Are you about to start using Rillion Contract as an efficient way to increase your invoice automation at the same time as ensuring the correctness of the invoice and getting better control of your organization’s spending? Great choice!
This guide aims to help you get started using Rillion Contract, as well as giving tips on how to further benefit from the functionality of the product.
A few things first
First things first; does your organization have a license for Rillion Contract?
Rillion Contract is included in your license if you have the package Professional or Premium. If you are unsure of which package you have, you can find out if you have Rillion Contract by checking if you can see Contract as an option under My tasks or Reports or as a checkbox when you create a flow proposal. If you do, then you have the license in place and you’re good to go. If you are still not sure, you can contact our support team or your Customer Success Manager at Rillion, and they will help you find out.
Secondly; have you thought about how you want to use Rillion Contract in your organization? What contracts should be registered, who should have access, and that sort of thing. We recommend starting your contract journey with a workshop where you cover the following topics:
- What contracts should be registered in Rillion Contract
- Who is going to register the contracts
- Rules on who needs to sign the contracts and when they should be revised
- Who should have permission to view contracts
- What information should be mandatory and what should be used as contract number
We highly recommend booking a half-day workshop together with a consultant from Rillion, who can help guide and train you and your co-workers in Rillion Contract, so that you get a setup that meets your needs and expectations.
Next; find your contract candidates. When we say contract candidates, we mean your vendors that are best suited for contract matching. We have some suggestions on how to find them, and we have collected them in the step-by-step guide "Identify potential contract candidates".
Activation
Before you can start registering contracts, there are some settings that need to be configured under Administration.
A more detailed guide for how to set it up can be found in "Rillion Contract: Activation settings getting started".
Organizational structure
You set up who can do what in Rillion Contract by assigning permission groups to roles. You can either create new permission groups or add permissions to existing ones. Our recommendation is a combination of both. The permission groups should cover the following functions:
- Contract administrator – This group should have full permission to add, update and delete contracts. It should also be able to search for all contracts from the reports. The group does not need permission to sign contracts.
- Approver – The approver should be able to add and update contracts. It needs access to the contract reports but can have limited access to only see their own contracts. This group also needs permission to sign contracts for matching.
The Contract Administrator group is typically set up as a new group that can be assigned to specific roles. There are usually more roles that should act as approvers, possibly all roles in the organization, so those permissions can be added to an existing permission group that a lot of roles already have. That will save you time, since you won’t need to assign a new permission group to each role.
Company settings
Under Administration > Register > Company you find your company settings. There are only two company settings that refer to Rillion Contract; Activate check against flow function rules for contracts and Flow for Contract when Unknown entered.
Flow function rules are a bit tricky. We will get back to that under Next step: Four-eyes principle.
When you have a contract for signing in your inbox, there is an Unknown button, same as when you handle an invoice. The company setting Flow for Contract when Unknown entered lets you decide what should happen to the flow when the Unknown button is used.
Flow proposals
If you plan to use flow proposals on your contracts, you need to make them available for use with contracts. When you open a flow proposal under Administration > General settings > Flow proposal, you have check boxes for each Rillion module your organization is using. You can either create new flow proposals for use with contracts, or you can check the Contract check box on existing flow proposals that you want to make available for contracts.
Register your first contract
Contracts can be set up in more or less complicated ways. We recommend that you start with a simple setup, by setting up a contract for periodic matching and completing only the mandatory fields. Invoices suitable for this type of matching should meet the following requirements:
- Arrive regularly, like once a month or every third month
- Have around the same amount each month
- Be account coded the same way each time
For details see the step-by-step guide "Rillion Contract: Set up a contract for periodic matching"
Contract Header
Most fields in the contract are not mandatory and can be left blank. The following fields are mandatory when registering a contract for matching invoices:
- Company: A contract must be connected to a specific company in order to be used for matching.
- Contract no: The contract number is matched to the contract number on the invoice. The same contract number cannot be used on more than one contract per vendor and company. Ideally the contract number should be stated on the invoice by the vendor, but it can also be added manually in the invoice log.
- Name and Description: These fields can be used in any way you prefer. They are searchable in the Show contracts report. It could be useful to add some short information about what type of agreement it is, e.g., telecommunications, cleaning, office rent.
- Contract status: Here we set if the contract should be used just for archiving or for matching. To make the contract available for matching, the status must be set to Active for matching. Choosing this status makes some of the fields under Periodic invoice mandatory. It also makes it mandatory for the contract to be signed by a role with an authorization amount high enough to sign the matched invoices, and permission to the accounts and objects used in the account coding.
Reminder fields
The reminder fields are not mandatory except for the field Contract manager role, but it is recommended to fill them out, since they are the key to getting notifications when a contract is about to expire or should be renegotiated.
The contract manager will receive the contract under My tasks > Contract on the set reminder date. The contract manager will also receive notifications if an invoice is expected to arrive but hasn’t.
Periodic invoice
This is where you set the parameters for the invoice matching, meaning you specify the conditions that the invoice should fulfill to be matched to the contract.
- Vendor: This is a mandatory field for contracts that are used for matching. The vendor must exist in the vendor register that is integrated from the ERP.
- Periodicity (days): This field is mandatory unless you are using a budget for the matching. Here you put in the approximate number of days between the invoices. Put 30 if the invoices will come once a month, 90 if the invoices are quarterly, and so on. If the invoice arrives too soon, there will be a text on the invoice warning about it. If the invoice is late, an e-mail will be sent to the contract manager role informing about the missing invoice.
- Accepted deviation: Put in the number of days the invoice date is allowed to deviate. It is recommended to set at least five days, to accommodate for longer bank holidays.
- Last invoicing: This field should not be filled in when registering a new contract. The field will be updated with the invoice date from the first invoice that matches the contract. It is later used to validate if the next invoice has arrived within the allowed timeframe, according to the periodicity and accepted deviation.
- TAX amount: The tax amount is only used for self-billing invoices and should be left empty for contracts that are not used for self-billing.
- Net amount: This field is mandatory unless you are using a budget for the matching. The net amount will be matched to the net amount on the invoice.
- Max amount shortfall/exceeding: If the amount on the invoices can differ a little bit each month, you can set how much the invoice amount is allowed to deviate from the contract amount and still be considered fully matched. The tolerances depend on what type of Contract/Invoice it is. Some will differ from time to time so you might have a bigger span, while others are more fixed and then you are stricter in the tolerances.
A common practice is for organizations to set up their own internal guidelines for setting variances. The rules can depend on what type of cost it is. A suggestion could be to set up template contracts that can be copied when setting up new contracts.
- First accruals/deferrals date: It is possible to allocate invoices that are matched to contracts by setting a first accrual date and then specifying the number of allocation days on the account posting lines.
Fully matched invoices
When the invoice arrives in the invoice log and matches a contract on both company, vendor, periodicity and amount there are three options for what should happen with the invoice:
- Directly to recording
- According to reference match
- According to flow proposal.
The goal should be to send all fully matched invoices Directly to recording, since that means the invoice will go straight from the invoice log to be final booked, and no manual handling will be required at all in Rillion Prime. When this option is used, you need to specify the Role on direct recording. Choose the role created for fully matched invoices during the initial configuration.
If for some reason the invoice still needs to be signed in Rillion Prime, you can set it up so that the invoice is sent out According to reference match, or According to flow proposal.
Invoices matched with a variance
Being matched with a variance means that the invoice is matched to the vendor and contract number, but the amount is outside the allowed shortfall or exceeding amount, or that the invoice date is too soon or too late to match with the periodicity. Here you have the option to use According to reference match, or to send the invoice according to a specific flow proposal. If you choose According to flow proposal, the flow proposal needs to be chosen in the field below.
Contract account posting
For adding the account posting lines there are two options. You can choose an existing account posting proposal or you can click on the Account Posting tab and add the account posting lines there.
Signing the contract
The contract must be signed by a role with enough authorization amount and permission to the account posting to make it available for matching. If an invoice arrives before the contract is signed, there will be a message in the invoice log saying that the invoice can’t be matched to the contract since the contract is not signed.
If the role used when registering the contract can't sign the contract alone, a role or a flow proposal needs to be added to the contract flow.
Contract review
Let’s have a look at how to handle a contract that has been sent to your role in Rillion Prime. By helping the end user understand what they need to do with a contract when they receive it is important to get a flow going, since invoices can’t be matched until the last role in the contract flow signs the invoice.
Here’s what you do when you receive a contract in Rillion Prime:
- Review the information on the contract header and make sure that dates and amounts are current. If the contract is ending, the status should be updated, and an end date should be set.
- If the contract is used for matching, the account posting on the contract also needs to be verified.
- If the contract is not ending, the reminder date should be updated so that the reminder is sent out in time, to make it possible to cancel the agreement or renegotiate the terms before it is automatically renewed.
A contract that is to be used for matching needs to be signed by a role that would have been able to sign the invoices that are matched to it. Roles can be added to the flow if the contract responsible role does not have enough permission to sign it.
Well done, you are now ready to experience the benefits of Rillion Contract!
If you are curious about how to level up the usage even more, we now continue to guide you through some more great functions and possibilities to help you benefit even more from Rillion Contract.
Level Up: Unlock more value
Budget matching
All contract invoices are not possible to match periodically. It can be invoices where the amount differs with the seasons, or an agreement for a project that will be delivered within a budget. For these types of contracts, matching can be set up against a budget instead of, or in combination with, periodicity.
A contract that is to be used for matching a budget has the same mandatory fields as a periodic contract, with the exception of periodicity and amounts. The periodicity can still be used, but it is also possible to set up the contract to match solely to an accumulated amount.
To add a budget to a contract, you click on Create budget, which you will find in the Periodic invoice section.
Budget amount
The Budget amount is the total net amount of the budget. Each time an invoice is matched to the contract, the invoice net amount will be added in the Matched Budget amount field. When the matched amount has reached the Percentage for notification, an e-mail is sent to the Contract manager role.
Specifying dates
The budget can be divided between periods. For seasonal invoices, you could set up one budget for the winter months and one for summer or make it even more specific with a period for each quarter or a month. You fill out either a Budget percentage or a Budget amount for the period; the system will calculate the value you don’t put in based on the total budget amount.
Optional fields
To make even better use of the Rillion Contract module, there are different ways of categorizing your contracts, making them searchable in different ways and aid with follow-up.
Validity fields
Under Validity, we have four date fields. The field Valid from should be the start date for the agreement and Valid to the end date or the date of automatic renewal. If you have a date in Valid to, you can also set up a reminder, so that a chosen role gets an e-mail x number of months before the contract ends or is renewed.
There are also fields for Date on which contract was entered into, Date on which the contract was cancelled, Term of notice, Automatic extension, and Price index applied. These fields are for information only. They don’t result in any automatic updates or reminders.
Add categories and labelling
All object types that you have on the account posting line in Rillion Prime are available as labels on a contract as a default.
In addition to these labels, there are four group fields, UserGroup and Group1, Group2 and Group3. The naming of the group fields are changed under Administration > General settings > Group types. It is possible to make a group field mandatory and to only allow values from a set list. A guide for how to work with the group fields can be found in "Contract - Categorizing and labelling contracts"
If you don’t see the group fields or want the group fields moved or changed into a check box or drop-down, you will need help from a Rillion consultant. Register a request in the Rillion support portal and we will be happy to help.
Images and appendices
If you want to add images or other types of files to your contract, that is done under Contract lines. Here you can add a signed copy of the agreement, appendices such as price lists or terms and conditions, or other addons to the contract.
Limit access to contracts
Our recommendation when it comes to limiting access to contracts is not to overdo it. Only limit the permissions where it is truly necessary. It is also easier to work with the Classification setting on the contract header, rather than setting permissions.
With that being said, you can set permissions to a contract either on the header or on specific contract lines by clicking the key button on the line or in the header menu. You either let specific permission groups or specific roles have rights to see the contract.
On the permission groups you decide what contracts a role should be allowed to find in reports and/or open, based on the permission settings on the contract. If the role has permission to find the contract, but not to open it, the header information will appear in the report, but the role won’t be able to open the contract and view the details. If the role has permission to the contract but not to specific lines, they will be able to open the contract and see the header information and contract lines but will only be able to open contract lines they have permission to.
Four-eyes principle
It is common practice to require at least two people to handle every invoice before it is booked, also known as the Four-eyes principle. The same type of rules can be set for contracts by applying Flow function rules.
To use flow function rules, you first need to activate the functionality in the company settings, under Administration > Register > Company. Under Administration > Contract > Flow-function rules, you then set permission groups that are required to handle the contract.
Motivating the organization
An important success factor when it comes to Rillion Contract is to make the organization see the benefits of the system and be excited about using it. Even if people in general may not like implementing new routines or starting to use new systems, you can usually find one or two co-workers who finds joy in trying out new functionality, and who see the benefits of not having to handle invoices and having their contracts easily accessible. Involve them in the Rillion Contract roll-out, and they will help spread the word to other co-workers about this efficient way of handling invoices and keep your contracts organized and accessible.
Reports & Insights
There are two reports under Reports > Contract in Rillion Prime, Show Contract and View Contract budget.
Show Contract is the report that lists all the contracts in Rillion Prime. Most header fields are available for search. A suggestion would be to do searches from time to time with Contract status=Active for matching and Active in flow=Yes. The result you will get is all contracts that should be used for matching but can’t be used for matching since they haven’t been approved yet. Do this search at the end of each month, to be able to nudge the people having contracts waiting for approval and get them signed before next month’s invoices start pouring in and save yourself some time not having to handle those invoices during month’s closing.
On the Dashboard, you have a graph showing how many invoices have been transferred from the invoices log using different types of matching. It’s a quick way to see how you are doing. Set a goal for how many invoices you want to have contract matched each month and use the dashboard report as a quick follow-up.
Rillion Analytics also have several reports where you can choose Contract matching as a matching type and follow up on how many successful flows and account postings you have had.
Concluding remarks
Thank you for letting us guide you through the set-up of Rillion Contract. We know you will have a great experience with our contract module. Any and all feedback you might have is very welcome and appreciated. Stay in touch and best of luck!