Installed Base, Purchase Orders, and Renewals

Most CRMs are built around selling. This feature set is about everything you keep: service contracts, software subscriptions, licenses, warranties, and equipment — and the renewals and purchase orders that keep them alive. Together, three tools cover the full lifecycle:

• Installed Base — the registry of every contract, subscription, license, warranty, or piece of equipment, with its renewal clock
• Purchase Orders — the buy-side document you raise (with approvals) to purchase or renew from a vendor
• Renewal Desk — a single worklist of everything coming up for renewal

Getting There

• Log in to Ambivo and switch to the Commerce application (or stay in CRM if these items are pinned)
• Renewal Desk — near the top, under the main tools
• Installed Base and Purchase Orders — in the Records section

Part 1 — Installed Base

What It Is

The Installed Base is your register of things under contract. Each record represents one item you either bought from a vendor or sold to a customer, along with when it started, when it renews or expires, and what it's worth.

Record types include: Service contract (AMC), Subscription, License, Warranty, and Equipment.

Direction: Bought vs. Sold

• Purchased (from vendor) — you bought or licensed it; risk is service lapse; money side is accounts payable (default for hand-created records)
• Sold (to customer) — you sold it; opportunity is renewal revenue; money side is accounts receivable
• Counterparty follows Direction: vendor on purchased records, customer on sold records

Where Records Come From

• From an order (sold side) — when won deal products are flagged as installed-base items
• From a received purchase order (buy side) — when you mark a PO as Received
• By hand — click Create on the Installed Base list

Flag products first in the Products area — turn on the installed-base toggle for anything renewable.

Reading a Record

Overview tab groups: General, Term (start/end dates, auto renew, notice period), Parties, Value, Equipment, Coverage, Provenance, Lifecycle, Details. End / renewal date and Notice period drive when records show as expiring. Click a field value to edit — changes save immediately.

Statuses

Pending → Active → Expiring → Expired, plus Renewed, Cancelled, and Suspended. Expiring and Expired are usually set by the nightly renewal sweep.

The Successor Chain

When renewed, Ambivo creates a successor record and links old → new via Renewed to / Renewed from. Renewal count increments. Every term is its own record, chained through predecessors.

The Renewal Comparison Tab

Side-by-side view of new term vs previous — price, term length, quantity, and date deltas. First-term records show no previous agreement to compare.

Part 2 — The Nightly Renewal Sweep

Ambivo runs a renewal sweep every night that:

• Sends reminders at thresholds before renewal date (default 90, 60, 30, 15 days — each fires once)
• Flips status to Expiring once within Notice period
• Flips to Expired after renewal date passes with no successor
• Opens next step: Sold → renewal opportunity + task; Purchased with Requires PO → draft renewal PO

• Sweep keys off End / renewal date — keep it populated
• Renewal PO only if Requires purchase order is on

Part 3 — The Renewal Desk

Single worklist of everything approaching or past renewal date, sorted most-urgent-first. Buckets: Expired, Expiring in 15/30/60/90 days. Each record appears in the tightest bucket only.

• Mine / All owners toggle at top right
• Refresh re-runs the query after changes
• Read-only worklist — click a row to jump to the record for actions
• Raise Renewal PO and Renewal comparison tab live on the record

Part 4 — Purchase Orders

A PO is the buy-side document to purchase or renew from a vendor, with built-in approval before money is committed.

The PO Lifecycle

Draft → Pending Approval → Approved → Ordered → Received → Billed, with Rejected and Cancelled as end states.

Multi-Stage Approval

• Single gate — one approval step until approved or rejected
• Multi-stage chain — sequence of steps; PO advances one at a time; any rejection rejects the whole PO

Creating a Bill from a PO

Once Approved (or Ordered/Received), use Create Bill to turn the PO into accounts payable. Idempotent — cannot create two bills from the same PO. See Vendors, Bills, and 1099 Tracking (CRM-028).

• Create Bill disabled until PO is approved
• Receiving a PO provisions Installed Base for what arrived

Part 5 — Raising a Renewal PO from Installed Base

1. 1

   Open record

   Open the installed-base record from Renewal Desk or Installed Base list.

2. 2

   Raise PO

   Use Raise Renewal PO. Ambivo creates a draft PO named "Renewal PO — {record name}", links to the record, and carries term dates over.

3. 3

   Complete flow

   PO goes through approval → ordered → received. On Received, a fresh installed-base record is provisioned and chained to the old one.

• Raise Renewal PO only on purchased records — sold records renew through an opportunity
• Edit rights required on the record
• Idempotent — reuses existing renewal PO instead of creating duplicates

The End-to-End Renewal Flow

• Set up — product flagged as installed-base; buying/receiving provisions a record
• Watch — nightly sweep sends reminders, flips to Expiring, drafts renewal PO
• Triage — record surfaces on Renewal Desk by urgency
• Review — Renewal comparison tab vs previous term
• Procure — Raise Renewal PO (or open sweep-drafted one)
• Approve — single- or multi-stage approval
• Receive — new Installed Base record provisioned; old one marked Renewed
• Pay — Create Bill from PO for accounts payable

The sold side mirrors this with a renewal opportunity instead of a PO — winning it flows through Orders and Invoices.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Guides

• CRM-009 — Products and Commissions
• CRM-008 — Orders and Invoices
• CRM-028 — Vendors, Bills, and 1099 Tracking
• CRM-004 — Opportunities and Pipeline
• CRM-014 — Workflows