Negotiating Contract Terms on Quotes

This chapter covers the following topics:

Overview of Sales Contracts

Important: It is strongly recommended that you implement Approvals if you plan to integrate with Oracle Sales Contracts and use the Contract Terms features. Use of the approvals process can help ensure that non-standard contract language receives additional approvals before the contract is presented to the customer. This documentation assumes that the contract terms on a quote are reviewed and approved internally before reaching the customer.

Oracle Quoting integrates with Oracle Sales Contracts to provide functionality to negotiate contract terms on a quote. The objective of Quoting/Sales Contracts integration is to automate the creation and delivery of quotes with standard or negotiated contract terms. Integration of Quoting and Sales Contracts allows users to:

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Sales Contracts integration is controlled by the profile option OKC: Enable Sales Contracts. If the profile is set to No, all fields and options related to Sales Contracts integration are disabled. Additionally, an error will appear when the user selects the Contract Terms subtab in Oracle Quoting. Consult the Oracle Quoting Implementation Guide for more details.

A prerequisite to perform all procedures mentioned in this chapter is that the profile be set to Yes. Additionally, the Contract Terms Library must be set up. Please refer the Oracle Sales Contracts Implementation and Administration Guide for more details.

Viewing Contract Details

After selecting a quote to view, you can view contract details by selecting the Contract Terms subtab from the Quotes page. The page displays contract details and customer acceptance information. From this page, you can enter contract acceptance information, and preview and update terms, if you have the appropriate access. This page is read only if:

Field Behavior

Authoring and Negotiating Contract Terms

Enabling integration with Sales Contracts provides users with the ability to author contract terms directly within Oracle Quoting.

A contract template can be set as the default for each new quote, or users can select an applicable contract template at the time of authoring. Contract templates contain standard, pre-approved clauses that are numbered and organized under sections so they appear in the proper order and within their appropriate sections when printed. Once a contract template is assigned to the quote, users with appropriate access can change the contract terms during negotiation.

There are two levels of access for contract terms authoring. Oracle Quoting passes the access level, depending on the status of the quote and quote security setup, to Sales Contracts.

View — Users can only view the quote and the contract terms on the quote. No updates are allowed, except to add or modify document attachments.

Update — Used if the quote is updateable. The user can make changes to the contract terms.

To update contract terms:

Note: If a quote is shared with the Sales Team, only sales team members with full access will be able to access the contract terms.

Multiple users can access and update the contract terms simultaneously. If the following conditions hold true during simultaneous update to the quote and contract terms page, then changes made in the contract terms page will be prevented:

An additional level of security, controlling which contract negotiation features a user has access to, is covered in the Function Level Security section of the Oracle Sales Contracts Implementation and Administration Guide.

Associating a Contract Template to a Quote

You can associate a contract template to a quote at the time of quote creation, either from the Create Quote page or the Create Quote From Opportunity page.

Note: If you want to change the contract template later in the Quoting process, you must navigate to the Contract Terms subtab to do so.

Field Behavior

Notes

Changing Contract Templates

You can change a contract template for a quote from the Contract Terms page. Once you create a quote, you can only change the contract template from the Contracts Terms page. If you change the contract template, all clauses associated with the previous contract template are removed. Any manually added clauses will be retained and moved to an unassigned section.

Notes

Removing Terms

You can remove terms from a contract in the Contract Terms page.

Notes

Adding and Deleting Sections

You can add and delete sections in the contract from the Contract Terms page.

Updating Clauses

When you update a clause, it becomes a non-standard clause.

Navigate to Quoting > Quote name > Contract Terms tab > Update Terms button. Select the clause to update, and click Make Non-Standard to update.

Field Behavior

Creating Non-Standard Clauses

Notes

Viewing the Deviations Report

Quoting generates a Deviations Report when you have created a non-standard clause in a quote from a standard clause, and want to compare the non-standard clause with the original standard clause. The report highlights all the additions, revisions, and removals of standard clauses on a contract template.

The Deviations Report displays the Standard sections or clauses that have been changed. Use the Compare Text feature to view the exact changes made.

Notes

Moving Contract Terms

You can move sections or clauses in a Contract and arrange them as per your requirements.

Steps

  1. Select either a section or clause to move and select the Move button.

  2. In the Move Term page, select the destination location: Before Selection, After Selection, or Within Selection.

  3. Select the appropriate radio button as the destination for the clause or section.

  4. After clicking Apply, you will need to manually renumber the contract terms. Refer to Renumbering Contract Terms for more information.

Renumbering Contract Terms

After making any changes such as moving or deleting sections and clauses, the contract terms must be manually renumbered. Numbering schemes are defined in the Contract Terms Library. For more information, please see the Oracle Sales Contracts Implementation and Administration Guide.

Notes

Resolving Alternate Clauses

Some clauses in the quote may have alternate clauses that you can choose from. Access the View Clause page by selecting a clause name hyperlink from the Contract Terms page to view and choose any clause alternates.

Checking for Clause Updates

Use the Check for Clause Updates function to view the list of clauses that have newer versions in the library, and then select the applicable ones to apply to the contract terms. This feature checks for latest updates for only those clauses that are currently in the contract.

Entering and Updating Clause Variables

In the Update Variable Values page, you can perform one or more of the following operations for each variable:

For more information on creating variables, consult the Oracle Sales Contracts Implementation and Administration Guide.

Adding Unstructured Contract Terms

You can modify a structured contract term or upload a newly authored document as Contract Terms for the quote. To modify the structured contract terms, you can download the existing structured terms to a file (Rich Text Format or Microsoft Word 2003 format), make the required modifications, and upload the document back into the quote. This document is now considered the Contract Terms for the quote. Alternatively, you can also upload a newly authored document (of any file type) as the Contract Terms, with or without a Contract Template being associated with it.

A quote is considered to have contract terms if the Contract Source displays Structured Terms or Attached Document.

Modifying Existing Structured Contract Terms

If the quote has structured contract terms associated with it, the Contract Source is displayed as Structured Terms. You must download it, modify the terms as required, and upload the document back. The Contract Source remains Structured Terms.

Notes

Uploading a New Document as Contract Terms

If the quote has structured contract terms associated with it, the Contract Source is displayed as Structured Terms. If you do not want the existing terms, you can upload a completely new document that will be the new terms. The Contract Source now displays Attached Document.

Notes

Previewing Contract Terms

You can preview the contract terms attached to the quote. The preview is generated in a PDF format.

If the contract terms on the quote is unstructured, i.e. the Contract Source is Attached Document, the preview is generated only if the following conditions are satisfied:

Notes

Managing Contract Documents

Contract documents are files manually attached to a quote that represent or are related to the quote's contractual terms. There are three categories of contract documents that can be added to your quote:

While the quote is in draft mode, the user can add, update and delete the attached contract documents. You can have as many contract documents of each document category attached to the quote as you require.

Viewing Contract Documents

Notes

Adding Contract Documents

You can add additional documents from your desktop. When you add a contract document from your desktop, you must specify the description and the category. When you update a contract document, and it was originally added from the desktop, you can change the description and the document category.

To add a contract document, select Add a New Document in the Manage Contract Documents page.

Deleting Contract Documents

You can delete contract documents in the Manage Contract Documents page. Select the Delete icon in the row of the contract document you wish to delete.

Validation

Oracle Quoting provides a facility to validate contract terms at certain times during the quote life cycle.

Validation ensures that customers are prevented from seeing invalid contract clauses, such as:

Validation is required and occurs automatically prior to the following Quoting functions:

You can also run validation manually from the Contract Terms page. Upon completion, Oracle Quoting lists all warnings that occurred during validation. The user can choose to fix warnings. For more information on warnings, see the Oracle Sales Contracts Implementation and Administration Guide.

Notes

Printing Quotes with Contract Terms

To print quotes containing contract terms, you use the Oracle XML Publisher printing solution.

The Oracle XML Publisher printing solution provides the ability to generate a printable PDF or RTF document that can be formatted according to the business' layout requirements. The layout of the quote printout and Contract Terms preview will be dictated by a customizable XSL-FO stylesheet, specified in the profile option ASO: Default Layout Template. Quotes printed using XML Publisher can be either in PDF or RTF format.

The printed quote will contain contract terms, regardless of quote status. If the quote is non-executable, the printed quote contains contract terms and a disclaimer (if one exists). If the quote is executable and printed in executable mode, the printed quote contains contract terms and a signature block.

If the contract terms on the quote are unstructured, i.e. the Contract Source is Attached Document, the attachment is merged into the printed quote if the following conditions are satisfied:

If any of the above conditions are not satisfied, the printed quote is generated without any terms and conditions.

The printed terms on the quote include:

Prerequisites

Notes

Order Submission with Contract Terms

Upon order placement, the quote is submitted to Order Management. All negotiated terms, signing details, and attached contract documents on the quote become part of the Sales Order and can be referenced from Order Management.