Renewing/Revising Service Contracts

When a contract reaches the end of the contract terms, e-automate considers the contract expired. When a contract expires, e-automate pulls bill code for service calls automatically from the equipment record instead of the service contract. If you have configured the equipment with a time and materials style bill code, the system automatically starts charging the customer for services rendered on service calls and supplies through equipment associated sales orders and invoices. This is your protection from providing services or supplies that are not covered under contract once the contract is expired and not renewed.

You can choose to renew contracts that are expired or expiring by using the manual renewal process. You can determine which contracts are up for expiration by using the Contract Expiration Worksheet report or by using the Contract Renewal window. When you renew a service contract, the contract is rolled forward based on the contract start and end dates or based on a user-specified date.

When you renew a service contract, e-automate creates a renewed service contract with an incremental revision number and with a start date identified as the day following the expiration date of the contract that you are renewing. The expiration date on the renewed contract is set based on the value identified in the Renewal cycle field on the original service contract. If the field is blank, e-automate creates a service contract with the exact same length as the contract that you are renewing. If you have identified a cycle in the Renewal cycle field, e-automate configures the renewed contract to be the length defined by the renewal field. On a renewed service contract you can modify the rates, cycles, rate schedules, or any component of the service contract effective on the renewed contract.

If for some reason a contract is not working for a customer or dealership you may consider using the revise service contract functionality. You use the revise service contract functionality when you want to end a contract early and renew the contract on more beneficial terms. The revise functionality adds the ability to expire the existing contract early, issue a credit on the expiring contract, and configure the cycles on the revised contract to match or not match the dysfunctional contract. When you revise a service contract, if the contract is metered it works best to identify the all the ending meters on the equipment on the contract that is being revised. If you allow a credit to be issued, when the expired early contract is billed, e-automate automatically calculates the credit for the base as well as a prorated allowance on overage for overage style contracts.

When a contract is renewed using the batch renewal process or the manual renew/revise process e-automate rolls the contract dates forward as defined by the choices you make when renewing. Regardless of the dates, e-automate always increments the revision number to indicate a renewed/revised contract. For contracts that expire by click, you can still use the manual process to renew the service contract but the suggested alternative is to use the e-agent task, Contract Expiration by Copies task. This task automatically evaluates the service contracts that expire by click and are renewable and renews them. If a contract has a rate schedule and is renewed using any renewal method, e-automate automatically moves the rate schedule forward to the renewed contract.

When renewing service contracts, e-automate looks to the contract type to determine the status of the renewed contract, if set on the contract type. You can configure set two fields on the contract type that affect the contract status. One is the status on new contracts and the other is the status of renewed contracts. When a contract is created and a user selects the contract type, if the New contract status is populated on the contract type, e-automate automatically places the status identified on the new contract. When a contract is renewed, whether renewed one contract at a time or bulk renewed, e-automate automatically places the status identified on the contract type in the Renewed status field on the renewed contract. This means that when you manually renew/revise service contracts, e-automate populates the Status field on the renewed service contract with the value identified in the Renewed status field on the contract type assigned to the service contract. This gives you the opportunity to have the status field automatically be set to Pending Billing/Payment or Pending Proposal etc. on renewed contracts.

Manual Renew/Revise Service ContractsManual Renew/Revise Service Contracts

From the e-automate toolbar, click [Contracts] to view the Service Contracts list window.

Select the contract to be renewed and click [Edit] to open the Edit Service Contract window.

Tip: If you are planning to revise the contract, meaning end it early and create a new revised contract and the equipment is metered, best practice recommendation is that you identify ending meter readings on all equipment/items on the contract before you click [Renew/Revise]. Use the instructions following the note to enter ending meter readings on the contract

Note: End meter readings on contracts must be within the billing meter tolerance of the day after the date you intend to end the contract. If for example you intend to end a contract on 8/15 and your billing tolerance is 10 days, ending meter readings must be dated or override dated within 10 days, either before or after the 8/16 date. If you do not enter meter readings, e-automate will search for them for you but requires them before you can revise the contract. If you entered ending meter readings in the Meter Reading Console and they are within the billing meter tolerance, e-automate will locate them when you use the Revise functionality.

Click the Equipment/Item tab to bring it forward.

Select the first metered equipment for which you want to enter an ending meter reading.

Click [Edit] to open the Edit Contract Equipment/Item window.

Click the Meter tab to bring it forward.

In the End meter reading date field, check the checkbox and enter the ending meter reading date

Note: If the ending meter reading date is not within the billing meter tolerance, check the End override billing date and enter a date within the billing meter tolerance. The variance possible on override meter dates is 27 days from the End meter reading date. See your system administrator for the configuration of the override billing date configuration.

From the list of meters, select the meter for which you want to enter an ending meter.

In the Meter display field enter the ending meter reading.

Click [Update display] to add the meter to the list.

If there are multiple meters on the equipment, repeat steps f – h until you have entered all required or wanted meters.

Click [OK] to close the Edit Contract Equipment/Item window

Note: If you are notified that the end meter reading date is not within the billing tolerance of the expiration date of the contract and asks if you are sure, click [Yes].

If there are multiple equipment, select the next equipment and repeat steps c – j until you have entered ending meters for all equipment on the contract.

Click [Renew/Revise] to open the Renew/Revise Options window.

Do one of the following:

To simply renew the service contract, select Renew contract as of scheduled renewal date of xx/xx/xxxx and do the following:

Click [OK] to open the renewed contract

Note: The revision number is incremented.

Verify and make any changes to the renewed contract for the upcoming contract period

Note: You can change anything on the service contract, base cycle, overage cycle rates, rate schedules etc.

To enter a beginning meter reading on the renewed metered contract, do the following:

Click the Equipment/Item tab.

Double-click on the metered equipment to open the Edit Contract Equipment/Item window.

Click the Meters tab to bring it forward.

In the Meter type field, use the lookup to select the meter type you intend to enter first.

In the Start Meter field, enter the meter display for the selected meter type.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 immediately above for each meter type.

Click [OK]. e-automate saves the new meters and returns to the Edit Service Contract window.

Click [OK]. The e-automate window displays, click [Yes] to renew and save the contract or [No] to cancel the renewal process.

To revise the service contract, select Revise contract by expiring this contract early and creating a new revised contract and do the following:

In the Expiration date field, enter a date in which you want the current contract to expire and create a new revised service contract to begin on the day following.

If you want to issue a credit for a contract that is expiring early based on your entered expiration date, check the Issue credit checkbox

Note: If you allow a credit to be issued, e-automate automatically calculates the credits for base amounts and prorates allowances on overage contracts. If you want to modify these amounts, you must edit the original contract upon completion of the revision.

If you want to maintain the current billing cycle date pattern on the contract you are revising, check the Maintain current billing cycle dates starting on xx/xx/xxxx checkbox

Note: If your original contract had monthly cycle start dates that started on the 15^th of each month, 1/15, 2/15, 3/15 etc. and you revised the contract to expire and renew on the 25^th of March, the question with this checkbox is, do you want to maintain billing cycles that are in the middle of the month or do you want the cycles to switch to 3/25, 4/25, 5/25 etc. If you maintain the cycles, e-automate will automatically prorate the necessary start and end cycles to keep the cycle pattern on the original contract.

Click [OK] to begin the revision process.

If your contract is metered, a window is displayed asking if e-automate can search your e-automate database for ending meters for the equipment on the contract. If you click [Yes] e-automate searches the e-automate database for meters that can be used for ending meters on the equipment on the contract you are expiring early. When meter are found, e-automate opens the revised contract window. Note the incremental revision number

Note: If you click [No], e-automate open the Edit Service Contract window so you can manually enter ending meter readings. If you do not have meter readings, restart these instructions on step 3.

Make any necessary change on the renewed contract

Note: When working with a renewed/revised contract you can make any change necessary. This is a great time to modify cycles, rates, base rate or overage rate schedules etc.

Click [OK] to save the renewed/revised contract.

Acknowledge the e-automate window notifying you that your contract has been prepared for renewal and if you are sure you want the renewed/revised contract created, click [Yes] to save the renewed/revised contract otherwise click [No] and e-automate abandons the renew/revise process.