Contracts System

Requirements

Context

• Ensure that every invoice approved and paid by Skoll has an active contract and outstanding
balance if appropriate.
• Every contract has an owner, department, start date, end date, hourly rate, total approved
amount and special notes.
• A contract can have amendment(s)
• Contracts may exist for some vendors only
• Only the owner of the contract and finance/legal should be able to view contracts.

Features

• Maintaining a Vendor Master

o Every new vendor will be entered into a vendor screen on salesforce.
▪ Fields on the vendor master
• Vendor Name
• Vendor Number (a cross reference to Sage Intacct)
• Contracted Vendor (Yes/No) – to indicate whether we have a
contract with this vendor.
o Should we have an end date for Vendors? No we don’t need to have an end date for
Vendors.
o Should Vendors be associated with departments to restrict the list of vendors users
see? Can a vendor work across multiple departments? yes a vendor can work
across multiple departments. It’s more important for people NOT to see contracts
details than to see that we are working with a vendor
o When does a record get created in this screen and how is it maintained? As soon as
Skoll starts working (negotiating) with a vendor, legal should inform finance of the
vendor info and finance will create a vendor. Once created, legal can start to enter
the contracts information.

• Maintain a Contract Master

o Whenever a new contract or amendment is signed then the contract will be entered
into the salesforce system. If the vendor is new, then the vendor must be set up in
salesforce before the associated contract with the vendor is entered.
o Only Finance and Legal will be able to view all contracts and edit contracts.
o Should the actual contract document also be stored in salesforce as a PDF? Yes
o Fields on Contract Master:
▪ Vendor or Consultant’s Name
 ▪ Amendment (Yes or No). In case of an amendment it Is recommended that
contract name be something like (Contract-A, Contract-B). Amendment will
be numbered as Amendment #1, Amendment #2, etc.
▪ Department responsible for the Budget
▪ Consulting Services (brief description)
▪ Start Date
▪ End Date
▪ Contract Maximum (Not to Exceed Amount)
▪ Hours and Hourly Rate
▪ Contract Owner (skoll staff)
▪ Notes
▪ Link to actual contract document. Ensure that only contracts
info/document. Not W9. springCM link example: SpringCMEos__SpringCM
| Salesforce
▪ Billed/Invoice amount (this is a computed field)
▪ NOTE: We have vendors that may have multiple contracts active at the
same time.

Fields that Legal currently keeps track of with all contracts and amendments in the Excel
spreadsheet:

Depart
ment Start End Date
Vendor/Cons Contract Owner of
Respo Date of of
ultant's Consulting Services Maximum Relations Notes
nsible Agreem Agreeme
name ($) hip
for ent nt
Budget
Under Contract Maximum, hours per week/month and hourly rate are kept track of.

• Invoice Processing
o Whenever a person submits a new invoice to be paid, the system should validate
whether the vendor on the invoice is marked as contracted vendor (versus no
contract). This information about vendors with contracts and without contracts will
be maintained on the vendor master.
o When entering the invoice, for vendor with multiple active contracts, must note the
unique contract identifier for that invoice.
o If the vendor on the invoice is marked as a contracted vendor
▪ Check if the vendor has an active contract? How do we check this? We use
vendor names and look for any active contracts (we have to make sure
amendments are maintained in the same database as contracts).
Amendments can:
• extend a contract date
• Add additional dollars
 • Or may not have financial impact
o For each active contract we must maintain the amount invoiced/billed to date.
o On the vendor invoice screen a new field called contract number will be added. This
is an optional field.
o When a new invoice is input into the system, it will check whether the outstanding
amount on the invoice is less than or equal to the Outstanding Balance (total
approved – total billed). This check would have to be performed across multiple
contracts/amendments if they exist, for the given vendor. If the new field contract
number is filled on the invoice screen, then outstanding balance will be computed
for the combination of the vendor and the input contract number.
o If the outstanding balance >= invoice amount allows the invoice to be submitted.
o If the outstanding balance < invoice amount displays an error on the screen, asking
the requester to contact legal.
o There should be a search on the vendor’s name field, so that users select the
correct vendor. This is against a dropdown as we do not want users to be able to see
a list of all vendors. Alternative is to associate Vendors to Departments and then a
user creating an invoice will only see vendors marked to their department. This
would require that Vendor master have department field. Is it possible for a vendor
to be associated with multiple departments (Caspian?).
o Note: SF will not track number of hours against a contract. We will post total
dollars on an invoice against the contracted amount.

o Reporting
▪ Legal can generate a list of contracts coming up for renewal/ending soon
▪ Legal and Finance can view outstanding balance by contract.
▪ Notification: Send legal notifications when a contract is 60days and 30days
away from renewal/end date.

• Open Questions
o Split contracts/payments? This is more of an invoicing consideration than a
contracts consideration.