I have the basics of how to use Service Contracts and bill them out. I’m trying to build the appropriate work flow for our team to use them. The preference is that we’d like to not have to keep creating new contracts year after year for each new year. We’d like to create a “perpetual” contract that automatically invoices each year on the same day unless someone cancels it.
The problem:
If I check the recurring box on Service Contract Entry, I can’t seem to get recurring invoices to work. Is there a trick to it? I’m struggling by trial and error. The Documentation doesn’t really say much about this. I would’ve thought that it would check the Recurring box on Invoice Header in AR Invoice Entry… but it doesn’t. How is it supposed to work? I have a contract length of 3 years. I have a fiscal calendar defined with 1 period per year. That’s what I’m selecting for the frequency period. I get the initial invoice to generate using Get Contract Billing. But I can’t get subsequent invoices to generate using Generate Recurring Invoices.
Thank you. Just to clarify, I am asking about Recurring Invoices. I don’t believe Renewals is what I want.
That said, I’ll open up this thought process for review - maybe there’s a different or better way to accomplish my goal.
I want to create a contract for a subscription service. We install telematics on work trucks. Our intent is to charge our customers an annual subscription. Ideally, we’d create the contract once and then it would continue in perpetuity until the customer cancelled it. Ideally, we wouldn’t have to touch it after it was started (other than to periodically generate an invoice). So my thought was to create a contract with a duration of say 99 years that has a recurring invoice that has a billing frequency of once per year. So I created a fiscal calendar for this that has 1 period per fiscal year. If there’s a better way, I’m completely open to suggestion.
So there’s no confusion, there are qty 3 on the contract line which is why the total is 750. It’s 250 * qty 3. It should be 750 per year for 3 years. I get the initial invoice of 750. If I create an AR Group and date it out a year from now, I don’t get any recurring invoices to generate.
It’s been a while, but I do not think that is how it works. The recurring invoice would only be for a year contract that was being paid monthly.
You might be able to set up the contract as a duration of 99 years and then use the recurring invoice to yearly? But then your contract price would be $250 * 99 = $24,750. I don’t think that is what you want.
I would look at what other functionality is available to help automate your process. I believe the path you are currently going down is contrary to how the system is built. Is there a way to auto-renew contracts into a SO? If there is, that might be the way to go.
Ok. That very well may be. I’m new to Recurring Invoices in general… to go along with being new at Service Contracts. Another angle I tried was checking the Recurring checkbox on the first Invoice after it’s created and setting it up using a recurring cycle… that does let me set it up to recur every 12 months. It just requires manually invoicing the first invoice for any contract. That’s not the end of the world - especially if there’s not a better way. But it seemed like that could work for us too.
