Contract Consolidation

This utility can be used to merge contracts.
All products from one contract can be moved on to another contract for the same customer and from the same Division, and closed on the old contract.
Any product detail notes are moved to the consolidated contract.
Any file attachments associated with the contract are moved to the consolidated contract, and removed from the old contract.
A comment noting the old contract # is also created in the notes of each product detail that is moved to different contract through the consolidation process.
A default flag in the Divisional Printing Parameters can be set to control whether the Print Consolidated Comments should print on the document or not.
This print flag can always be manually changed in the notes later if required.

This consolidation feature is useful for firms that issue contracts with few items on them, and later on want to amalgamate the contracts into one large contract.
Specialized rental firms, such as trailer rentals, will issue one contract per trailer, then consolidate the contracts for a customer in order to produce one large monthly invoice.

Note: Signed Contracts cannot be merged as this would require a new signature.

Contract Requirements to Consolidate:

To consolidate two contracts, both contracts must be for the same Customer but not necessarily same Site, and must have the same Division, Damage Waiver, Days to Bill, 28 Day/Monthly Bill/Class flag, and Indefinite rental flag.

The items on the contracts should usually be billed to a common date for ease of consistent cycle billing, though this is not mandatory and staggered billing within the contract is acceptable.
The process to "catch-up" the contract billing dates on new contracts to a common date in preparation for merging is:

• Run the Unbilled Contracts Report to determine if there are any new contracts created by the counter staff that need to be consolidated.
• Then use Cycle Bill A Single Contract to partial bill the contract to a common date.

Cylinder contracts generated from Cylinder Entry specifically to track cylinders, bottles, or containers as they are delivered and returned, cannot be merged.

Note: This utility can not be used if your firm uses the Vertex Tax software.

The prompts to merge two contracts are:

FROM CONTRACT #

Enter the source contract number to move the products from, or look for it in the Contract Search window.

Note: When this contract is merged to the To Contract # the products will appear to be at the Site for the To Contract #.

FROM CONTRACT DATE

The source contract date is displayed.

TO CONTRACT #

Enter the target contract number to move the products to, or look for it in the Contract Search window.
The contracts must meet the Contract Requirements to Consolidate listed above in order to proceed.

TO CONTRACT DATE

The target contract date is displayed.

Finished?

Click ACCEPT to proceed with the consolidation, or CANCEL to abort.

When consolidated, the products on the From Contract # are updated to Returned on that source contract, and are then added to the target To Contract # with status Out and with a comment in the notes referencing the original source contract#.
The 'Contract Consolidation History' is written, to track the original contract number used when the equipment went out.

RESORT CONTRACT DETAILS?

This confirmation screen is only triggered if the Document Detail Sort Sequence option for Detail Sort Will Be is set to "Prompt" in the Divisional Miscellaneous Parameters for the division on the contract.

Click YES to resort the products on this consolidated contract in the Sort Sequence defined for the division on the contract.
Click NO to leave the products in the sequence that they were entered on the contracts.

ACTIONS:
Additional actions provided by buttons on the Contract Consolidation screen include:

• View Contract Consolidation History:
  Click the INQUIRY button to view any products that were transferred to a selected contract, as outlined in Contract Consolidation Inquiry.