Overview
This article shows how to use Service Agreements to manage agreements that were previously sold or tracked outside of ServiceTitan.
Who uses this feature
Administrators, accountants, estimators, project managers, and operations managers
Primarily benefits Commercial Service and Replacement business types
Applies to all trades
Things to know
Use this guide to ensure agreement accuracy, save time, and backdate agreements sold outside ServiceTitan.
Set the Proposed Start Date to a past date to account for agreements created outside of ServiceTitan. Backdate refers to agreements that have been active but are not in ServiceTitan yet.
Backdating steps differ based on revenue recognition method; contact your success or implementation manager for further assistance.
Getting started
Before entering your backdated agreements into ServiceTitan, you need to add service agreement templates to your account. For example, if you defer the upfront payments made on the service agreement until the services are delivered, you need to create a service agreement template with deferred revenue recognition. This is required because the record must be created before it can be modified to reflect its current status.
Here is a high-level overview of how ServiceTitan helps you backdate Service Agreements:
In ServiceTitan, create records for your historical/current agreements that were sold outside of ServiceTitan. Enter the start date of the agreement into the Proposed Start Date field.
Run and export the Service Agreement report for your agreements. Go to Reports > Search Service Agreement > Open and run the report > Click Export.
Once exported, you can edit the attributes of the service agreements in your preferred spreadsheet software.
Update the exported spreadsheet with the following information: Amount Billed to Date, and Next Billing Date if applicable. If the service agreement is deferred revenue, add the Recognized Revenue to Date in the spreadsheet.
Save the spreadsheet with your changes and send your updated/historical agreement spreadsheet to your success or implementation manager.
ServiceTitan will update and backdate the service agreements based on the information you add to the spreadsheet.
How to backdate a service agreement with immediate revenue recognition
With immediate revenue recognition, the system sends the revenue received from this agreement directly to the income general ledger account selected in the template. If you are preparing to enter backdated service agreements with immediate revenue recognition, make sure that you have added a service agreement template with immediate revenue recognition selected before getting started with the following steps.
Searchfor the customer or location record that you want to add a backdated service agreement to and open the record.
Create a service agreementon the customer or location record. Add the start date of the agreement into the Proposed Start Date field in the Scope of Work when creating the agreement.
In the Scope of Work step, ensure that the cost estimates are accurate. The costs associated with the agreement are critical to include when creating the agreement because they are utilized in the service agreement Budget vs Actual table.
Repeat steps 1 through 3 for each service agreement you want to backdate.
Once you have created the service agreements, go to the navigation bar and click Reports
.On the Reports screen that opens, search for the Service Agreements report in the Search field.
Open the Service Agreements report.
Clear the default filters on the report by clicking the x icon in the Status filter and Deferred Revenue Invoice Status filter.
Note: By clearing the status filters the report will display all agreements across all statuses in your account.
Export the report in XLSX format.
Open the exported report in your preferred spreadsheet software.
In the spreadsheet that opens, add the following information that you want reflected for the backdated service agreements with immediate revenue recognition. Add new columns to the spreadsheet for each piece of information on the right-hand side of the workbook.
Agreement ID: This information is already included in the spreadsheet because you exported the Service Agreements report, which includes the agreement ID by default, so there is no action necessary.
Amount Billed To-Date: Enter the amount that you have already billed the customer for the service agreement. For example, if the total agreement price is $30,000 and you have billed $10,000 to date, enter $10,000 in the column you created for Amount Billed To-Date.
Next Billing Date: Enter the date that the agreement will be billed next. For example, if the agreement is set to bill monthly at the beginning of each month, enter the first day of the following month in the column you created for Next Billing Date.
Note: If your agreement is set to bill Upfront, then you do not need to enter a date in this field because you have already billed for the service agreement.
Note: If your service agreement is set to bill at the time of service, then you do not need to enter a date in this column because the billing will be generated on the next service agreement visit.
Once you have entered the information for each service agreement ID that you want to have backdated by ServiceTitan, save your changes to the spreadsheet.
Send the spreadsheet to your Success or Implementation manager.
Required information to include for Service Agreements with immediate revenue recognition
Time of service billing: Agreement ID, Amount Billed To-Date
Upfront: Agreement ID, Amount Billed To-Date
Billing cadence (monthly, every other month, quarterly): Agreement ID, Amount Billed To-Date, Next Billing Date
Once you have added and saved the necessary information to the spreadsheet, your portion of the workflow is complete! The final step is to send the spreadsheet to your contact at ServiceTitan. From there our team will update your service agreements by ID to match what was entered in the spreadsheet.
How to backdate a service agreement with deferred revenue recognition
With deferred revenue recognition, revenue gets routed into a liability general ledger account as money is invoiced. Then, as services are delivered, revenue is routed into an income general ledger account. If you are preparing to enter backdated service agreements with deferred revenue recognition, make sure that you have added a service agreement template with deferred revenue recognition selected before getting started with the following steps.
Search for the customer or location record that you want to add a backdated service agreement to and open the record.
Create a service agreement on the customer or location record that you opened in the first step. Add the start date of the agreement into the Proposed Start Date field when creating the agreement.
When creating the agreement, pause and ensure that the cost estimates are accurate for the scope of work. The costs associated with the agreement are critical to include when creating the agreement because they are utilized in the service agreements Budget vs Actual table.
Repeat steps 1 through 3 for each service agreement you want backdated.
Once you have created the service agreements, go to the navigation bar and click Reports
.On the Reports screen that opens, search for the Service Agreements report in the Search field.
Open the Service Agreements report.
Clear the default filters on the report by clicking the x icon in the Status filter and Deferred Revenue Invoice Status filter.
Note: By clearing the status filters the report will display all agreements across all statuses in your account.
Export the report in XLSX format.
Open the exported report in your preferred spreadsheet software.
In the spreadsheet that opens, add the following information that you want reflected for the backdated service agreements with deferred revenue recognition. Add new columns to the spreadsheet for each piece of information.
Agreement ID: This information is already included in the spreadsheet because you exported the Service Agreements report, which includes the agreement ID by default, so there is no action necessary.
Amount Billed To-Date: Enter the amount that you have already billed the customer for the service agreement. For example, if the total agreement price is $40,000 and you have billed $20,000 to date, enter $20,000 in the column you created for Amount Billed To-Date.
Next Billing Date: Enter the date that the agreement will be billed next. For example, if the agreement is set to bill quarterly throughout the year, enter the first day of the following quarter in the column you created for Next Billing Date.
Note: If your agreement is set to bill Upfront, then you do not need to enter a date in this field because you have already billed for the service agreement.
Note: If your service agreement is set to bill at the time of service, then you do not need to enter a date in this column because the billing will be generated on the next service agreement visit.
Recognized Revenue: Enter the amount of revenue that has been recognized for the agreement. For example, the deferred revenue service agreement was sold for $100,000. Since a few visits have been performed, we've recognized half of the deferred revenue as income. This means that we would enter $50,000 for Recognized Revenue.
Required information to include for Service Agreements with deferred revenue recognition
Upfront: Agreement ID, Amount Billed To-Date, Recognized Revenue
Billing cadence (monthly, every other month, quarterly): Agreement ID, Amount Billed To-Date, Next Billing Date, Recognized Revenue
Once you have added and saved the necessary information to the spreadsheet, your portion of the workflow is complete! The final step is to send the spreadsheet to your contact at ServiceTitan. From there our team will update your service agreements by ID to match what was entered in the spreadsheet.