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What is best practice around using Revenue Line Items in conjunction with the Product Catalog dashlet

Jonathan Cutting

We are utlising Revenue Line Items (RLIs) on Opportunities and have found some counter intuitive behaviour which is causing us to question whether we are approaching the RLI module in the correct way.

The standard Sugar behaviour when creating an RLI by clicking on a Template on the Product Catalog dashlet is to set the unit price from the catalogue, set the quantity to 1 and have the Likey and Calculated Amount match.

However, if you need more than 1 item, and modify the quantity to say 5, then the Likely remains at the single item unit price (whilst the Calculated Amount updates accordingly).

If you delete the value in the Likely column, on save of the Opp/RLI, the Likely is automatically set to the same as the Calculated Amount. However, this is not an intuitive action.

In short: why doesn't the Likely update on new RLIs when the quantity field is updated? Is there something obvious here that we are missing?

Thanks!

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  • 0 Sugar Employee Badge

    Hi  ,

    Thank you so much for this question.

    Many of our customers who want the Likely to always match the Calculated Amount change the formula in Likely to just copy the value from Calculated Amount. Those who don't use the forecasting module remove the Likely field from their layouts so it does not distract users.

    From a design standpoint, the “Likely,” “Best” and “Worst” fields are used for forecasting purposes only. If used as intended their values will most likely not match the “Calculated Revenue Line Item Amount” value. The user may also change these values as the opportunity progresses through the sales cycle. For these reasons, we though it would be best to initially populate these three fields with the “Calculated Revenue Line Item Amount” value automatically as a convenience for the user, and then allow the user to edit the fields manually with their preferred values. If the unit price, quantity or discount amounts change during the lifecycle of the opportunity we thought it would be frustrating to the user if the system automatically changed the values they manually entered into the Likely, Best and Worst fields, and that they would prefer to update them manually as needed. If the user wants to populate these fields with the calculated RLI value, they simply need to delete the existing values and take focus away from the field, and the system will fill the blank fields with the calculated RLI value.

    The default formula in Likely is:
    ifElse(equal($likely_case,""),string($total_amount),$likely_case)

    The formula for simply copying the Calculated Amount would be: $total_amount

    I hope this helps!

    Regards,
    Patrick McQueen
    Director, SugarCRM Support

  • 0 in reply to Patrick McQueen

    Hi  

    I appreciate you sharing the design thoughts and choices made at Sugar regarding Revenue Line Items, thank you.

    We are reluctant as a first step to make changes to the default SugarCRM formulas, as commonly it indicates that we've not fully understood the architecture of the product. It can also cause us problems on upgrades as Sugar introduce improved or additional features and these either don't work, or worse, break.

    The system gives us some cues as to how we might best use RLIs:

    Granular Usage

    • RLIs can be created from the product catalog dashlet - indicating that they should be as granular as quoted line items
    • RLIs have a quantity field (unlike Opportunities) - reinforcing the idea that they should be viewed similarly to quoted line items
    • Using the "Create Opportunity from Quote" button on Quotes creates one RLI per QLI - again suggesting that RLIs are granular in nature
    • Service type products can only be configured on RLIs not QLIs - meaning that each service line on a quote must have a corresponding RLI

    Abstract Usage

    • Enabling RLIs does not change Forecasting, which still uses the Opportunity stage, value and expected close date
    • The discount set on the RLI does not copy across to its QLI when generating a Quote from selected RLIs
    • Opportunities are commonly created before specifics are known, hinting that RLIs should be more abstract, mimicking product categories rather than templates (i.e. one each of Licensing, Professional Services, Support rather than 50 Sugar Sell Licenses & 50 Serve Licenses, 200 x hours development & 50 x hours project management, end user support and platform support etc.)

    And Finally...

    RLIs can have different 'Expected Close Dates', which at first glance makes them seductive as containers for multi-year deals (one opp, many years). But the Opportunity Expected Close Date (from which reporting is commonly run, and indeed is used in Forecasting) takes the latest date of all related RLIs, making this type of usage unsatisfactory in a standard system.

    In Summary

    In light of the above, I have a few follow up questions on which I'd welcome your thoughts:

    • Did Sugar have in mind that RLIs would commonly be used for quite granular pricing such as would ordinarly have been carried out mostly in Quotes prior to their introduction?
    • If not, would Sugar expect a particular configuration of the product catalog in order to (say) introduce more generic products that represent opportunity revenue 'categories' rather than actual products?
    • In terms of recognising revenue over several years in one deal, do Sugar view RLIs as a possible container for this data, or would Sugar imagine that this would be built out in a different entity?

    Thank you again,

    Jon

  • +1 Sugar Employee Badge in reply to Jonathan Cutting

    Hi  ,

    Below are some responses to the three questions. I hope these are helpful!

    Q: Did Sugar have in mind that RLIs would commonly be used for quite granular pricing such as would ordinarly have been carried out mostly in Quotes prior to their introduction?

    A: Yes. The design principle is that line items within Opportunities, Quotes, and Purchases would all provide granular data that compliments each other, facilitating a smooth integration across these modules.

     Q: If not, would Sugar expect a particular configuration of the product catalog in order to (say) introduce more generic products that represent opportunity revenue 'categories' rather than actual products?

    A: While at least one RLI is required when creating an Opportunity (if RLIs are enabled), you can initially include the most likely product to be part of the sale or the main topic of the initial conversation. RLIs can be added or adjusted as details about the multiple products being proposed become clearer.

    Alternatively, you could start with a Quote and then convert it to an Opportunity to move it into the pipeline, using the Quote as a template for new Opportunities with specific product configurations or bills of material if that serves your need.

     Q: In terms of recognising revenue over several years in one deal, do Sugar view RLIs as a possible container for this data, or would Sugar imagine that this would be built out in a different entity?

    A: If you are willing to have multiple Opportunities representing ongoing revenue from a single deal and evaluate it annually, you could use the automatic renewal feature associated with Services in RLIs.

    If the goal is to have a single Opportunity for the deal, you might create multiple RLIs, each representing a different year, with start and end dates indicating the year each RLI covers.

    Regards,
    Patrick McQueen
    Director, SugarCRM Support

  • 0 in reply to Patrick McQueen

    Thank you  that's very helpful and provides us with a good grounding for making appropriate per-system customisations.

    Best,

    Jon

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