If you use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to manage your customer support, you can create contracts in the system. Those contracts are tied to a specific company record, and the contract is a collection of contract lines. Each contract line defines a specific service or offering that the customer is entitled to under the contract. Support cases can be tied to contracts in situations where an organization doesn’t want to extend any support to customers with expired or insufficient support entitlements.
All new contracts are based off a contract template. If you offer a dozen base support agreements, you can create contract templates for each of your offerings. Then, when one of your users creates a new contract in the system, the billing frequency, allotment type, and service hours will be pre-filled for the user.
Outlook 2003/2007/2010/ Internet Explorer:
In the Navigation Pane, click Settings and then Templates.
Click the Contract Templates option.
On the Actions toolbar, click the New button.
Give your contract template a name, billing frequency, abbreviation, allotment type, and calendar service hours.
Click the Save and Close button.
A contract is an agreement between you and your end customer to provide a specific service (or services) within the valid dates for the contract. If you offer a customer a technical support plan, use the contract feature to record the specifics of that contract.
Outlook 2003/2007/2010/Internet Explorer:
In the Navigation Pane, click Service and then Contracts.
On the Actions toolbar, click the New button.
Choose a template and click OK.
Give your contract a name, start date, end date, and currency. Add the linked customer and bill-to customer.
Add any other information.
Click the Save and Close button.
Contract lines are the specific items that show what your company is offering to provide the end customer under the contract. If you are using contracts to manage your technical support agreements, you might add contract lines for 100 hours of telephone support, 25 hours of on-site support, and 1,000 e-mail support responses. All three of these lines comprise your support agreement.
Outlook 2003/2007/2010/Internet Explorer:
In the Navigation Pane, click Service and then Contracts.
Double-click the contract you’d like to edit.
On the left, click the Contract Lines option.
In the Records group of the ribbon, click the New Contract Line button.
Give your contract line a title, start/end date, number of cases/minutes, and total price.
Add any other information to the contract line and click the Save and Close button.
Once the base structure of your contract is created, you can activate the contracts, send invoices to your customers, and modify or renew contracts as needed.
When the customer has agreed to purchase your support contract, you should send an invoice for the contract. Sending an invoice automatically changes the status to active. The invoice that gets created will show up in your list of invoices. Microsoft Dynamics CRM does not actually produce invoices for clients, but it can track whether an invoice is paid. This is a manual process, unless your CRM system is linked with an ERP system. Many customers use an integration broker like Pervasive or Scribe to integrate CRM with their accounting or ERP systems.
Outlook 2010/Internet Explorer:
In the Navigation Pane, click Service and then Contracts.
Double-click the contract you’d like to invoice/activate.
In the Actions group of the ribbon, click the Invoice Contract button.
Click the Close button.
To see the invoice, click Sales in the Navigation Pane and then Invoices.
Outlook 2003/2007:
On the toolbar, click the New Record drop-down and select a record type.
Enter field data for your account.
Click the Save & Close button.
If an active contract is no longer needed, you can cancel the contract. A customer may have moved to a different service, or perhaps the customer has invoked your money-back guarantee on services. Either way, cancelling the contract removes it from the active contracts list.
Outlook 2003/2007/2010/Internet Explorer:
In the Navigation Pane, click Service and then Contracts.
Double-click the contract you’d like to invoice/activate.
In the Actions group of the ribbon, click the Cancel Contract button.
Enter a cancellation date. The contract will no longer be active as of this date.
Click OK.
The support you offered was so great last year that the customer wants to renew his or her support contract. They’re essentially looking for the same service, so you’ll save data entry time by renewing the existing contract, rather than creating a new contract from scratch.
Outlook 2010/Internet Explorer:
In the Navigation Pane, click Service and then Contracts.
Double-click the contract you’d like to renew. (Only active/invoiced contracts can be renewed.)
In the Actions group of the ribbon, click the Renew Contract button.
Select whether to include cancelled contract lines, if there are any, and click OK.
Update information for the contract—like the start date and end date.
To activate the contract, choose the Invoice Contract option from the Actions drop-down on the toolbar.
Click Save and Close.
