A customer contract brings together the customer's contract details and, where needed, settings for recurring tasks and billing. You can also create a contract without automatically creating tasks or invoices.
Before you start
Create and manage contracts in the browser. Your organization must have Field service management enabled. You need permission to create contracts, as well as read permission to open and review a contract. Editing it later requires edit permission.
The customer and contract group must be available for selection. The available customers depend on your permissions. If the contract group is missing, your local administrator can create it using the Create new contract group button on the form. See also managing contract classifications.
In the Spot details on Android and iOS, Show contract opens a summary of existing contracts. It does not open the form for creating a contract.
Open the creation form and fill in the basic details
In the browser navigation, open Customers → Contracts. Select Datatable, then Create new contract on its toolbar. Fill in the Base details section on the form's Basic info tab.
- Customer: select the customer the contract belongs to. This selection is required.
- Name: enter a name that helps identify the contract. A name is required, but it does not have to be unique.
- Contract number: enter a required, unique number. The same number cannot be used for another contract.
- Contract group: select a required group according to your organization's classification.
- Contract type, Description and Vendor: fill these in as needed. They are optional.
- Contract start date: enter the required start date.
- Contract end date: enter the end date for a fixed-term contract, or leave it blank if there is no end date.
Date restriction: on the browser form, the end date must be later than the start date. Using the same start and end date prevents the form from being saved, even though the server validation accepts the same day. Select a later end date in the browser.
You can add contract attachments in the Files section on the same tab.
Check the customer before saving. You cannot change the customer on a saved contract. You can change the customer on a creation form that has not yet been saved, but if you have already filled in task settings or billing rows, confirming the change clears them. In that case, fill them in again for the new customer.
The contract period determines the status
The status is determined automatically based on the contract period and the current day in the service's time zone. You do not select the status separately on the creation form.
- Waiting for start date: the start date is in the future.
- Active: the start date has been reached and there is no end date.
- Waiting for end date: a fixed-term contract has started and its end date is today or later. The contract is therefore already in effect.
- Ended: the end date has passed. The end date itself is still part of the contract period.
The status is checked when saving and in the background as the date changes. The contract status and the options for creating tasks or invoices are separate: an active contract alone does not start either automation.
Select the automations you need
Task creation and invoice creation are enabled separately. If you only want to save the contract details at this stage, leave both creation options disabled.
Maintenance targets and tasks
Open the form's Contract maintenance targets tab and select Create tasks related to contract. Open Select new maintenance targets, select the Spots and configure their task settings. You must fill in the customer and contract start date before selecting maintenance targets.
The maintenance target Spot's folder must belong to the contract's customer, and you must have permission to view the target. Enabling creation requires at least one task setting containing at least one Spot. Fill in the task name, first creation date, recurrence, lead time and task duration, and select at least one allowed weekday and month. The first creation date must fall within the contract period and be today or later.
A separate task is created for each Spot selected in the setting. Task duration determines the task's due date; it does not mean the employee's planned working time. Check the more detailed scheduling and responsible party options in contract maintenance targets and recurring tasks. That guide also covers the limitations of the creation date preview.
Invoices
Open the Billing settings tab and select Create invoices related to the contract. Add at least one valid billing row to the Billing rows section and fill in the schedule in the billing Basic info section: First invoice will be created, Billing recurrence cycle, Billing recurrence interval and Billing lead time, including its time interval. The first creation date must fall within the contract period and be today or later.
When you enable invoice creation for the first time and the first creation date has not been filled in, the form suggests a six-month recurrence, zero lead time and a specific creation day of the month. The suggested creation date is the contract start date, or tomorrow if the start date has already been reached. Check the suggestions: they may not match the agreed billing schedule or fall within the contract period.
You can also use Use fixed invoice dates for annual dates. This still requires recurrence settings, which determine the annual number of invoices and therefore the number of dates to fill in. Check the quantities, prices, discounts and VAT on the billing rows, as well as the required billing address, reference, order number and free text. See configuring contract billing and prices.
Creating tasks does not replace billing rows or the invoice creation option. A contract invoice is initially created with the status Waiting to be processed. Creating it in Spotilla does not yet mean that the invoice has been delivered to the customer. Invoice processing and any transfer to financial management are handled according to your organization's practices; see reviewing and processing contract invoices.
Copy an existing contract if needed
Open a contract from the table by clicking its name or the pencil icon on its row. Select Copy at the bottom of the contract form and acknowledge the review instructions by selecting Continue. The copy opens as a new contract that has not yet been saved.
The copy includes the basic details and customer selection, task settings with their maintenance targets, products and responsibility selections, billing settings and billing rows. The creation options are also copied, so check them before saving. The contract number is cleared: enter a new, unique number. Attachments and tasks or invoices that have already been created are not transferred to the new contract.
Copying moves a contract start date that has already been reached to today and preserves the length of a fixed-term contract period by moving the end date accordingly. First task and invoice creation dates that have already been reached move to tomorrow. Future dates remain unchanged. Always check the new contract's start and end dates, the creation dates for all task settings and the billing creation date. The automatic adjustments do not guarantee that all dates fit within the new contract period; any price guarantee must also be checked.
Save and verify the result
Select Create new contract at the bottom of the new contract form. A success notification confirms that the contract has been created. If saving is blocked, correct the reported missing or invalid information and try again.
Reopen the saved contract from the table. Check the customer, contract number, contract group, contract period and status, as well as the Next task will be created and Next invoice will be created dates for any enabled automations. Also check the attachments if you added any.
If the first actual creation date is today, task or invoice creation may start in the background after saving. Successfully saving the contract does not confirm that they have finished being created. After background processing, check the created items on the saved contract's Tasks and Contract invoices tabs. If an expected item is missing, check the creation option, settings and next creation date before creating another contract.