Creating a new contract

When you create a new contract, a wizard guides you through three main steps. In these steps, you will:

  • Add basic contract information
  • Add billing information

  • Add contract parts

    If you enabled Advanced Automation (see Activating Advanced Automation) and defined a new customer with billing information, when you create a new contract for this customer they will have only two steps in the contract wizard (basic contract information and contract parts).

When you complete the wizard, the contract is automatically added to the list of existing contracts displayed in the Contracts tab. They can be then be viewed and updated, as required; see Modifying a contract.

To create a new contract

  1. In the management portal, go to Sales and billing > Sales.

  2. Click the Contracts tab, and then click + New contract.

    If you have existing customers that have no contracts assigned, you will be prompted to create contracts for them. When clicking Create or Create contracts for existing customers, you can select the relevant customer, and click Next. You must then define contract information, as described in the next step.

  3. In the displayed wizard, define the following contract information:

    • Reference number: (Optional) The reference number that is frequently used in paper contracts.
    • Contract name: The contract name.
    • Organization: Select the relevant organization from the drop-down list.
    • Contact email: (Optional) Email contact for this contract.
    • Billing entity: Select the relevant billing entity.
    • In the Payment details section, select an interval period (Every month, Quarterly, Semi-annually, Every year), when to bill (Upfront or Afterwards), and select the payment method (Pre-authorized debit or Pay manually; this enables customers to pay invoices via wire transfer or by using one of the payment integrations - they can also send the invoice to their local bank for direct debit processing).
    • In the Contract period section, define the contract period (if the contract has no defined end, select the Forever check box), and select whether to send the invoice by email or mail.
    • In the Customer address section, define the relevant address details.

    • If you want to include block hours in your services, enable the Block hours option switch. Then define the number of block hours and the renewal threshold percentage. Select the Retainer check box if this contract is a retainer agreement (and the block hours are billed every month, quarter, or half year). Once enabled, you can:

      Discard remaining hours (to discard the remaining hours not consumed during the retainer billing period).

      Keep remaining hours (to keep the remaining hours not consumed during the retainer billing period).

      Time spent on tickets is either invoiced separately, marked as non-billable if the work is part of a fixed price agreement, or booked against the current block hour credit.

      Block hours enable you to reserve a block of support hours for customers, and are billed based on the default block hour product rate as set in the invoice settings. The renewal threshold is used to notify you when the current block has a specific number of hours remaining. The notification allows you to create a sales item for a new block by clicking Renew block hours. Once the new block is billed, it is shown in the available block hours balance.

    • Select the Pro-rated check box if changes made to the contract will be billed prorated or at their full price.

  4. Click Next to move to Step 2 of the contract wizard, billing information. Note that if you have already defined billing information for this customer, you proceed to Step 3 of the contract wizard, adding contract parts (see Step 7 below).

  5. Define the following fields:

    • Business name: The predefined customer name.
    • Legal form: Select the applicable legal name of the customer's organization.
    • Debtor code: (Optional) The customer code used in third party systems.
    • Email: (Optional) The customer's predefined email address.
    • Website: (Optional) The customer's website URL.
    • Main office: (Optional) Select the parent company from the list.
    • VAT / Sales tax number: (Optional) The customer's VAT or Sales tax number.
    • Time registration roundup time (minutes): Define a value which will overwrite the default general roundup time setting (the minimal roundup for a work time submission) for the customer. For example, when a technician works five minutes, it can be automatically rounded up to 15 minutes, or whatever value you set.
    • Payment terms (days): (Optional) Define the number of days in which a customer has to make payment.
    • Direct debit: (Optional) Select the check box if payment will be made by direct debit.
    • Create subtotals on invoice: (Optional) Select the check box, if required.
    • Consolidate billing into one invoice: (Optional) Select the check box, if required.

    • Bank account: (Optional) Enter the customer's bank account number.

      The Bank account field relates to the direct debit functionality, via which you can send instructions to your bank to charge a specific customer (in addition to some offline confirmation, an invoice can be submitted to your bank to charge a customer; the invoice should contain details about the customer). For more information, see Defining billing information for a tenant.

  6. Click Next to move to Step 3 of the contract wizard, the adding of contract parts.

  7. Click Add contract part.

    If the selected customer has defined Acronis products or services, you are prompted to edit or delete these, as required. You can then add additional contract parts, as described below.

  8. Define the following fields:

    • Contract part type: Select the relevant contract part type from one of the following:
      • Default type: Used for general contracts that do not use an integration.
      • ICT service: This type enables you to sell an ICT (information and communication technology) service, such as File storage. When offering this service, multiple ICT assets can be added, including data centers, storage servers, network switches, etc. However, you can also use these assets in other contract parts. For example, when you create the File storage ICT service, you can add the data center, storage server and switch; when adding another ICT service that also uses the data center, you can still add the data center in this other contract part. When you create a ticket for the customer, the system lets you first select an ICT service and then the associated asset(s).
      • Managed service: This type is generally used for managed services such as Workstation management. Add the relevant machines to the contract part. Once done, these assets are removed from the list of available machines so they cannot be connected to another contract part.

    • In the Product or services section, select the relevant products or services you want to add, including the quantity and price of the product or service.

      The Actual quantity field defines the amount of service you currently provide to your customer within the scope of the contract. This value can be set:

      • Manually: Your customer is invoiced for a fixed amount of service every billing period. For example, five managed workstations monthly.

      • Automatically: Your customer is invoiced for the amount of service reported by one of the enabled integrations. For example, five servers are reported by Acronis Cyber Cloud integration in one month, and six servers reported the following month.

      The Minimum quantity field enables you to set a minimum service quantity to bill customers. If the value defined in the Actual quantity field is higher than the value defined in the Minimum quantity field, the actual quantity is used for billing. If the value defined in the Minimum quantity field is higher than the value defined in the Actual quantity field, the minimum quantity is used. These fields are also used for calculating usage and profitability in reports.

      The minimum billable quantity enhances the option to sell services as packs. For example, if you create a contract for a customer to backup at least two devices and using at least 500 GB of storage, the created invoice includes two line items for the devices and for the storage, without creating a sales item for the storage. The customer can be also billed for any usage above the minimal quantity specified in the contract (a separate sales item is created for the consumed storage above the defined 500 GB).

    • In the Contract period section, define the relevant period. If there is no end date, select the Forever check box. By default, these dates are copied from the contract information settings (see above). Note that the date range should be shorter than the main contract date range. To apply a longer period, you must first adjust the main contract period.

    • Click the Trial option switch if you want the contract part to be part of a trial period. To define the trial period, select the relevant number of months. Trial contract parts are included in invoices during a billing run with zero prices for information. When the trial period ends, the contract part shows the regular price in generated invoices.

      The trial option can only be applied one-time per contract part. In addition, if the selected contract part has previously been billed for, you cannot enable the trial option.

    • Integrations: Select the relevant integration. When an integration is selected, an additional Show machines in invoice field is displayed. This field defines if machine details are included in the invoice; Yes is selected by default.

      Integrations enable you to tie the quantity of a contract part to real usage provided by the selected integration (such as the number of active workloads for a specific customer, or the number of virtual machines or amount of gigabytes used by a customer in hosted storage).

      The available workloads include those with Acronis products and services (for example, Cyber Disaster Recovery Cloud, and Cyber Protection), and RMM integrations.

      To find the relevant integrated workloads, you can filter by client (meaning those workloads related to the selected client), workload type (workloads of a specific workload type), and individual workloads (search for and select the relevant workloads from the workloads list).

      In this section, you can also select an RMM integration and link the different agents associated with it (for the RMM alert-to-email functionality to work correctly, you must have the correct machines added to valid contracts). Advanced Automation uses these to connect the RMM site or group with the right customer. Using this information, it can apply the SLA to the ticket, based on the contract to which the machine is connected.

      An additional Automatic updates check box is also displayed, and enables the automatic workload number calculation for invoices. When selected, it disables the Actual quantity field in the Product or services section.

    • Service Level Agreement: Select the relevant SLA.

  9. Click Add to add the contract part to the contract.

  10. (Optional) Click Add contract parts to add additional contract parts.

  11. Click Done. The contract is added to the list of existing contracts in the Contracts tab.