How do I novate a contract?

Firstly what does novate mean? If you have managed to find this article then it must be pure luck. Novation is just a posh word which means changing who the contract is with. i.e. changing it from one person to another. 

Novation, in contract law and business law, is the act of – replacing an obligation to perform with another obligation; or. adding an obligation to perform; or. replacing a party to an agreement with a new party.

Despite the complexity in wording novating a contract is very simple. Firstly navigate to the contracts module, find a contract and open it, so you can see the detail of a contract.

Novating a contract

1. The first thing to note is a contract only has the ability to novate if at the contract template level the checkbox is enabled meaning you are allowed to novate this contract to another party. Once enabled the [Novate] button is shown under the 'Action' region within the right-hand menu.

Once clicked the novation popup will be displayed.

2. You can novate a contract from one party to another party. Within the novation screen, select the radio button for which party type you wish to novate.

Select the party you want to novate 'From', then select the party you want to novate 'To'. 

Select the reason why you are novating this contract. You can configure further reasons under Administration > Contracts > Reason. See How to add a reason for novating a contract.

You can also optionally select the checkbox 'Change the status of associated service requests'. The contract has been created through a request from the customer via self-service you can select to update the status of that request to close the loop on the customer request the service to the change of party of the contract.

3. Click [Novate]. This will change the parties over and record this change in the 'History' of the contract.