Skip to main content
A contract says who is covered, from when, who pays, and at what rates. Elate uses it to price every completed visit in Finance. Without an active contract and a rate, a visit shows No care rate and cannot be invoiced. Who can do this: anyone whose role includes Finance. By default that is Organisation Owners, Service Provider Admins and Finance Users. Read Only Auditors can view contracts but cannot change them. Your organisation can change this in Settings > Permissions.
This is not included in Elate Free.
Your organisation may use different words for some things, such as “Service users” instead of “Support recipients”. Elate shows your organisation’s words everywhere, so follow what you see.

​
Create a contract

1

Start a new contract

Go to Finance > Contracts and select New contract.
2

Choose who pays

Under Funder, pick the funder, or Private support recipient billing if the person pays. Picking a funder fills in Payment terms (days) from the funder and tells you if it needs a purchase order.
3

Fill in the details

Enter a Title and Start date (both required) and anything else you need. The fields are listed below.
4

Set the status

A new contract starts as Draft. Set Status to Active when it should start pricing visits.
5

Save

Select Save contract. Then open it to assign support recipients and add rates.
Only Active contracts price visits. A contract left on Draft has no effect in Finance.

​
Contract fields

To change a contract later, open it and select Edit contract. To stop using one, set its Status to Ended or give it an End date.

​
Find a contract

Finance > Contracts lists every contract with its funder (or Private billing), period, fallback rates and status. Use Search contracts, the status filter and the funder filter to narrow it. Export CSV downloads the list. Select a contract’s title to open it. It has three tabs: Details, Support recipients and Rates.

​
Assign support recipients

A contract covers a support recipient only while they are assigned to it.
1

Open the Support recipients tab

On the contract, select Support recipients, then Assign support recipient.
2

Choose the person and dates

Pick the Support recipient. Only active people without an open-ended assignment on this contract are listed. Starts on begins at the contract’s start date. Add Ends on and Hours per week if you need them.
3

Save

Select Assign support recipient.
You cannot remove an assignment. To stop a contract covering someone, select End assignment on their row. It ends today, and existing invoices do not change.

​
Add rates

1

Open the Rates tab

On the contract, select Rates, then Add rate.
2

Name the service

Enter a Service name. Name a rate * to cover every service that has no rate of its own.
3

Choose the unit and price

Pick the Billing unit (Hour, Visit, Mile or Day) and enter the rate in Rate (GBP) (the contract’s currency shows in brackets). Leave VAT rate (%) blank to use the invoice default.
4

Set the dates

Effective from is required and starts at the contract’s start date. Effective to is optional.
5

Save

Select Save rate.
Rates for the same service and unit cannot overlap in time. To change a price from a date, give the old rate an Effective to date, then add a new rate from the next day.

​
How each unit charges

​
How Elate picks a rate for a visit

Elate looks at the rates in force on the visit date. A rate whose Service name matches the visit title (capitals do not matter) is used first, then a rate named *, then any other rate on the contract, preferring hourly, then per visit, then per day. A Mile rate never prices care. If the contract has no rate for care, the Fallback hourly rate is used when it is above zero. If there is still nothing, the visit shows No care rate and cannot be invoiced until you add a care rate. To change a rate, select Edit on its row. Delete removes it after you confirm. Future invoices then use the next matching rate or the fallback. Invoices already made keep the rates they were generated with.

​
Which contract prices a visit

For each completed visit, Elate looks for an Active contract whose dates cover the visit date, where the support recipient is assigned on that date (or is the contract’s initial support recipient). If more than one matches, the one that started most recently wins.

​
Common questions

Check the contract is Active, its dates cover the visits, the support recipient is assigned for those dates, and it has a rate or a fallback hourly rate above zero.
This service already has a rate with the same unit for part of those dates. Give the existing rate an Effective to date, or change the new rate’s dates.
No. An invoice keeps the rates it was generated with. Only new invoices use the new rates.

Finance overview

See which visits have a care rate.

Funders and invoice templates

Set who pays and how invoices look.