Create purchase contracts
- 6 min.
You can create a new purchase contract in three different ways:
- Based on a specific document in the document journal
- From a notification in Document Capture
- Manually from the Purchase Contracts page
Based on a document
This is the smoothest way to create a new contract because a lot of the information needed, such as vendor, amount, and dates are retrieved from the selected document and populated into the purchase contact fields. Using these fields, future recurring purchase documents are identified and linked to the purchase contract's automatic processes for review or approval.
Simply select the invoice from which you want to base the new purchase contract, and then in the action bar, select Purchase Contracts > Create Purchase Contracts.
In the Create Purchase Contract form, you fill in the fields and select OK.
Now, you can add or tweak any of the details, including the lines, from the Purchase Contracts page. For details about each field, please refer to the article Creating Purchase Contracts on Continia Docs.
Note
The Approval FastTab is only available if purchase contract approval is enabled. If you have the proper permission set (CDC-PC-ADMIN), you can change the approval frequency. You specify the approver in the Purchase Code field under the General tab.
Use a contract template
If you plan to use the same general settings for more than one purchase contract, you should create a contract template. For example, if your company leases multiple cars, a purchase contract template could help you quickly create purchase contracts for each of the cars. In this way, when you create a new purchase contract, most fields will be filled in automatically based on the template, and all you have do is to fill in the start and review dates for the contract.
Here's an example of a template to create purchase contracts for employee internet:
To create and use a contract template, in the Create Purchase Contract form, select the three dots next to the Apply Contract Template field.
Note
You can also create the templates separately from the contract in the Purchase Contracts Templates list. Simply search for Purchase Contracts Templates using the general search function in Business Central and create a new entry.
From a notification in the document journal
Another way to create a new purchase contract is by responding to a notification that appears in Document Capture's document journal, and identifies an invoice as potentially fit for handling by a purchase contract.
From the notification, you can access the overview of all the invoices or expenses that triggered the suggestion and based on that information, you can decide whether to create a new purchase contract.
If you decide to create a new contract based on the suggestions, you can either select Create Purchase Contract in the notification or from the action bar of the Suggested purchase contract page. This opens the same Create Purchase Contracts form mentioned in the previous section.
From the Purchase Contracts page
You can also create a new purchase contract even before you receive the first invoice. For example, if you have just changed cleaning services providers, you probably already know that a purchase contract will help you automatically register, approve and post the monthly invoices, and that you can use an annual review process to reconsider this ongoing cost before the renewal date.
To do this, navigate to the Role Center and under the Purchase Contracts section, select the All Cue. On the Purchase Contracts page, select New in the action bar.
This opens a new purchase contract which can be manually filled in with all the relevant vendor and billing details.
Other resources
- Creating Purchase Contracts (Continia Docs article)
- Creating Purchase Contracts based on invoice history (Continia Docs article)