1.18 Billing: Contracts and Invoices
Billing within the system allows support organizations to manage their Customers' service and support contracts. This can be achieved by the system Administrator enabling the preferences of Contracts, with or without the preference of Invoices, within the Billing option of the Setup tab.
When Contracts are enabled without Invoices, system contracts can be created without the need for charging Customers for the support provided. Whereas, the Contracts option combined with Invoices allows the application to manage service contracts and process payment within the one facility.
There are a number of Contract Types available within the system, and these include:
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Per Request - covers the period of time for which the request is open and work completed
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Per Item - covers the Item, regardless of the number of requests logged against the Item but can be created for the following:
Subscription - a contract that covers a specified period of time
Time Limited Subscription - a contract that covers either a specific time period or number of support hours, whichever limit is reached first
Support Hours - a contract that defines the number of support hours covered
Support Hours by Month - a contract that covers a total number of support hours purchased for a defined timeframe and allocated on a per month basis.
When Billing is enabled in the application's Setup, a maintenance contract must exist for either a Customer, Organizational Unit or Item, before a request can be processed. For more information on creating a maintenance contract see Contracts.
1.18.1 Contract Validation Process
When a request is created and Contracts are enabled with Invoices, the system validates the contract status for a Customer, Organizational Unit or Item. As part of the contract validation process, the application selects the first element found on this list:
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Customer (with a valid contract)
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Org. Unit (with a valid contract)
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Item (with a valid contract)
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Customer (with a pending contract)
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Org. Unit (with a pending contract)
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Item (with a pending contract)
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No contract found, then either a Per Request or Per Item contract is created through the request.
NOTE:When a Pending Contract is selected, the Contract must be processed before work can be undertaken on the request.