9.2 Activating a Prepaid Contract

Purpose: Use this document as a reference for activating a prepaid contract in ctcLink.

Audience: Finance/Grant Fiscal Staff.

You must have at least one of these local college managed security roles:

  • ZC Contracts Processing
  • ZZ Contract Maintenance
  • ZZ Contract Processing

If you need assistance with the above security roles, please contact your local college supervisor or IT Admin to request role access.

Activating a Prepaid Contract

Navigation: Customer Contracts > Create and Amend > General Information

  1. On the General Information search page, select the Find an Existing Value tab.
  2. Enter or select the Business Unit.
  3. Enter or select the Contract number (same as the award number).
  4. Select Search.  The General Information page will display.
  5. On the General Information page, select the Lines tab.
General tab
  1. In the Contract Lines section, select the Detail tab.
Lines tab
  1. Select the Distribution link in the Accounting column for the line. The next several steps are to verify the revenue account code to the contract.  The Accounting Distribution page will display.
Contract Lines section Detail tab
  1. Use the Accounting Distribution page to verify/update the contract accounting details.
  2. In the Revenue Forecast section, enter or select the GL business unit for this account in the GL Unit field.
  3. In the Revenue Forecast section, enter or select the revenue account in the Account field.
  4. In the Revenue Forecast section, enter or select the revenue department in the Dept field.
  5. In the Unbilled AR section, complete the required ChartField entries for the contract, i.e. Account, Oper Unit, Fund, Dept, Class, Project, and State Purpose.
  6. Select Save.
Accounting Distribution
  1. A message box confirming that the Contract Asset accounting distribution has been changed will display. Select OK.
  2. Select the Return to General Information link.
Accounting Distribution page with message box
  1. On the General Information page, select Prepaids from the Go to More drop-down list.  The Prepaids page will display.
Contract Lines section General tab
  1. Use the Prepaids page to establish prepaid balance amounts for the contract.

The Status on the General tab of the Prepaids page is set to Pending. The Status controls the actions that can be performed on an advance line and what the system can perform in the way of processing.

  1. Enter the full amount of the advance provided by the contracting sponsor in the Purchased Amount field. This amount will remain static throughout the prepaid advance process.
  2. Enter the appropriate date of the advance into the Expiration Date field.
  3. Select the Utilization tab.
Prepaids tab
  1. Use the Utilization tab to provide the contract line item details.
  1. Enter or select the contract line item number into the Contract Line Num field.
  2. Enter a description in the Utilization Descr for Billing field.  This will be applied to the utilization line that is included in the bill.
  3. Select Save.  The General tab will display in the Prepaids for this Contract section.
Prepaids tab

The Purchased Amount and Remaining Amount fields show the amount of the prepaid.

  1. Select the Initial Billing tab.
Prepaids for this Contract General tab
  1. On the Initial Billing tab use the Prepaid Tax Timing drop-down list to select when to tax the prepaid amount.
  2. Select Save.  The General tab will display.
Prepaids for this Contract Initial Billing tab
  1. On the General tab, select the Billing Plans link.  The Assign Billing Plan page will display.
Prepaids for this Contract General tab
  1. Use the Assign Billing Plan page to assign bill plans to contract lines. Define bill plans and assign the contract lines to these existing bill plans, or assign the lines to a new billing plan and then define the details of the bill plan.
  1. Select the checkbox for the first line in the Prepaids to be Assigned/Unassigned segment of the page. It represents Contract Line 1 and Sequence 1.
  2. In the Bill Plan to Assign/Unassign section, select the Billing Method drop-down list to select Milestone.
  3. In the 'Description' field, enter Prepaid Billing.
  4. In the 'Billing Plan Template' field, select FIX_PRICE.
  5. In the 'Bill Plan Detail Template ID' field, select FIX_PRICE.
  6. Select Assign.

Even if your grant is As Incurred/Cost Reimbursable, the Prepaid Billing Plan must still be Milestone/FIX_PRICE as in the example below.

Assign Billing Plan page

The Plan field in the Prepaids to be Assigned/Unassigned section now contains a link to the newly assigned billing plan.

  1. Select the B102 link (or the Bill Plan on the new second line).  The Billing General page will display.
Assign Billing Plan

Use the Billing Plan General tab to confirm that the Billing Status is Pending. When the new bill plan is first opened, several fields in the Customer Information, Billing Options, and Billing Default Overrides sections are pre-populated. These values come from setup that is defined at the contract level on the Billing Options page or in the Billing Plan Detail template.

Options selected in the Billing Options section impact other aspects of the bills. For example, the selections made for Bill Type and Bill Source impact the format of the final invoice.

  1. Enter or select the appropriate invoice format for the bills that needed to generate from this bill plan in the Invoice Form field.
  2. Use the Cycle ID field to associate a billing plan with a bill cycle that is defined on the Bill Cycle page. When running the Contracts Billing Interface process, specify that it should process only billing plans of a specific billing cycle type.
  3. Use the Bill By ID field to enter an ID for grouping bill lines on invoices.
  4. Use the Billing Specialist field to enter a code for a billing specialist. Billing Specialists are established on the Billing Specialist page.
  5. Select Save.
  6. Select the Events tab.
Billing Plan General tab
  1. Use the Events page to enter the prepayment event details
  1. Use the Event Status drop-down list to change the status to Pending.

This makes all the fields available for entry. If an Event Detail line is not already included, select the Add multiple new rows [+] button.

  1. Enter or select the date the Prepaid amount was received in the Event Date field.
  2. Enter the Percentage of the contract amount that was prepaid. The Amount field will update when the record is saved.
  3. Now that you have updated the necessary fields, use the Event Status drop-down to change the status to Ready.
  4. Select Save.
  5. Select the Return to Assign Billing Plan link.
Events tab
  1. On the Assign Billing Plan page, select the Return to Prepaid Balances link.
Assign Billing Plan page
  1. On the Prepaid Balances page, select the Contract Liability Distribution tab.
Prepaids tab
  1. Use the Contract Liability Distribution tab to enter the Chartfield details.
  1. Enter or select a separate deferred revenue distribution code for the prepaid advance amounts Distribution Code field. This allows easy tracking of expenditures.

Distribution Codes input a pre-determined accounting string. Once this information is available, enter any fields that were not defined. When entering these fields, the selection in the Distribution Code field is removed, but the accounting string remains.

  1. Enter or select the appropriate fund in the Fund field.
  2. Enter or select the appropriate department in the Department field.
  3. Enter or select the project ID in the Project field.
  4. Enter or select the appropriate state purpose in the State Purpose field.
  5. Select the Save button.  The General tab will display.
Prepaids contract liability Distribution
  1. To update the status of the prepaid contract, use the Status drop-down to change the status to Ready.
  2. Select Save.
  3. Select the Return to General Information link.
Prepaids tab
  1. On the General Information page, select the Amount Allocation link.  The Billing Allocation page will display.
Lines tab
  1. Use the Billing Allocation page to update the billing information.
  1. Enter the amount of the Prepaid Bill Plan in the Fixed Billing field.
  2. Select the Recalculate button.
Billing Allocation tab

The Allocation field changes from Incomplete to Complete.

  1. Select Save.
  2. Select the Return to General Information link.
Billing Allocation tab
  1. On the General Information page, select the General tab. .
Lines tab
  1. To update the overall status of the prepaid contract enter or select ACTIVE in Contract Status.
  2. Select Save.

If there are any required values missing, the status will not change and the error message displays what required values are missing.

General tab
  1. Process complete.

The next step for the Prepaid contract is to follow the QRG 9.2 Fixed Priced Grant/Contract Billing for the prepaid amount.

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