Creating Contracts

Contracts document service level agreements (SLAs) and entitlements The service support that is available to a customer, as written in a contract. For example, the type of support and the total number of minutes with a customer service representative.. This information includes the duration The amount of time that a record is in effect. of the contract, how many case incidents or minutes of service purchased, what hours and days of the week coverage is available, and the service entitlements.

Creating a Contract

New contracts are created based on contract templates The frameworks for e-mail messages, contracts, or articles. Templates are used to ensure consistent layouts and content in similar types of documents.. These define some information, such as allotment types Units of service, such as a case or a range of coverage dates, specified in a service contract that indicate how much access a customer has to customer service., before you actually write a contract. You can create contracts only for existing accounts and contacts.

A contract has the status of draft until it is invoiced. Each new contract is assigned a unique ID that cannot be used for another contract, unless the contract is being renewed. When renewing a contract, the contract is saved as a draft with an ID that corresponds to the original contract.

More information: Create or edit a contract template and Work with Contracts

Invoicing and Activating a Contract

After a contract has at least one contract line and a billing address, you can mark the contract status as invoiced. Changing the status implies that you have accepted the contract.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM does not automatically invoice the customer or create an invoice record unless your business has integrated Microsoft Dynamics CRM with a Microsoft BackOffice product.

The contract status is invoiced until the start date has passed. Then, the status changes to active. You cannot delete a contract with an invoiced or active status.

Renewing a Contract

After passing the end date of the contract, the contract is expired and cases cannot be opened against it. To open a new case against the contract, renew the contract.

When you renew a contract, a draft copy of the contract is created with the same ID number as the original, expired contract. You can make modifications to the new draft contract, including adding or modifying contract lines. You have the option of including contract lines that were canceled from the original contract. After the original contract expires, invoice and activate the renewed contract.

A renewed contract has the same ID number as the original contract, reflecting the renewal action in the contract's history. The start date is automatically set to the day after the existing contract expires. While Microsoft Dynamics CRM gives the renewed contract the same duration as the original contract automatically, you can change the duration manually.