Vendor Contracts

What is a Vendor Contract?

In Discovery, a Vendor Contract is a record that represents a contractual agreement between a Vendor and a Client or a Vendor and a management company. These records are designed to digitally mimic the traditional pen-and-paper (or PDF) documents that vendors and managers typically sign. The line items on a Vendor Contract record are the services and fees tied to it in Discovery.

How do I?

• How do I create a Vendor Contract?
• How do I add fees to a Vendor Contract?

Anatomy of a Vendor Contract

Primary Fields

• Vendor

  This is the vendor that is servicing the contract and should also be the same for all services on the contract.

• Effective Date

  This is the date that a contract becomes effective. This value must always be a date that comes before the expiration date and termination date (if set).

• Expiration Date

  This expiration date is the date that a contract's current agreement terms are set to expire on. Not be to be confused with termination date, the effective date does not mean that the contract has ended. Rather, it signifies that the given agreement terms have ended and are open to re-negotiation.

  A Vendor Contract with a status of "Rolling Month to Month" will automatically have it's effective date bumped up to the next month as long as the contract isn't terminated.

  In Discovery, this date will always be the Effective Date + Term Months on the contract.

• Termination Date

  This is the date that contract is terminated. It represents the end of the contract agreement between the vendor and waste manager. No services on the contract will be serviced after this date.

  Term Months

  The number of months that a contract's terms are effective for.

Statuses

A Vendor Contract in Discovery may flow through many different statuses throughout its lifecycle. These statuses are used to inform users of the Contract's current validity and track the availability of "auto-renewal" cancel opportunity windows.

Pre Term: There are upcoming services scheduled, but the Effective Date on this contract is still in the future.

Initial Term: This contract is past its Effective Date and has never expired before (and thus never been auto renewed), and is not currently within a window of time that would permit cancelling any auto-renewal clause. Looking at the contract's `initial_expiration_date`, it will be a date in the future.

Initial Term (Can Cancel Auto Renewal): Initial expiration date has not been met. However the contract is eligible for a Cancellation of Auto Renewal, because given the expiration date and the Minimum days to notify and Maximum days to notify values, the current date falls within that window of time.

Initial term (Auto Renewal Cancelled): The contract is still within its Initial Term and Expiration Date is in the future, but the contract's Auto Renewal was successfully cancelled. This is a good status to be in as future negotiating opportunities will not be locked-out because of a long term auto renewal. Once the contract expires then it will be moved to Rolling Month to Month.

Standard Renewal Term: No Cancellation of Auto Renewal Letter was sent and the vendor contract auto renewed for the Auto Renewal Term Months value. There is also not an opportunity to cancel the auto renewal at this time, based upon the contracts Days to Notify (min) and Days to Notify (Max) values.

Standard Renewal Term (Auto Renewal Cancelled): The Contract is in a Standard Renewal Term, and the Auto Renewal has been successfully Cancelled. Once the contract expires then it will be moved to Rolling Month to Month, and a renegotiating opportunity will be available.

Standard Renewal Term (Can Cancel Auto Renewal): The contract is in a renewal term but it is also eligible for a Cancellation of Auto Renewal because the current date falls between the Minimum days to notify and Maximum days to notify values. Once the cancellation of auto renewal values are set, the status will transition to Standard Renewal Term (Auto Renewal Cancelled).

Rolling Month to Month: The contract does not have an extended term. In most industries, particularly the waste industry, a minimum 30 days notice is needed to cancel service due to the logistics of equipment removal, etc. Therefore the vendor contract is "renewed" for 30 days each night, and the status remains "Rolling Month to Month".

Terminated: When a vendor contract reaches its Termination Date and there are no active services left on it, Discovery will automatically set this as the contract status.

Auto Renewal

Auto Renew Cancellation Document This is represents the cancellation notice/document that was sent to the hauler/service provider for a given Vendor Contract. While it's not necessary to store this in Discovery, people often choose to do so for their own record keeping purposes.

Auto Renew Cancellation Mail Receipt Proof This is the cancellation proof receipt; It should be given to your by the vendor of a contract once the auto-renew is indeed cancelled.

Auto Renew Cancellation Notice Sent On The date your auto-renew cancellation notice was sent.

Maximum days to notify The maximum number of days to notify the hauler (for auto-renewal cancellation) before the contract expires.

Minimum days to notify The minimum number of days to notify the hauler (for auto-renewal cancellation) before the contract expires

Contract Term Length The number of months the contract will be active for until it's auto-renewed or terminated

Auto Renewal Term The number of months the contract will auto-renew for if the cancellation of auto-renewal isn't sent to the hauler.

Signing / Procurement

These are optional fields you may wish to store as data on your contract.

• Signing Party
• Procuring Party
• Signed by Vendor

Misc.

• Manual Terms
• API % Before Integration
• Minimum Tonnage Cost Hidden On Invoice
• Is Franchised
• Exclusive to Vendor
• Payment Days until Remittance
• Signed Contract
• External Reference ID