When you create a contract, you can specify a currency. The currency initially defaults from the currency for the customer bill-to associated with this contract. If the customer has no separate bill-to address, the customer currency is used. You can modify currency only when creating a contract; after the contract is saved, currency cannot be updated.

The contract currency affects pricing for contract-wide additional charges and contract-level limit amounts or list-price limits. Limit amounts for a contract type are defined in base currency.

The system searches for line-item prices using the end-user currency.

How currency affects limits depends on the contract design. For a contract in end-user/item sequence:

For a contract in item/end-user sequence:

When you enter a non-base currency, the system looks for a valid exchange rate effective on the contract order date. An exchange rate pop-up enables you to specify a spot rate, and to indicate if the exchange rate is fixed or not. By default, the system displays both components of the exchange rate relationship. One of these is the base currency and the other is the contract currency.

This system uses this rate to convert limit amounts from the base currency to the contract currency. When you post the invoice for the contract, the system uses the exchange rate effective on the date of invoice post, unless you have indicated that the exchange rate is fixed.

For information on exchange rates, see QAD Financials User Guide.

Contract currency has an important effect on related calls and recording activity for them. Only one currency can be valid on a call. Since all the lines on a call must be in the same currency, the contracts associated with a given call must be in the same currency.

You normally specify currency after you begin service activity in Call Activity Recording. However, when you add a line to a call with contract coverage, the system sets the call’s currency in Call Maintenance.

If you try to add another item to the call that is covered by a different contract using a different currency, an error displays.

Currency normally defaults from the currency associated with the contract customer’s bill-to address. If you override this default in Contract Maintenance, the system warns you, since this may cause problems later if a call for multiple items for this customer is generated.

If Bill Summary is set to Yes for a contract, the system attempts to summarize information on one invoice. This is either one per end user, when Bill End Users is Yes, or one for the customer bill-to on the header, when Bill End Users is No.

If more than one currency is used on a contract, however, multiple invoices always result. See the section on Summarized or Detail Billing for more details.

See Constraints on Summarized Billing.

You can copy contracts and quotes with any of the following functions:

The currency of the old contract is copied to the new, unless you specify a different currency for the new contract being created. The new currency must be valid and, for non-base currencies, an exchange rate must exist for the new start date.

When you specify a new currency, the system replaces the currency for the header and every line that matches the old currency. Any lines with a valid currency that do not match the header are not changed. However, if the line currency is no longer valid, it is always changed to the new header currency. The system displays a message indicating the change.

When you specify a new currency, set Update Prices to Yes to recalculate line prices and limits using the new currency. Make sure you have appropriate price lists set up in this currency or prices default to zero (0). When the exchange rate changes, the system automatically recalculates contract limits and prices.