Adjusting units and price of a service

SECURITY  Manager

NAVIGATION  Open a recurring service contract > menu > Services > click the Adjust Service/Service Bundle icon

In addition to adding and removing services and service bundles from a contract (refer to Adding services and service bundles), the services and bundles in the contract can be edited to reflect changes in the number of units covered by each service or bundle, as well as changes in price.

Manual changes are made on the Adjust Service/Service Bundle page. Any changes made to the service bundles or services generate an automatic contract note.

NOTE  If you add devices Your Autotask instance may be configured to use one of the following terms instead: Asset, Configuration Item, Installed Asset, Installed Product. to a contract, and the number of units is smaller than the number of associated devices, you will be prompted to increase the number of units for the service. Refer to About devices and contract compliance for a recurring service contract. There is also an Apply Overall Discount feature, located on the contract Service Bundles and Services table that allows you to apply a discount or price change to all service bundles and services in the contract at once. Refer to Applying an overall discount.

How to...

  1. To open the page, use the path(s) in the Security and navigation section above. The Adjust Service/Service Bundle page opens.

  1. Edit the following fields as needed:
Field Description
Service Bundles or Service Name Displays the name of the service bundle or service (read-only).
Effective Date Sets the effective date for all changes. Defaults to the date that is specified in the Show data for field at the time that you click the Edit icon to open the Adjust page.

NOTE  Best Practice: When making changes to the service bundles and services included in a contract, set the Show Data for field (located above the Service Bundles and Services table), to the date that you will set as the effective date for your changes. In this way, the list will display information about all Service Bundles, Services, and their Units and Prices that will be current on the effective date before you make your changes. The information displayed in the list will also appear in the Add or Adjust Service Bundles or Services page when you open it. After you save your changes, those changes will display in the list.


• For Unit adjustments, a prorated price is calculated based on this date and the last day of the billing period.
• For Price adjustments, the change does not appear in billing until the first day of the next billing period. There is no prorating from the effective date. The default effective date is the date displayed in the Service Bundles and Services list, as specified in the Show Data for field.
To change the Effective Date, type a new date directly in the field or click the calendar icon and select a new date.
Unit (Decrease/Increase) This field allows you to enter a positive or negative number to specify how many units to add to (+) or remove from (-) the service or bundle.
To change the number of units, enter the new value directly in the field.
Units This field displays two columns:
• The Current (On Effective Date) column displays the number of units of the service bundle or service covered by this contract on the selected effective date.
• When you change the number of units in the Units (Increase/Decrease) field, the Adjusted column displays the updated number of units.
To change the number of units, enter the new value directly in the Unit (Decrease/Increase) field.

NOTE   When you adjust the units for a service or service bundle and that adjustment causes a prorated price for the service or service bundle, the transaction is also posted to the Transaction History. Refer to About the Prorated Transactions list.

Unit Price

 

When adding a service or bundle, this field displays the default unit price specified in Admin.
To change the unit price for the current contract by a set amount per unit, type the new price directly in the field.
To reduce the price, that is, apply a discount, type the minus sign (-) before the amount of the discount.
Changes made to the Unit Price will be reflected in the Discount (%) and Extended Price fields.
Price changes for existing units take effect with the next billing period. If you change the number of units at the same time, only the added units will have the changed price from the effective date!

When you edit a Service or Bundle, the Unit Price displayed by default on the Edit pop-up window will be different based on whether the item being edited was added at the beginning of the Contract, or whether it was added after the start date of the Contract via an adjustment.
• Items that have been on the Contract since the beginning will show the date as of the Effective Date set on the Edit screen
• Items that were added via an adjustment will default to the latest Unit Price that was set for that item (even if it's a price from a future date)

NOTE  If you change a Unit Price and Extended Price during the current billing period, and the current billing period has not yet been posted, you can include the change in the billing period if you set the effective date to the first day of the current billing period. Price changes take effect on the first day of the billing period.
Discount (%)

This field allows you to change the current Unit Price and Extended Price amounts by a percentage discount. To reduce the price, enter the discount percentage in the field. To increase the price, type a minus sign (-) before the percent amount to create a negative discount, that is, a price increase. Changes made to the Discount (%) will be reflected in the Unit Price and Extended Price fields.

IMPORTANT  The discount must be between +9999.99 and -9999.99 percent. If a user makes a manual change of the unit price that is outside of these limits (for example, changes the price from $10,000 to $20), the discount would be -49,000. You will not be able to make such a large price change.
Extended Price Extended Price equals the Unit Price X the number of Units. The Current column indicates the Extended Price for the Effective Date before changes are made. If you change either the Unit (Increase or Decrease), Unit Price, or Discount (%) fields, the Extended Price field will update. If you change the Extended Price value, the Unit Price and Discount (%) values will update.
To change the Extended Price (and at the same time, the Unit Price), type the new value directly in the field.
Unit Cost

Displays your company's cost for the service or service bundle, as specified in > Admin > Features & Settings > Products, Services, & Inventory > Services or Service Bundles.
You can adjust the Unit Cost for services, but not for service bundles. The Unit Cost for service bundles equals the sum of costs for each service in the bundle.

NOTE  If you do not have permission to view internal cost data, this field is not visible.
Extended Cost

Read only. Displays the Unit Cost X the number of Units.

NOTE  If you do not have permission to view internal cost data, this field is not visible.
Prorated Price Amount Read-only. Displays the prorated price; that is, the price for the service or service bundle units for the billing period that contains the effective date, calculated from the effective date until the end of the billing period. The price is prorated to display the price for the number of days from the Effective Date through the end of the billing period in which the item is added or adjusted. For example, if the Effective Date for the item is May 15, and May 15 falls within a billing period that runs from May 1 to May 31, than the prorated price is calculated for 17 days, that is, from May 15 through May 31.
Prorated Cost Amount

After you add or remove units, displays the prorated cost of the changes for the billing period; that is, the unit cost for the service or service bundle, prorated to display the cost for the number of days from the Effective Date through the end of the billing period in which units are added or removed. Refer to Prorated Price Amount, above, for example of calculations.
Price adjustments that are not caused by a change in the number of units are not applied until the next billing period after the effective date and therefore are not prorated. When changing the price only, the Prorated Cost Amount is set to 0.00.
When adding or adjusting a service, you can adjust the prorated cost amount. Because costs are tracked by service, you cannot edit the prorated cost amount for service bundles.
The adjustment is applied only to the billing period in which the effective date occurs. This allows you to add a one time cost to cover any extra costs incurred at the time of the price or unit adjustment, for example, the time required to install the unit or update the contract. In this way your reports will provide a more realistic accounting of the contract charges.

NOTE  If you do not have permission to view internal cost data, this field is not visible.
  1. Click Save & Close.

A warning message can appear if the conditions indicated below occur:

  1. The number of adjusted units results in a number less than zero. In the message page, click OK and then change the number of units removed.
  2. Removal of units puts the number of units below the number of Devices associated with the service or service bundle, causing the contract to be out of compliance. In the message page, click OK. To return the contract to compliance, you must add the Unit back to the contract, disassociate one device from the service bundle or service, or use the Compliance option on the Summary page. Refer to Managing contract compliance.
  3. The Effective Date you entered is before the contract start date. The message prompts that you must enter "a date greater than or equal to [Contract Start Date]". In the message page, click OK and then change the date to one within the contract period.
  4. The Effective Date you entered is after the contract end date. The message instructs you to "provide a date less than or equal to [Contract End Date]". In the message page, click OK and then change the date to a date equal to or before the contract's end date.

In Autotask billing, prorated amounts show as separate line items that are approved and posted, invoiced or exported. If the number of units is reduced and the customer is due a credit, the prorated amount appears in Approve and Post as is a negative number displayed in red.

If units were added, the additional charge to the customer is shown in black. Future recurring Approve and Post items will be adjusted to the new pricing, as well.

When an administrator changes the cost of a service or bundle, the Unit Price (List) field is updated, but the Unit Cost field is not. If your reporting requires the updated Unit Cost, you must do the following:

  1. On the Services page of the contract, edit the service or bundle.
  2. On the Unit (Increase/Decrease) row, subtract the current number of units so the service or bundle count is adjusted to zero.
  3. Then, add the service or bundle back in. A new row with the same service or bundle is created. The new service or bundle will reflect both the current cost and price.