Contract Headers

The contract header serves two primary functions in the PeopleSoft Contracts application. First, the header captures agreement information for a specific contract. Second, the header provides a simple and flexible format that enables you to tailor the structure of the contracts to match the business model. Based on the selections that you make at the header level, the PeopleSoft Contracts application can support multiple contractual relationships, including individual contracts, multiple contracts per customer, one contract per service provided, and one contract for multiple services.

The following sections discuss how to use the field settings and options on the contract header to create interdependencies between contracts, and what the default hierarchy is for fields on the contract header.

Understanding Contract Classes

You specify the contract class on the contract header. To support a broad range of contractual relationships, PeopleSoft Contracts uses two contract classes: a master contract and a standard contract. These classes are used in conjunction with the contract types that you establish on the Define Contract Type page. Contract types enable you to categorize contracts for reporting purposes and to limit the contracts to which certain milestones can be applied.

Note:

Do not confuse contract class with contract classification. The contract classification selection, chosen when you create a new contract, determines the way that fields and pages appear in the PeopleSoft Contracts application.

Standard contracts are the primary contract class; at a minimum, you must set up standard contracts. The standard contract contains all agreement information for a specific contract. Additionally, the standard contract is linked to the contract lines that contain the contract line details for the contract; only standard contracts can have contract lines attached to them.

You can link a standard contract to a master contract, or assign the standard contract a parent contract. By assigning a standard contract to a master or by assigning a parent contract, you create a parent-child relationship between the two contracts. This parent-child relationship can aid you in contract tracking and reporting. No processing is driven off of the parent-child relationship.

On the standard contract, you can override any values copied over from an existing standard contract, master contract, or contract template.

Master contracts can be used in conjunction with standard contracts to support a broad range of relationships. A master contract contains high-level agreement information that is applicable to a series of contracts. For example, you might use master contracts to relate several standard contracts together for reporting or to create default header information to be used when creating new standard contracts.

Creating master contracts can increase the efficiency and accuracy of the contract information by reducing the amount of information that you need to enter when setting up a new standard contract. For example, to set up multiple contracts for a customer, you could set up a generic master contract for the customer and then copy the master information to create several standard contracts based on the specific contract lines. All the header terms and conditions set up at the master level are copied over to the standard contracts. If you license additional products or services to that customer, you can associate the new standard contract with an existing master. This setup enables you to easily query (by using PeopleSoft Query or a different query tool) the database to find all contracts that are related to a single master. Please note that you cannot associate billing or revenue plans with master contracts.

A standard contract can be linked to a master at any time before the contract is set to Active processing status. For example, you may have several existing standard contracts in the contracts system that you want to associate with each other. By assigning these to a master, you can take advantage of the grouping and reporting features provided by the master contract. Linking a standard contract to a master contract does not affect the agreement information that exists on the standard contract.

Note:

You cannot link a standard contract to a master if the standard contract is already saved to Active processing status.

A master contract cannot be linked to another master contract. However, you can associate a master contract with a parent contract. The parent contract with which you associate the master contract can be either a master contract or a standard contract.

Using the Parent-Child Relationship

PeopleSoft Contracts enables you to create parent-child relationships between any two contracts. In addition to the parent-child relationship that exists between master and standard contracts, you can create a parent-child relationship between two master contracts or between two standard contracts. PeopleSoft Contracts can support a complex array of hierarchical contract structures. How you use the parent-child functionality is dictated by the structure of your company's contract system.

These examples discuss how you might use parent-child relationships to structure a contracts system:

You use only standard contracts.

You have licensed a set of products and services to a customer's East Coast branch. The customer expands to the west coast, and wants to license an additional set of products and services for its new location. You create a new standard contract by copying the existing contract to capture the terms and conditions that were established on the existing contract. You can then designate the original contract as the parent to enable grouping of the two contracts for viewing and reporting.
You have a single master contract that covers the general terms and conditions required to do business with your company.

You issue subsequent standard contracts that focus on the specific products and services that you are licensing. After you set up the master contract, you can create standard contracts by copying from the master. After the information is transferred to the standard contract, you can add additional header information to the standard contract, overwrite the header values that were brought over from the master contract, and add contract line detail information to the standard contract.
You have a single master contract that covers the general terms and conditions required to do business with your company.

You create additional master contracts for each customer, wherein you capture any contractual information that is specific to that customer. You then issue subsequent standard contracts that focus on the specific products and services that you are licensing. In this scenario, you assign the single master contract as the parent to each of the customer-specific masters. Then you issue an additional standard contract for a customer site with a standard contract already in place. In this scenario, you can create the new standard contract from the existing standard contract, and assign the existing standard contract as the parent to the new standard contract. The new standard contract will be implicitly linked to the single master—individual customer master—and explicitly linked to the existing standard contract.

Creating Contract Templates

You will often have multiple contracts that use the same set of standard information. One way to reduce the amount of data that you need to enter into the contracts system is to open a new contract header, enter the information once, and then save the contract header as a contract template. To designate a contract as a template, the contract must not be:

Active.
Designated as a master or a parent.
Linked to a master or a parent.

When you save a contract header as a template, the contract status field becomes unavailable for entry. This happens because the contract status drives Application Engine processes, and no Application Engine processes can occur against templates. After you save a template, you can use the template to create new contracts.

Creating a Contract from an Existing Contract

Using an existing contract as the basis for a new contract reduces the amount of data that you need to enter into the contract, speeding up entry time and reducing keying errors.

Any existing contract, regardless of contract status and contract type, can be used as the basis of the new contract. If you select a contract that has undergone amendment processing, you copy from the latest iteration of that contract.

When you create a contract from an existing contract, all contract header fields from the existing contract are copied into the new contract. These items are not copied into the new contract:

Notes.
Support team information.
Billing plans.
Revenue plans.

After the contract information is copied to the new contract, you can add information and overwrite existing information.

Note:

If you copy from a contract containing billing and revenue templates, the system creates the billing and revenue plans in the new contract. The system bases the new billing and revenue template defaults on the current product setup in the copy from contract.

Note:

If you copy from a contract with a classification of government or internal, the system copies eligible lines only.