Generally, a construction contract refers to the agreement between a contractor and the owner or general contractor. These agreements encompass what is billable for the project and the values that will be billed for each area. This is typically referred to as a schedule of values.
In short, a Contract is a closed/won agreement which defines what will ultimately be billed to a customer as part of the work that will be completed.
Within NetSuite the transaction type used as a Contract is a Sales Order. Because Sales Orders can have applications outside of progress billing (for example, they can also be used to define demand of inventory from a warehouse to a project which can then be fulfilled by warehouse personnel) - it is recommended that a dedicated Sales Order transaction form be created specifically for Contracts.
Each Contract belongs to exactly one BlueCollar Project. A project can have more than one contract (via Contract Associations), but the most common pattern is a single primary contract per project, referenced on the project as the Contract / SOV.
Before contracts can be created and managed, a few things must be configured (see Setup and Initial Configuration and Global Preferences):
Every BlueCollar Contract is a NetSuite Sales Order, but not every Sales Order is a Contract. The BlueCollar Contract checkbox on the Sales Order header is what makes the difference — when it's checked, BlueCollar treats the order as a Contract and turns on projections, billing integration, revenue recognition, and change-order tracking. This lets you keep using ordinary Sales Orders for non-construction purposes without any conflict.
This is one of the most important distinctions in BlueCollar. Current Contract values are the legal, agreed-upon amounts with the customer (Original Contract ± approved Change Orders). Projections are your internal best estimate of what will actually be completed and billed.
The two often diverge — especially in unit-price work, where a DOT contract might list estimated quantities while actual installed quantities differ. Projections let you forecast realistic completion to drive accurate revenue recognition without processing a change order that would misrepresent the current agreement with the owner. See Contract / Revenue Projections.
A project's primary contract sits in its Contract / SOV field. Additional contracts are linked through Contract Association records; the system prevents associating the same contract with a project more than once.
The Contract UI and the Contracts Center are available in English and French, following your NetSuite language preference.
Contract permissions are managed through BlueCollar Global Permissions. Administrators must be granted them explicitly, and the system uses the highest level across all of a user's roles.
| Feature | Application | Action | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| View the Contract UI from the project's tab | CONTRACT | CONTRACT_VIEW_CONTRACT | VIEW |
| Edit projected units / projected contract value | CONTRACT | CONTRACT_PROJECTIONS | EDIT |
| View the Contracts Center | CONTRACTS_CENTER | CONTRACTS_CENTER_VIEW_CONTRACTS | EDIT |
| Approve initial projections in the Contracts Center | CONTRACTS_CENTER | CONTRACTS_CENTER_APPROVAL | EDIT |