---
title: "Contracts"
canonical: "https://support.out-smart.com/space/OKB/411927574/Contracts"
format: markdown
---
## Why would you need Contracts?

Imagine regularly returning to a customer for your monthly service on the customers object. Or, returning yearly for a period of 5 years. In the first case many work orders need to be made, which is very timeconsuming. In the second case the work order may be forgotten, because your employees don’t speak to the customer on a regular basis. When you use contracts you can easily place all details of the agreement you made with the customer in OutSmart. The work orders will automaticly be made, without a click. The contract will stop on the used end date, so no unnecessary work orders are made. There are many possibilities, all to configure with the articles in this part of our knowledge base. Be sure to check which licence the specific article is regarding and all the related articles, this may even open doors you did not know existed.

## Step-by-Step Guide



Step 1: Go to Contracts and click Add

Step 2: Fill in all the fields that need to be filled in for a contract:

![Create a new service contract](media://1da4dea3-93d0-4d31-a47a-0ffefe222c31)

A contract within OutSmart revolves around the need to automatically generate work orders. So in the contract you have to fill in all the information that you need in that work order. But in addition you also need to fill in information about the contract:

**Contract type**: You can choose between two types:  
Preventive maintenance or Corrective maintenance. With preventive you need to select the repetition and with corrective you can select an SLA Policy. 

**Select contract**: Here you can select contract terms. These terms need to be created via Settings ([see this article for more infomation](https://out-smart.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OKB/pages/411927597)) and it determines what duration the contract has, if the end date is past, should it automatically generate a new contract and if so, what should that duration be. 

**Start date**: Fill in from what date  the repetition of work orders should start. If you want to start doing the preventive maintenance from march next year, the start date should not be today. 

**End date**: This is automatically filled in based on the contract terms. But it can be added. Past the end date no more work orders will be created. 

**Reference**: If you want  you can fill in a reference (for example the number of the agreement from which this contract for maintenance follows. 

> ⚠️ Be aware: this reference is only seen in the contract in the backoffice and not in the work order.

**Description**: Here you can fill in a description of the contract. Just like with the reference, this is only shown in the contract and not in the work order.

**Days in advance**: This allows you to set the number of days in advance that the work order should be created. If through the recurring schedule configurator a deadline for a work order is 31-08 and the days in advance for this contract is set to 30 days, this means the work order with deadline 31-08 will be generated 01-08. 

Step 3: Fill in all the fields of the [work order ](https://out-smart.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OKB/pages/886243336)and of course the **recurring schedule configurator**

![Recurring schedule configurator](media://24af1c36-ff76-49be-8a7c-e7ec60b1583e)

**Each**: Fill in if the work order needs to be generated each 6 months or each two weeks of perhaps every 5 days. This is all up to you!

**Day of the month/ Time**: If you have chosen Month (s) the can fill in that the work order should be created with deadline on a particular date of every first monday or third friday. 

If you have chosen weeks you need to select on what days of the week the work orders are created. 

If these variable are filled in, you will see several dates. In the example above the start date is the 30th of august, so the first monday is the second of september. The first work order for this contract will be with deadline on 02-09.

> ℹ️ If you still want to plan the generated work order, leave employee empty. In that case the work order wil get a deadline on 02-09 (in example above).   
> ℹ️ If you want the generated work order to be scheduled to an employee, you should select an employee in the contract. In that case the work order will be scheduled on execution date 02-09 (in the example above).

Step 4: Click Save and the contract is created.