Contracts determine a provider’s funding, budgetary limits, and which services providers deliver to clients. Using the contract manager, providers can activate services that can be entered into client records, are used for RSR/ADR report calculations, and set parameters for service delivery. Contract manager access is established by permissions, and can be limited to Central Administration users or provider level users only. Any changes to contracts should be discussed with grant managers and HRSA project officers when considering how the contract setup may affect the RSR or ADR for that reporting year.

 

 

The primary parameters that establish a contract are the start date, stop date, and funding. The dates affect when services can be entered for clients, which services appear as options in the service tab, and which service categories and funding affects reports like the RSR/ADR reports. The funding for the contracts can affect which data elements are required for the RSR. It also impacts how funding is tied to service categories. These parameters should be considered prior to creating a contract.

 

Here are a few things to consider when creating a contract when considering the dates and funding:

 

How frequently are service requirements changed for the provider by grants or funding requirements, annually, semi-annually, every 5 years, etc.?

Is the grant establishing the funding for these services time limited or typically renewed every year?

Is the provider using CAREWare to track budgetary limits or for creating budget reports?

Who should have access to editing the contracts or deciding services and funding in CAREWare?

Has the contract been copied as is every year without change?

 

In answering these questions, users can better understand how the date spans set by the contract may better reflect the services delivered, grant requirements, and maintenance needs for the contract over time. CAREWare has several options to facilitate contract management based on the determined need, like the option to copy contracts, extend them, deactivate services, or lock the contracts due to fiscal constraints.

 

Here are instructions for setting up a contract in CAREWare:

 

1. Click Administrative Options.

2. Click Service/Contract Setup.

3. Click Contract Manager.

4. Click Add.

 

 

5. If this is done in Central Administration, select the Provider.

6. Enter the Contract Name.

7. Enter a Start Date.

8. Enter and End Date.

9. Check a funding source.

10.  Click Save.

 

 

A brief explanation of the selections made for this contract:

 

Start Date - In this example, the contract starts with the calendar year, meaning services from this contract begin to appear at the beginning of the year and the date span falls more in line with annual reports like the RSR. 

End Date - In this example, the contract ends with the calendar year, meaning services from this contract are available throughout the entire year.

 

Note: If the contract were to start or stop in the middle of the RSR reporting period, some of the services may not count for the RSR, may not be available in client service lists to enter at different times of the year, and may be included in other financial reports overlapping other reporting periods. The start and end dates are the primary reason users state they are missing services in the service list when entering client service records and why users get errors importing services.

 

Funding Source - In this case, EHE Initiative was selected as the funding source. For the RSR, that means questions 76 and 77 are required to be answered and are calculated by CAREWare. The funding source selected can impact reports and other functions in a number of ways. RWHAP funding sources trigger service categories to be counted for the RSR across the provider regardless of the funding source selected in other contracts.

 

A brief explanation of optional Contract settings:

 

Central? - If this box is checked, only Central Administration staff can edit the contract. This setting determines if contracts can be managed in Central Administration or the clinical provider. This is part of determining access to contracts and who manages them. For some organizations, it is best for local clinical staff to manage their own contracts. In some state CAREWare instances, staff prefer to assign that work to a grant manager that updates contracts only from Central Administration for multiple providers. This setting needs to be considered before the contract is set up and before permissions are established for the user(s) that can edit the contract. 

Lock the contract when it expires - This prevents users from continuing to enter services with a service date during the contract date span and is added to CAREWare after the end date of the contract. In this example contract, service entry would have to stop on 12/31/2024, unless a grace period was added. That means that in January 2025, users would get a message letting them know the contract is locked if they try to enter a service with a service with a date of 12/12/2024.

Grace period before locking expired contract - This sets a number of days after the end date of a contract to allow users to continue entering services. The services entered still have to have a service date on or after the start date and on or before the end date.

 

Example: The grace period is set to 30. In this example contract, users could continue to enter December 2024 services until 1/30/2025. On the 31st, they would get a message stating the contract is locked. This gives users time to catch up on data entry if they typically enter services for the prior month during the current month.

 

At this point the contract exists, however it has 0 contract items, which are part of the set up process required for activating services as well as setting budgetary limits.

 

The next step for managing contracts involves creating the contract items. Contract items are where services are activated for contracts and budgets are set. The contract items can be limited to specific pools of grant funds, organized by service categories, or the settings can be left blank setting up a single contract item as a means of activating services for the contract, leaving other functions of contract items deactivated.

 

For detailed instructions in creating contract items for contracts, click here.