Contract Item

Contract Items describe in detail individual contractual relationships completed within a contract.

• One contractual relationship is registered and described by one contract item. A contractual relationship is an agreement between a supplier (contractual partner, vendor) and the company, on the basis of which the company receives goods or services and thus develops payment liabilities. The products associated with each contract item describe the goods or services acquired in the contractual relationship.
• Contract items of different contract types can be used. Contract types reflect the varying administrative needs of different types of contractual relationships. For example, a purchase contract item requires a slightly different set of attributes than a maintenance contract item.
• Contract fulfillment is performed by the 'Incoming Goods' action. During its two stages products and components are created from contract items.
  • Products describe the inventory of the company as well as services provided to the company from the point of view of the purchasing process.
  • Components describe the inventory from the technical point of view.
• Contract items are bundled to form contracts. In the contract editor, contract items are displayed as a reference catalog. Most contract items administration can be performed from the reference catalog.
  When a contract is copied, its contract items are also copied. Their related products and components are not copied, the same products and components are linked.

Contract Item versus Order Item

Both contract item and order item represent a part of an external request for delivery of new products (including services) to a company.

• One product can be assigned only to one order item but it can be assigned to more contracts, for example it is possible to assign a supplementary contract item to the same product.
• Even though it is possible to specify a contract type for an order item, it is for instance not possible to enter Notice Period for a ‘Leasing’ contract type on an order item (this is, however, possible on a contract item).
• Payments can be uploaded manually only for contracts. To upload payments for orders and requests, an automatic or batch method has to be used.