The Contracts page registers billing agreements between you and your clients. The selected contract type determines how billing is processed. There are five contract types.
Time and Material - The customer is charged for all of hours of work performed, any direct expenses incurred, and all materials purchased to support the resolution of tickets and the completion of projects. Time entered on tickets and tasks generates billable amounts for labor on invoices. The role assigned a labor time entry determines the rate charged for that labor. Default rates for roles can be adjusted on a per contract basis.
Recurring Services - Services are billed on a contract length, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis.
Fixed Price - A fixed priced contract is not subject to any adjustment on the basis of the provider’s cost experience in performing the contract. A fixed price contract is typically tied to a single project, but some users use them for support contracts. In many contracts the fixed price is divided into smaller milestone payments.
Retainer by Amount - The total price of the contract is prepaid. Clients schedule services when needed. Billings decrement the contract amount purchased.
Retainer by Hours - Hours of service are prepaid. Clients schedule services when needed. Labor time entries decrement the retainer hours purchased. The total price of contract is calculated by multiplying the number of contract hours purchased by an average rate.
Additional guidelines:
A customer can have multiple contracts.
You can pick a default contract for service tickets for a client, thus eliminating the guess work if something is covered or not.
You can link a service level agreements (SLA) to a contract
