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Creating a Maintenance Contract

Use this window to create maintenance contracts. 

Inactive task codes and task lists are filtered out from displaying in any lookup and cannot be assigned to any new contract, equipment, or service call. If a task list has any inactive task codes, only the active task codes will be assigned.

If the Customer or Location is inactive, you will not be able to create or renew maintenance contracts.

To create a maintenance contract:

  1. Select Cards > Service Management > Service Manager.
  2. Select a customer, select Additional, and then select Contract.
  3. In the Maintenance Contract window, the Customer and Location auto-populate. If the customer and/or location is inactive, the respective checkbox is marked.
  4. Complete the following fields, as necessary.
    • Contract Number
      This field will already be filled if you chose to automatically generate contract numbers. See Setting Up Auto Numbering. Select the second (right) notepad button if you want to add a master billing note to the contract. Complete the Maintenance Billing Note window and select Save. When maintenance invoices are created for the contract, the master billing note text is added to each invoice. The billing note can then be edited for each individual invoice.
    • Hold
      The Hold checkbox in the Contract Number field is used to place the maintenance contract on hold. You are not able to create service calls for the contract or renew a contract marked hold. However, you can put a contract on hold if there are open service calls associated with the contract. You can also invoice existing maintenance service calls individually. The Hold checkbox in the Customer field is disabled and used only to indicate if the customer is on hold.
    • Cancel
      This checkbox is used to inactivate a contract record. The record is not deleted until the contract is closed. Canceled contracts display in the Maintenance Contracts window with Canceled appearing in the Status column. You are not able to cancel a maintenance contract that has open service calls. In addition, you cannot renew a canceled maintenance contract.
    • Master Contract ID
      Master contracts allow users to group numerous contracts under one contract for billing and management purposes. You can create a new master contract directly in the Maintenance Contract window by entering a new master contract number or zooming on the Master Contract field.
    • Contract Type
      When you select a contract type, the total contract amount is automatically distributed into the cost categories by the percentage determined for that contract type.
    • Contract Amount
      Enter a Contract Amount. For example, if the contract is for one year, and is worth $1,200, enter $1,200 in the Contract Amount field. If the contract is for three years, worth $3,600, enter the entire $3,600 in the Contract Amount field. 
    • Start Date, Expiration Date
      Enter contract start and expiration dates. If you are using percentage-of-completion revenue recognition, the expiration date cannot be more than one year from the start date. Revenue schedule and manual revenue recognition methods support multi-year contracts. At some point, if you change the start and expiration dates and those dates do not include any task schedule dates, the task schedules will be re-generated automatically.
    • Anniversary Date
      The Anniversary Date is a utility option for contracts. Reviewing the contract at the anniversary date allows you to adjust amounts, as needed. The anniversary date is used on the Revenue/Cost window where you see Contract Costs Current Year values. The anniversary date will match the expiration date for any contract that is less than or up to 366 days long. For contracts that span multiple years, the anniversary date will indicate the end of the current 12 month period of the contract. This date is automatically advanced to the next 12 month end date by a special routine called Process Multi-Year Contracts. In the last 12 months of a multi-year contract, the expiration date and anniversary date will also be the same. For more information on the Process Multi-Year Contracts, see Clearing Current Year Costs from Maintenance and Master Contracts.
    • Division
      Enter a Division for the contract.
    • Billing Frequency
      Each period's billing amount is calculated based on the frequency interval you select. If the billing frequency is changed, you'll be prompted to the Billing window to redistribute the billing amounts for the new frequency. You could select Custom if you plan to edit the billing amounts. Choosing Custom initially calculates the billing amounts monthly. You can edit the billing amounts in the Billing Schedule window to reflect a non-conventional billing schedule.
    • Automatically Bill
      Mark this checkbox to bill the contract automatically. You may select not to use automatic billing if the invoice needs individual attention such as a billing adjustment. If you marked the Automatically Create Invoices checkbox during maintenance options setup, Automatically Bill will default as marked. If you decide to unmark the box, your choice here, in the Maintenance Contract window, overrides maintenance options setup.
    • Invoice Billing Day
      You can select the exact day customer invoices are created for each maintenance contract. The Invoice Billing Day field can contain a number between 1 and 28.
    • Service Call Day
      Used in calculating the schedule for MCC calls. This field can contain a number between 1 and 28. The description displays the date of the first available MCC call, calculated based on the contract start date and the service call day; this isn't necessarily the first call, but the first possible date. The date of the first call is calculated based on the task schedules. If a task has a frequency of Monthly or greater, and you are using the Relative Scheduling feature, the first MCC call is scheduled on the service call day; subsequent calls are based on the day and week of the first call. For example, if a contract was created on the first day of January and the Service Call Day is 10, a task with a frequency of Monthly would have the first MCC call on January 10. Then, if January 10 is the second Monday of the month, the system would schedule MCC calls for that task on the second Monday of subsequent months. If a task has a frequency of Monthly or greater, and you are not using Relative Scheduling, the service call day is the day of the month that the MCC call for that task will be scheduled. Tasks with a frequency of less than Monthly will have a relative schedule based on the service call day. For example, if a task has a frequency of 3 Weeks and a schedule of 1st Thursday After Service Call Day, the first MCC call would be on the first Thursday after the service call day; subsequent calls would be every three weeks on Thursday.
    • Bill at end of month (EOM)
      Mark this checkbox if you want the maintenance contract billed at the end of the month.
    • Master Tax Schedule
      Select an existing schedule from the lookup. Tax schedules are created and maintained in Microsoft Dynamics GP. If you leave this field blank, the master tax schedule assigned to the location record is used. You can have maintenance contracts with differing master tax schedules assigned to a master contract.
    • P.O. Number
      The purchase order number appears on the customer's workorder and invoice.
    • Salesperson Name
      You can add a new salesperson directly in the Maintenance Contract window. You can also zoom on the Salesperson ID field to open the Microsoft Dynamics GP Salesperson Maintenance window.
    • Primary Technician
      The Primary Technician is not used when creating maintenance contract (MCC) calls; it is maintained for informational purposes only. The technician is assigned to the call from the Primary Technician field on the location record.
    • Service Level ID
      If you are using service level agreements, assigning service levels to maintenance contracts allows you to automatically calculate guaranteed response times for the service call.
    • Escalation
      If you are using the contract escalation feature, enter escalation information. See Escalating Maintenance Contracts.
    • User-defined
      You may have labeled these fields during setup. See Labeling user-defined fields. If you chose to validate the first and second user-defined fields in the Location window during setup, lookup windows will be attached to the fields and users will be prompted before adding to the lookup data. See Choosing service options.
  5. Select Save.
  6. Select the Revenue/Cost button to enter Estimate and Forecast costs. 
    • Estimated costs are your estimate of how much cost each category represents. Enter the estimated cost for each cost category associated with this contract. For labor cost categories, you are also prompted to enter the hours associated with the estimated cost. If you would like to break this cost down further into a monthly spend plan, you can do so by using the expansion button next to each estimated cost field. See Creating a Contract Spending Plan.
    • Forecasted costs are the greater of either the estimate cost or the actual cost for each category; forecast costs equal estimate costs when the contract is created, and as actual costs accumulate in the Forecast columns, you can use these amounts to measure the accuracy of your estimates and when escalating the contract. You need values in the Forecast column to calculate the contract earned amount and to close a contract.
  7. You can select the Closed Contracts button to view contracts for this location that have been closed.

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