About retainer contracts

In some cases, a contract includes a retainer along with the services to be provided.
The customer pays the retainer at contract setup.
The customer is then charged for the actual usage of services according to its invoicing schedule, and the cost of provided services is deducted from the retainer.

In Visma Net, a retainer is referred to as a deposit contract item.
You configure a contract item marked as a deposit (by selecting the Deposit check box).
This contract item represents a retainer that the customer should pay at contract setup.

Then you assign this deposit contract item to contract items that represent services.
That is, you specify a deposit contract item in the Deposit item field for each contract item whose cost of usage is to be deducted from the retainer. After required contract items are configured, you add them, except for the deposit contract item, to a contract template designed for retainer contracts. When you add a contract item to a contract template, the system checks whether it has a deposit contract item attached; if there is one, it checks whether it has been added already. If a contract item has a deposit item attached that is not yet present in the contract template, this deposit contract item is added automatically.

You create a retainer contract based on the contract template configured for this purpose and activate it.
When you provide services to a customer, the usage of the services is recorded in the contract.
The customer is invoiced according to its invoicing schedule, and invoices are issued as a result of the invoicing process.
Each provided service and the retainer are displayed as separate lines in the invoice. The customer is invoiced for each service usage according to the pricing policy defined in the Recurring pricing field of the respective contract item.
When the retainer has been spent, the customer is invoiced for each service usage according to the pricing policy defined in the Extra usage pricing field of the respective contract item.

If a customer wants to replenish a retainer, this can be done with the contract upgrade procedure.
You can change the deposit contract item quantity if the contract template allows overriding of contract items.
For details, see: Make changes to contract services.

Retainer contract restrictions

1. The contract template must contain only one deposit contract item.
   
   The system does not allow a contract template to be saved if there are multiple deposit contract items.
2. The contract must be of either the Expiring type or the Unlimited type.
   
   The contract type is defined by the Contract type setting of the contract template that the contract is based on.