Contracts can be used to register all the products or services the customer bought. In case the use of products or services is time limited the use of contracts allows you also to invoice these accounts periodically. Think about the maintenance fee for software, subscriptions to papers or magazines or to collect the contribution of members of organizations. During the contract prolongation process contracts are prolonged automatically as well invoices are created by a background process. These invoices can be imported in one of Exact's back office products like Exact Globe 200x.
Before using the contracts master data needs to be entered and some settings to be configured. This document describes the steps you have to take to set up the contracts for accounts and is one of the three main documents that describes the total concept of contracts in Exact e-Synergy.
Setting up: Contracts for accounts
The first steps to take is to enter the master data. It starts with creating assortments and items. Using different assortments allows you to categorize the contracts. Every assortment represents a product group that includes different items. In example you can create product group 'Cars' and a product group 'Bikes'. Each of the groups includes unique sales, service and/or policy items to be used in contracts.
When creating an assortment you should configure a few settings in the assortment definitions to indicate that this assortment is used for contracts. The settings allows you to assign a main contract item to the assortment. Every new contract created in this specific assortment is automatically linked to this main contract item. However perhaps you would like to differentiate contracts within the same assortment. In this case you should not assign a main contract item to the assortment. The user is free to choose any main contract item. It is recommended to make a policy to clarify the main contract items to be used in the contract header. As an example you might like to define the main items 'Skoda', 'Seat' and 'VW'.
Once the assortments are defined new items can be created. Every item is linked to an assortment. When creating an item a list of assortment is displayed. Select the assortment of which the item should be part of. Imagine you like to assign the trade 'Golf' to assortment 'Cars', you should than first select this assortment before creating the item.
Only items marked as sales, service or policy are selectable in the contracts. Sales items are only used to present the sales turnover. It is not used in any prolongation process because you only sell the products once. The sales items can be added to contract in order to calculate the total contract value. However service items are the basics of the invoice process. The prolongation process uses these items to prolong the contract and to calculate the to be invoiced amount. The items can be used in many solution area's as stated in the introduction. Depending on your demands you can set the prolongation to run every month, three months or years. Keep in mind that this is only possible to set this per division and not per contract.
It could be that you need to have the functionality to run the prolongation based on serial numbers of specific items instead of running the prolongation based on the items themselves. In this case the customer solution department developed the module 'Field Service Management' that provides the desired functionality.
Now items and assortments are created and configured correctly you are ready to create a contract. Contracts can only be created for accounts of type 'Customer' and 'Reseller'. In case you want to create a contract for a prospect you should first change the account into type 'Customer'. In the monitor section you find the hyperlink 'Contracts'.
The new screen shows only the assortments that are configured to be used for contracts as explained in step 2.
Once the assortment is select the new contract screens is shown. Some information is prefilled. Other information should be entered. In the new contract you will be able to select a sales, service or policy items.
In case you like to have the contract code automatically generated you should configure the logistic main settings.
Sales, service and policy items can easily be added to the contract. Keep in mind from which date the prolongation should start. Although the contract header shows a minimum contract date the item can have their own prolongation date. The prolongation is triggered by the prolongation date of the items. This is possible when items are added to an existing contract. But after the prolongation run the dates should be in line again. Keep in mind that only service items are invoiced.