Contract periods

Each contract may have one or more contract periods (which may not overlap). Fees are often revised on an annual basis i.e. at the end of each period, and so annual periods are most common. Each period will have one or more products associated with it, with a fee attributed to each. This information is used to generate the Term Sheet. (However if a product is added to a contract period mid-term then this will be need to be manually issued)

Create a new contract period

1. Select Contract period Start and End dates. This determines the length of delivery and invoicing.

2. 'Send Invoices to' is a manual field - this is not mandatory.

3. Select the invoicing information

Billed: select whether the client will be invoiced on a monthly or quarterly period. (or lump sum if the contract fee is to be invoiced in full)

Paid: is the invoicing going to be standard, in advance or in arrears (Standard is the beginning of the month which the payment relates to; Advance is the beginning of the month prior to the month which the payment relates to; and Arrears is a payment after the month which the payment relates to (timings often determined by receipt of revenue reports)

5. Enter the Description of Content and any notes regarding renewals.

6. If a contract period is terminated or cancelled select the relevant box - SLM will auto date and time the cancellation / termination. Do not update the contract period End date - this should remain as the original end date, for transparency

Setting up Products

1. In the products section enter all agreed purchased products. The items will need to be numbered and the a fee allocated against each product. The finance code where the revenue will need to be allocated to will need to be selected against each product, for more details of Cost code see Chart of Accounts.

2. The sum of all the products will make up the total fee of the contract. Note- there cannot be more than one of the same product in the same period.The list of products available are managed in News Service Products.

3. If the arrangement is an Ad/Revenue Share tick the box. This tick box means that when the invoices are scheduled they will be defaulted to 'estimates'. If the contract is subject to a Minimum Revenue Guarantee then tick the MRG? box. The products with MRG? ticked will be listed in the contract term sheet.

4. Tick Allow Invoices once the contract has been returned. Note that if there are more than one product per contract period then each 'Allow Invoices' boxes will need to be ticked against each product before scheduling invoices - this means that all products will be on one invoice. If they are scheduled separately then each product will be invoices for separately.

Generating a term Sheet

The term sheet can be generated and viewed by pressing the “Term sheet” button. This generates a PDF contract that details all of the contract clauses, client services, contacts, special terms etc. Term sheets are only generated for the first contract period. The term sheet’s clauses are based on a template term sheet that is maintained in Contract term sheets – data from the contract is merged into the template to produce a term sheet that is ready to be emailed for signature.

The recipients for the term sheet should be checked and confirmed in Contacts before issuing the term sheet

Scheduling invoices

Invoices can be scheduled against the contract period by pressing the “Schedule” button, provided the chart of accounts details are complete and the “Allow invoices (this product)” checkbox is checked.

When the period is setup to be billed monthly invoices are generated for each month, with each product separately itemised on an invoice line. The invoices’ dates are set in accordance with whether the fees are payable in advance, in arrears, or within the period itself.

If a product is marked as an Ad share product then the invoices will be generated as estimates, and these estimates will need to have the correct fees applied before the invoice instruction can be sent to Oracle AR. (The estimates are needed to facilitate accurate accruals reporting. The actual fees are determined from data supplied by the customer.). In these such case ticking Chase statements (this product) will generate an email to be sent to the customer (on the invoice date) to request ad-share or royalty statements.

The invoice(s) will also be generated with an Hold status is the contract has not marked as being returned in the Duration + Terms, or if the contract is currently marked as Under Review.

Listing Content Usage

In some agreements the customer sells on the content and GNM may then have to pay on a royalty to the original contributor. The customers report their usage at the end of each contract billing period and so their content usage is linked to the period. In this situation information including the end client and fee, and royalties can be entered is recorded in Linked Content