BidUnity DocsSet up contract terms
Create and edit a project's contract terms, and correct the original contract value.
Who can do this: Company admins and Standard users. Field/shop workers can't open the Terms tab. Only company admins can correct the original contract value once it is locked.
The contract terms record the agreement you made with your customer: the contract value, key dates, how and when you bill, and how much retention the customer holds back. You need them before you can track change orders or bill the job.
Before you start
The Terms tab tells you what is missing before it lets you create the terms:
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| Mark a proposal as Price Awarded before defining the terms | Open the winning proposal and mark it Price Awarded. See Change a proposal's status. |
| Add a customer entity from the contacts tab before creating contract terms. | Add the customer company on the project's Contacts tab. See Manage project contacts. |
| Add at least one billing contact from the contacts tab before creating contract terms. | Add a person to that company on the Contacts tab. |
Create the contract terms
- Open the project and go to Terms.
- Click Create contract terms.
- Fill in the sections of the form. The fields are described below.
- Click Create contract terms.
BidUnity fills in the form for you to start with:
- Original contract value is the Price Awarded proposal's total, including sales tax.
- Contract status is Offered.
- Counter party is the first customer company that has a contact, and the billing address comes from that company.
- Date executed, Scheduled start, Scheduled completion and Expected start are today, Bill by date is 20, Bill thru date is 31, and both retention rates are 10%.
- Billing terms is Monthly progress billing, Payment terms is Due upon receipt, and Send via is Email.
Contract dates and schedule
Date executed, Scheduled start, Scheduled completion and Expected start are required. Actual start date and Actual completion are optional; fill them in as the job moves along.
Contract attributes
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Contract status | Where the contract stands. See Contract and change order statuses. |
| Original contract value | The contract value before any change orders. |
| Counter party | The company you have the contract with, usually your customer. Click New contact or Add existing contact under Counter party not listed? to add one without leaving the form. |
| Counter party project ID | The customer's own number for the job, up to 40 characters. It prints on applications for payment and change order authorizations. |
| Change orders | Choose Bill separately or Bill with contract. This records how you agreed to bill change orders with your customer. It shows on the Terms tab and, as Change order billing, on the Change orders tab. It doesn't change your bills: BidUnity bills approved change orders the same way with either choice. |
Billing terms
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Billing terms | How you bill the job: Monthly progress billing, Billed upon completion, or 50% deposit & balance upon completion. This sets the starting lines of the schedule of values. |
| Payment terms | When the customer must pay: Due upon receipt, Net 15, Net 30, Net 45, Net 60 or Paid when paid. |
| Bill by date | The day of the month (1 to 31) your bill is due. New applications for payment use it for the application date. |
| Bill thru date | The day of the month (1 to 31) each billing period ends. New applications for payment use it for the period end date. |
| Material retention (%) | Retainage on stored materials. Retainage (also called retention) is the share of each payment the customer holds back until the job is done. |
| Labor retention (%) | Retainage on completed work. |
For Bill by date and Bill thru date, a day after 28 means the last day of the month.
Invoice delivery
Pick the Billing contact (a person at the counter party), choose Send via (Mail or Email), and enter the bill-to address. Pick the Country (United States or Canada) first, then the State from the list. For Canada, State becomes Province and ZIP code becomes Postal code. Billing contact, Address line 1, City and State (or Province) are required.
Record keeping
Optional dates for tracking the paperwork: Draft date, Received contract, Date to manager, Date to counterparty and Date executed received.
Budget and labor
At the top of this section, the read-only Production obligation forecast table lists the proposal's labors, with shop, field and total hours and cost for each. Its footer compares the proposal's labor cost with 20% of the proposal's value.
Shows the Budgeted labor cost, Bid shop hours and Bid field hours from the proposal. You can set Shop duration (hours) and Field duration (hours).
Average labor burden (recalculate planned duration) is a helper: change the value and leave the field (or press Enter) to recalculate the shop and field durations. The burden value itself is not saved with the terms.
Edit the contract terms
- Open the project and go to Terms.
- Click Edit contract terms.
- Make your changes and click Save changes.
Once billing has a schedule of values, Original contract value is locked. From then on the contract grows only through approved change orders.
Correct the original contract value
Who can do this: Company admins.
If the original contract value was wrong and is now locked, a company admin can correct it.
- Open the project and go to Terms.
- Click Correct original contract value.
- Enter the Corrected original contract value.
- In Reason, say what the correct value is based on. You can't edit the reason later.
- Click Correct value.
The correction also updates the schedule of values to match, and BidUnity records who made the change and why. Applications for payment you already saved keep the value they printed.
If the value isn't locked yet, change it with Edit contract terms instead.
What happens next
- The Terms tab shows the saved Contract details and Billing settings.
- You can now add change orders on the Change orders tab. See Manage change orders.
- You can now set up billing. See Set up the schedule of values.
- The project shows in the Work in progress report unless its status is Discharged or Excluded.