Difficulty: novice

Content

1 What are Contracts?
2 Create a new contract
3 How to open an (existing) contract?
4 Contract view
5 The tab “General”
6 The tab “Contract items”
7 The tab “Period Schemes”
8 The tab “Invoicing”
9 The tab “Notifications
10 The tab “Documents”
11 Summary

Learning Objectives

After reading this article, you’ll be able to:

Tell what a contract is.
Create new contracts.
View and change details of a contract.
Add contract items to a contract.

What are Contracts?

A contract is an agreement between two parties that creates an obligation to perform (or not perform) a particular duty. Think of agreements regarding property, assets, or one with a cleaning company. Within Workplace Management, you can record and manage the different contracts within a company. You can add contract items, for example, rental price/service costs. A nice feature is that it is possible to send reminders of upcoming renewal dates, create invoices, and auto-renew contracts.

Create a new contract

1. To add a contract, open the contract menu and click on the first option: “Contracts.”

2. Click on “Create new contract.”

3. You will see a new screen with three steps: Contract Information > Duration > Reminder. This wizard will guide you through the process of creating a new contract.

4. In the “Contract information” step, we need to provide information in the following fields. The fields marked with an * are mandatory. After filling in the necessary information, press “Next step” to go to the next tab. If you hover over the field, a help text will appear.

Field name	Description

Field name	Description
Category	Choose the option fitting the contract.
Name	Fill in the name of the other party.
Payment	Define if the contract is: to pay, receive a payment, both ways, or there is no payment involved.
External Reference	A reference of an external party
Description	A description of the contract
Party 1	In most cases, your own company
Party 2	The party which is involved in this contract. Choose one of the already created contacts.
Main document	Upload the contract document here. This can also be uploaded after finishing the wizard.

5. The “Duration” step is about the duration of the contract. After entering the necessary details, press “Next step” to continue.

Field name	Description

Field name	Description
Original start date	This is the original start date of the contract before any renewals.
Duration	The duration of the contract
Term of notice	Used to determine when a contract is renewed and for creating a notification.
Renewal after the end of the previous period	These options are supported: None: The period will not be extended Automatic: the contract period will be created extended automatically one day after the term of the notice period. Possible: The period needs to be extended manually. Month to month: will be extended for a month Year to year: will be extended for a year

6. The last step before finalizing the contract is the “Reminder” step. Once these fields are filled in, click “Registration done” to finish the contract.

Field name	Description

Field name	Description
Automatic end period reminder	Yes or No, if yes, there will be an automatic reminder sent based on your settings
Send reminder X days before term of notice period	How many days before the notice term do you want a reminder sent? The period can be set in days.
Contract reminder to	Choose to whom the reminder needs to be sent.

The status of the contract is set automatically.

Draft: The contract start date has not occurred yet.
Active: the start date has commenced, but the end date of the period or termination date has not occurred yet.
Terminated: the termination date has been entered and has occurred.
Expired: the period’s end date has occurred, and the contract has not been renewed.

An expired contract can still be renewed or will be canceled. If the contract is renewed, a new period will be generated, or the current period will be extended (depending on the period schedule).

How to open an (existing) contract?

To open a contract:

Press “Contracts” in the Contracts menu

2. Enter your query in the search bar or leave it empty (for all results), and press “Search.” You will see the results in the include beneath the search bar. You can also use the advanced search

3. Click on the blue hyperlink of the contract reference to open it.

Contract view

You will see a screen with six tabs when a contract is opened.

Tab name	Description

Tab name	Description
General	General info about the contract. Parties, duration, contract description, payment info, documentation, and notification settings.
Contract Items	Here, you can see the active period, historical, and future contract items.
Period Schemes	This tab gives insights into the duration(s) of the contract.
Invoicing	In this tab, you will find the settings regarding invoice runs. Also, the option to create new invoices
Notifications	You can turn on and off automated notifications in this tab and change notification settings.
Documents	An overview of the documents linked to the contract and the option to attach new documents.

The tab “General”

In the “General tab,” you will find general information about the contract.

You can change/add/update information on this screen.
At the bottom of the page, you will find the option to add sub-contracts. By clicking ‘new,’ the settings of the current contract are duplicated, and the new contract is set as a child of the contract you were in.

The tab “Contract items”

In this tab, contract items are added. The sum of the contract items represents the total amount of the contract.

CONTRACT

Before adding a contract item, you can change some default settings. The pricing - and invoice period settings you make here will be used as a default for the contract items you will later on create.

Pricing period
Invoice period

PERIOD

The period start- and end date are set here based on your input when creating the contract using the wizard.

What you should know about contractitems

Pricing and invoice period:

After you have created the contractitems, the pricing and invoice period settings on the contract items are leading. You can view the setting by opening a contractitems (click on the magnifying glass).
We don't recommend applying deviating invoice periods on your contract items as this will make managing the contract unnecessarily complex.

Start- and end date

Contractitems also have a start- and end date, these can deviate from the period setting.
The contractitem start- and end date must lie within the periode start- and end date.
By default, the items' start and end dates are empty; in this case, the dates set on the period are applicable.
The dates on the contract items are leading concerning invoicing and renewal.

If an end date is set on a contract item, the item will not be renewed or, depending on the date, also not indexed.

Active, historical, and future contract item

At the bottom of the page is an overview of the active, historical, and future contract items. Below the row of tabs, you can see a list of active contract items and buttons to add different kinds; generic items, assets, areas, and properties.

Add a generic item to the contract

Click “Add generic item” in the “Active contract items.” include.
An empty contract item is now added to the list.
Fill in the details of the generic item directly in the include. You can add a description, the quantity, the price, the period, etc. These values are going to be a part of the total contract. In this example, we added a rental fee for a printer.
Click the save button on the top right or ‘Save and return’ if you’re done adding items.

Add an asset to the contract

Press “Add asset” in the include on the bottom under “Active contract items.”
Select the asset(s) you want to add to the contract.
Now click ‘Ok’ to add the selected asset.
You can fill in the details of the asset. You can change the description, the price, the period, etc.
Click the save button on the top right or ‘Save and return’ if you’re done adding items.

Add an area to the contract

Press “Add area” in the include on the bottom under “Active contract items.”
Fill in the filter fields and click ‘Search.’
Select the area(s) and click ‘Ok’
Choose the object use types you want to add for the area(s)
1. Areas are not added in the same way as assets and properties. Instead, Object use types (services) are added. Examples are rent, cleaning costs, and internet service.
2. Note: if you now end up in an empty screen, object use types have not yet been created. The info panel below explains more about adding new object use types.
Now you can fill in the details of the area. You can add a description, the price, the period, etc.
Click the save button on the top right or ‘Save and return’ if you’re done adding items.

Adding new ‘Object use types’
Object use types can only be created and managed by an administrator. The object use types are found via the startBoard button ‘Module settings’ > "Masterdata” tab > now click the function "Use types.”

In an object use type, you can define: the default price, vat rate, unit, price period, etc. For each area that is added to a contract (via the period as a contract item), all the object use types will be shown and can be selected to add as a contract item.

Add a property to the contract

Press “Property asset” in the include on the bottom under “Active contract items.”
Select the property you want to add to the contract.
Now you can fill in the details of the property. You can add a description, the price, the period, etc.
Click the save button on the top right or ‘Save and return’ if you’re done adding items.

Summary

Search

Workplace Knowledge Base (support.spacewell.com)

Contract Management

Analytics