Types of Contract Fulfillment

This topic explains what types of contract fulfillment lines you can create in a supplier contract, and how you can use them to create and monitor purchasing documents in your purchasing applications.

Types of Contract Fulfillment You Can Create

You can create two types of contract fulfillment:

• Contractual

  Fulfillment lines that are covered by the terms of the contract. You can initiate standard purchase orders or purchase agreements from contractual fulfillment lines, depending on the purpose of the contract.

• Noncontractual

  Fulfillment lines that aren't negotiated as part of the contract, which are used to monitor the progress or quality of contractual fulfillment lines. You can also create purchase orders and purchase agreements from noncontractual fulfillment lines.

A contract fulfillment of either type can have one or two directions:

• Inbound

  The fulfillment is the responsibility of the external party, such as the supplier for buy-intent contracts.

• Outbound

  The fulfillment is the responsibility of the internal party, such as the buyer for buy-intent contracts.

You can initiate purchasing activity for buy intent contracts only from inbound fulfillment lines. Contractual fulfillment lines are always inbound for buy contracts.

Contract fulfillment are of the two following types; contractual and noncontractual. The contractual contract fulfillment is inbound only whereas the noncontractual contract fulfillment is inbound as well as outbound. Here's the figure that illustrates the different contract fulfillment types, the purchasing activity you can initiate, and track from each type is discussed in the next section.

Types of Purchasing Activities That a Contract Fulfillment Can Initiate

You can initiate purchase orders or purchase agreements from fulfillment lines, depending on the purpose of the contract.

• The contract is used for immediate purchases and has at least one contract line item defined.

  You can create purchase orders from the fulfillment lines of such contracts. The contract type class for such contracts must be Enterprise Contract.

• The contract is used for future purchases and has at least one contract line item defined.

  You can create blanket purchase agreements from the fulfillment lines of such contracts.

• The contract is used for future purchases and doesn't have contract line items defined.

  You can create contract purchase agreements from the fulfillment lines of such contracts.

This table that lists the purchasing documents that you can create from different contract fulfillment lines in Oracle Purchasing, the purchasing application that's integrated with Enterprise Contracts.

Fulfillment Properties	Purchasing Document Created in Oracle Purchasing
The fulfillment is inbound. Contract is for immediate purchase. The contract includes contract lines.	Purchase order You can create only one purchase order from each fulfillment line, but you can create multiple fulfillment lines for each contract line if you have to stagger the purchases or ship to different destinations, for example. You can also combine multiple fulfillment lines to create one purchase order.
The fulfillment is inbound. Contract is for immediate purchase. The contract has no contract lines.	Purchase order You can duplicate a fulfillment line to create multiple fulfillment lines if you have to create multiple purchase orders.
The fulfillment is inbound. Contract is for future purchase. The contract includes contract lines.	Blanket purchase agreement You can create only one blanket purchase agreement from each fulfillment line, but you can create multiple fulfillment lines for each contract line if you have to stagger the purchases or ship to different destinations, for example. You can also combine multiple fulfillment lines to create one blanket purchase agreement.
The fulfillment is inbound. Contract is for future purchase. The contract has no contract lines.	Contract purchase agreement You can duplicate a fulfillment line to create multiple fulfillment lines if you have to create multiple contract purchase agreements.