Contract Setup and Activation: To Create and Activate an Empty Consulting Contract Draft
In this activity, you will learn how to create an empty contract draft for consulting contract and activate it.
Story
Suppose that after purchasing the juicers, the Healthy Drink Alley customer needs a consulting contract to teach employees about the proper use of juicers and related equipment. This service is provided by the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company's consultants of different qualifications: senior consultants, whose services cost $120 per hour, and regular consultants, whose services cost $100 per hour.
According to the terms of the contract, in April 2025, the customer obtains consulting in the amount of 20 hours from the senior consultant William Perkins, and in the amount of 4 hours from the consultant David Chubb for the total amount of $2,800. The billing of the contract will be performed on demand and on per-activity basis.
Acting as a sales manager, you will create an empty contract whose terms determine prices depending on the skills and position of the consulting specialist, who can be a regular specialist or a senior consultant. Then you will activate the contract.
Process Overview
In this activity, on the Segmented Keys (CS202000) form, you will first configure the system to assign automatically numbered identifiers to contracts. On the Accounts Receivable Preferences (AR101000) form, you will configure the settings of the accounts receivable functionality.Then on the Customer Contracts (CT301000) form, you will create an empty consulting contract with Draft status. Then you will set up and activate the contract simultaneously.
Configuration Overview
In the U100 dataset, the following tasks have been performed for the purposes of this activity:
- On the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the Contract Management feature has been enabled.
- On the Customers (AR303000) form, the HDALLEY (Healthy Drink Alley) customer has been created.
System Preparation
To prepare to perform the instructions of this activity, do the following:
- As a prerequisite to this activity, complete Contract Template Creation: To Create an Empty Consulting Contract Template activity to create the empty contract template you will use to create the contract draft.
- Launch the MYOB Acumatica website with the U100 dataset preloaded, and for Step 1 and Step 2 sign in to the system as a system administrator Kimberly Gibbs by using the gibbs username and the 123 password. For Step 3 and Step 4 sign in as the sales manager David Chubb by using the chubb username and the 123 password.
- In the info area, in the upper-right corner of the top pane of the MYOB Acumatica screen, make sure that the business date in your system is set to 4/1/2025.
Step 1: Enabling Auto-Numbering for Contracts
In MYOB Acumatica, contract identifiers are created based on the CONTRACT segmented key. To configure the system to assign automatically numbered identifiers to contracts, on the Segmented Keys (CS202000) form, do the following:
- On the Summary area in the Segmented Key ID box, select CONTRACT.
- Click Edit to the right of the Numbering ID box to review the configuration of the CONTRACT numbering sequence on the Numbering Sequences (CS201010) form. This predefined numbering sequence is used in the CONTRACT segmented key by default.
- Close the Numbering Sequences form.
- In the table on the Segmented Keys form, select
the Auto Number check box for the only row, which
contains the settings of the single segment included in the segmented key.
Contract identifiers can be defined to include multiple segments. However, automatic numbering can be enabled for only one segment. Note that the length of the auto-numbered segment must match the length of the numbering sequence specified in the Numbering ID box.
- On the form toolbar, click Save.
Step 2: Configuring the Settings of the Accounts Receivable Functionality
To be able to use the needed accounts receivable functionality, on the Accounts Receivable Preferences (AR101000) form, do the following:
- On the General tab, clear the Hold Documents
on Entry check box.
With this check box cleared, any invoice issued when a contract is billed will have the Balanced status.
- On the form toolbar, click Save.
Step 3: Creating an Empty Contract Draft
To create an empty contract draft for consulting contract, do the following:
- Sign in to the system as a sales manager by using the chubb username and the 123 password.
- On the Customer Contracts (CT301000) form, add a new record.
- In the Summary area, specify the contract settings as follows:
- In the Contract Template box, select CONSULTING.
- In the Customer box, select HDALLEY.
- In the Description box, type Hdalley - Consulting services by employee rates.
- On the Employees Overrides tab, add two rows to the table
to specify the relations between the earning types, labor items, and employees.
In the rows, enter the settings in the following table (as shown in the
following screenshot). A relation determines which labor item will be used as
the source of the service price and the sales accounts for recording the
contract usage.
Earning Type Labor Item Employee RG CTCONSREG Leave empty (when you leave this column empty, the system inserts the All Employees value) RG CTCONSSEN EP00000020 - William Perkins Thus, the CTCONSREG labor item will be used for recording contract usage based on the activities performed during regular hours by any consultant except William Perkins, a senior consultant, whose rate is defined by the CTCONSSEN labor item (see the following screenshot).
Figure 1. Employee overrides tab for the consulting contract draft
- On the form toolbar, click Save.
Step 4: Setting Up and Activating the Contract Simultaneously
To set up and activate the consulting contract simultaneously, do the following:
- On the Customer Contracts (CT301000) form, open the Hdalley - Consulting services by employee rates contract you have created in Step 3.
- On the More menu (under Processing), click Set Up and Activate Contract to activate the contract.
- In the Activation Date box of the Activate
Contract dialog box, which opens, leave 4/1/2025 in the Activation Date box, and then click
OK.
After the contract is set up and activated, notice the following (see the screenshot below):
- The contract now has the Active status.
- The setup and activation dates have become unavailable for editing.
- The expiration date is empty because the contact template that you have specified for the contract is of the Unlimited type.
- The Next Billing Date box is empty because the contract template that you have specified for the consulting contract has On Demand billing period in the Summary tab (Billing Settings section) of the Contract Templates (CT202000) form.
- The boxes in the Billing Schedule section have been populated based on the template settings and the activation date that you have specified.
- No invoice has been generated on initiation of an empty contract, so the table on the AR History tab of the form is still empty.
Figure 2. The activated consulting contract
You have created the empty consulting contract and activated it.