Implementing the Contract Functionality: Contract Templates

A contract template provides the billing, refund, and renewal settings to be copied to a contract for which this template is selected. A contract template must be specified for each contract and defines the settings for all contracts that are based on the template.

You create each template on the Contract Templates (CT202000) form. A template might provide all the contract details except for the customer name and location, or it may contain only a few settings in addition to the required ones. The settings you can specify for the template include the renewal and refund policy, the contract duration, the currency, the billing format, the case billing settings, and the invoice and line description. Each contract with a customer must be based on a contract template. When you create a new contract by using the Customer Contracts (CT301000) form, you select the appropriate template, and the system fills in the settings of the template.

Creation of a Contract Template

You define each contract template on the Contract Templates (CT202000) form and specify all of the needed settings for contracts that use the template. These settings include the contract duration, the default grace period to be used for contracts, the settings related to refunded fees for unused services, and the contract type, which determines whether it can be renewed at the end of its duration, expires at that time, or is unlimited.

You can also specify billing settings, such as the billing period and the starting point of the billing schedule (which can be contract setup or activation). You can also specify the formulas the system uses to generate the invoice and line descriptions, as described in the Use of Formulas to Generate Descriptions section of this topic.

On the Details tab of the Contract Templates form, the contract template may contain a list of the contract items to be included in a contract for which the template is selected. Contract items need to be created on the Contract Items (CT201000) form before they are listed in the contract template. When you are creating a contract and you select the contract template it is based on, the list of contract items is copied to the contract. You can modify the list of items in the contract, change the quantity and description of any contract item, add new contract items, and remove contract items from the list if in the selected contract template, the Enable Template Item Override check box on the Contract Templates form is selected.

Use of Formulas to Generate Descriptions

In MYOB Advanced, users can customize the descriptions of invoices and invoice lines for invoices created during contract billing by specifying the formulas that the system uses to generate these descriptions. These formulas can be defined in the Invoice Description box and Line Description box of the Summary tab of the Contract Templates (CT202000) form.

The default formulas in a contract, which are provided by the applicable template, can be overridden on the Customer Contracts (CT301000) form if the Enable Overriding Formulas in Contracts check box has been selected for the template on the Contract Templates form. For more information about the entities and values available when you define the description formula, see Contract Templates.