In many cases, you can have contracts that bring in recurring revenue, such as web hosting, managed services contracts, monthly blocks etc.
You can do do this by creating a monthly/periodic contract – i.e. end date at the end of the month etc. and then by copying it to the new period (the next month etc.).
Benefits of recurring Contracts:
| • | When copying contracts, the original contract information is copied to the new Contract – like service terms, the initial Block of Time value, Notes, etc. So if you create special notes regarding the Account (such as "Usually has problem with X" or "Make sure you speak with John"), these notes will also by copied to the new contract, keeping all the information intact. |
| • | The contract sub-code will automatically be incremented, e.g. if the original Contract code is 1001 then the newly created contract code will be 1001.0001, 1001.0002 etc. |
| • | you can handle many recurring Contracts with the Batch Copy Wizard which can create many new Contracts for the next period automatically (see below). |
| • | The system will select the new copied contract as the default contract for the Account automatically, based on its start date. This means that you can copy a contract any time prior to its end; and the system will only start using it when the previous contract expires. Note: In order for the system to automatically select a contract by date; you should make sure the default contract selection for the Account is set to 'Automatic'. |
How is it done?
| 1. | Create a Contract record for the first month and fill in all the relevant Contract information as agreed upon with the customer; such as service terms. |
| 2. | When the month ends (or at any time prior to this), you should copy the contract to the next month: |
| • | Select it in the Contract window and use the Copy to next Date Range option from the toolbar |
| • | Set new start and end dates for it (this will be applied to the next month). |
| 3. | Alternatively we recommended you use the Contracts > Batch Copy Contracts for New Date Range option. This will let you create many new Contracts for the new date ranges at once. This option will help you manage all the recurring Contracts in one step every month. See more details below. |
How to use the Batch Copy Wizard
Using the Batch Copy Contracts wizard, you can easily copy a batch of expiring Contracts to new Contracts that will be used for the next contract date range (i.e. for the next month).
You can copy Contracts that will expire soon and ones that have already expired.
In the first step of this wizard you need to select the Contracts you want to copy to the next date range. To make the selection easier, you can filter the Contract list according to the Contract expiration date and the contract type.
Note that by default, expiring contracts that already have new contracts for the next date range won’t be displayed in the list.
Batch Copy Wizard
After selecting the Contracts to copy, click Next. You'll be asked to select the new start and end dates for the new Contracts. You have several advanced options at this stage so it will be much easier for you to set the new date range.
Then you should click on the Create Contracts button. The new contracts will be created. These new contracts will be identical to the contracts they were copied from (except their sub-code will be incremented by one, they will have a different date range than the original contract). Contracts of type "Block of…" will have an empty block (e.g. 0 used hours).
When the wizard is complete; it will display a list of all the newly created contracts.