fields and Services Credits Consumption Fields.

Adjusting Services Credits

To adjust the number of services credits that are allocated to a milestone:

  1. On the milestone record, click Manage Services Credits. The Manage Services Credits window displays.
  2. In the Adjusted Number of Services Credits field, enter the revised number of services credits that you want to be allocated to the milestone. You can either reduce or increase the number.
  3. Click Adjust. The number of services credits to be allocated are adjusted and one or more services credits consumption records are generated.

Adjustment Process

If you reduce the number of services credits in the Adjusted Number of Services Credits field, the unallocated services credits are returned to the services credits customer purchase records from which they were consumed. For example, if you reduce the number from 100 to 75, 25 services credits are returned to their services credits customer purchase records and are available for allocation again.

Services credits are returned to services credits customer purchase records as follows:

  • The process first identifies the related services credits customer purchase record with the latest expiry date. The number of services credits returned to that record does not exceed the number of services credits allocated from that record to the milestone.
  • If there are more related services credits customer purchase records, and there are services credits remaining to be returned, they are returned to the service credits purchase record with the next latest expiry date.
  • This process ends when all the remaining services credits are returned to the relevant services credits customer purchase records.

If you increase the number of services credits in the Adjusted Number of Services Credits field, the additional services credits are allocated as explained in Allocation Process.

Note:

The milestone that the allocated services credits are adjusted for will remain excluded from billing even if the adjustment process reduces its allocated number of services credits to zero. You can deselect Exclude from Billing manually, if required.