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Defining Charge Plans for Agreement Line Items

For payment of a contract, charges must be set up. Most contracts include two types of charges:

• An initial payment to establish the contract, referred to as a nonrecurring charge (NRC)
• A recurring charge (RC), which is usually a monthly charge for the service package

  NOTE:  There is also a third kind of charge, which is used to handle usage charges.

Scenario for Charge Plans

A company has a service package with a price of $15,000. There is an initial charge of $3000 to activate the service package, followed by 12 further monthly charges of $1000. The charges are to be made on the first day of each month. To manage this scenario, a Field Service user would need to set up a contract schedule, NRCs, and RCs for the charge plan. If the NRCs are to be broken up into installments, an NRC plan may also need to be set up.

Process for Defining and Running a Charge Plan

To define and run a charge plan, perform the following tasks:

1. Create a contract schedule for creating the charges. The schedule can be daily, weekly, or monthly. See Defining Contract Schedules for more information.
2. Set up any required NRC, RC, or use plans. See Setting Up NRC Plans for more information.
3. Add NRC, RC, and any charges, adjustments, and use plan details to the agreement line items. See To define charge plans for agreement line items for more information. This information should include the following:
   • A schedule plan for the first charge to be created
   • The start time for the first charge

     NOTE:  If you are adding a use plan to the agreement line item, make sure that you select the appropriate product and asset for association with the line item. You must select an asset that has measurements to allow usage to be recorded.

4. Run the charge plan to create charges for the agreement line item using either of the following methods:
   • Use the Charge button on the Agreements screen > List > Line Items view. See Running Charge Plans Using the Charge Button for more information.
   • Set up workflows to run the charges automatically. See Running Charge Plans Using Workflows for more information.

To define charge plans for agreement line items

1. Navigate to the Agreements screen > List view.
2. Drill down on the Name field of a selected agreement.

   The Line Items view appears.

3. Select a line item.
4. On the link bar, click Charge Plan.
5. In the Charge Plan form, complete the fields as appropriate. For more information, see Charge Plan Subview.

   NOTE:  If a product measurement record is defined for this line item (product), the RC Schedule frequency must match the Frequency value in the Administration - Products screen > Service Information > Measurements view.

6. (Optional) If you are adding a use plan to the agreement line item, make sure that the appropriate product and asset are added to the agreement line item so that the measurements can be recorded for usage. To do this, perform the following steps.
   1. Click the Line Detail view tab.
   2. In the Service Asset # field, select the assets which were created to track usage.

      Multiple assets can be added to an agreement line item using the Agreements screen > List > Line Items > Pricing > Assets view.

Running Charge Plans Using the Charge Button

When a charge plan has been defined, users can then run the plan to create the charges. All the charges for the RC and NRC schedules are created with the correct amounts and adjustments as indicated in the charge plans.

To run the charge plan using the Charge button

1. Navigate to the Agreements screen > List view.
2. Drill down on the Name field of a selected agreement.

   The Line Items view appears.

3. Select a line item and enter a value in the Advance To field.
4. Click the Charge button.

   You can generate multiple charges for an agreement line item by configuring the FS - Generate Agreement Charge workflow to run on a periodic basis. See Running Charge Plans Using Workflows for more information.