A contract is an agreement between two or more parties, and an order is the commitment to a supplier to deliver goods or services. In Invantive Estate the contract is the thread that ties budgets, orders, revenues and invoice lines together. ## Contract A contract belongs to a project and a cost type. It has a code, which is unique, and a counterparty. The code `0` cannot be used. The contract groups everything that is agreed with that counterparty in that cost type, so the figures can be followed per contract. ## Order An order is an obligation that the project developer agrees with a supplier. An order does not lead to an invoice directly, but it will do so in the end. An order has: - the project, cost type, contract and supplier; - the agreed amount and the amount that is still open, which is the part for which no invoice has been received; - the date on which the order was granted, the planned delivery date and the delivery date; - the purchasing conditions and the supplier's reference; - a contact person at the supplier; - an option to charge the work by the hour; - points, a reward system for the buyer; - documents. Two orders in one budget cannot share the same contract. The supplier must be an organisation that is marked as one and whose code matches the filter on the project. The filter lets an organisation decide per project from which suppliers orders may be registered. An order can be linked to a process, to follow up the work. See [[Invantive Estate/Concepts/Processes|Processes]]. ## Invoices Against Orders An invoice line says whether it is based on an order. This matters for the prognosis: an amount invoiced against an order is expected, an amount invoiced without an order is not. See [[Invantive Estate/Concepts/Invoices|Invoices]]. ## Cash Flow An order holds an expected maturity, an expected end of the maturity and a distribution method, which the cash flow projection uses. See [[Invantive Estate/Concepts/Cash Flow Projections|Cash Flow Projections]]. ## Purchasing Conditions The conditions that apply to an order are reference data. See [[Invantive Estate/Reference Data|Reference Data]].