The new alliances management behavior has been implemented in April 2018.

• It will be activated by default for all new customers.
• For existing customers, it will be activated case by case.
  Do not hesitate to contact your Inova Customer Success Manager if you still have the old version and if you wish to benefit from the improved version.

Financial Obligations allow you to track all your incoming or outgoing payments linked to an agreement and to manage the notifications needed to ensure all obligations on a contract are met. Payment tracking in Inova can be useful for reporting and budgeting purposes.

With this improved version, you can now manage the Financial Obligations directly from the agreement, without leaving the page, and thus save time.

Creating a Financial Obligation

You can create a Financial obligation through an existing Agreement.

1. On the Agreement overview page, scroll down and click on the tab "New Financial Obligation".

The "Details" tab

A New Financial Obligation pop-up will display and in the "Details" tab you will enter all the financial information needed for reporting purposes.

2. Enter the title of the Financial Obligation.
3. Select the Transaction party / Company.
4. Select the type of payment.
5. Enter the description.
6. Select the type of currency and enter due amount.
7. Enter the due date.
8. Activate the "Forecasted" button, according to the type of Financial Obligation.

Here are some tips and tricks:

• The "Description" field can be very useful to enter detailed instructions on how royalty is calculated (i.e. the formula that should be used for royalty rate calculation).
• If you select the type "Milestone", it means that the amount to be paid is known but not the date of payment. In this case, activate the forecasted button for the "Due date".
• If you select the type "Royalty", it means that the date of payment is known but not the exact amount. In this case, activate the forecasted button for the "Due amount".

If the agreement has multiple companies, we highly recommend that you create a separate financial obligation entry for each company and/or asset within the agreement. If multiple companies and/or assets are in a single financial obligation entry, it may be difficult to consolidate reports.

The "Reminder" tab

As you are completing the details on the financial obligation, you will notice another sub-tab called "Reminder". This tab will allow you to notify application users about the due dates.

1. This field is automatically pre-filled with the current owner of the agreement as well as the original creator of the agreement (if different). You may also notify other application users.
2. This setting notifies you X number of days in advance of your financial obligation reminder's due date.
   Warning: You will notice that by default the value is 0. If you leave this value, no notification will be sent.
3. Add a comment.
4. Click "Save".

In the screenshots, you probably noticed the presence of an "advanced form" button. Please note that this option should only be used on the recommendation of your Inova Customer Success Manager, i.e. in case you use some configurable fields and need more customization.

Duplicating an Obligation

There is an easy way to duplicate an obligation/payment within an agreement.

1. Go to the "Financial Obligations" tab.
2. Click the duplicate icon.

The system will automatically create a duplicate of the financial obligation you have selected.

Customize the information on the "Details" and "Reminder" tabs and click "Save".

If you have several Financial Obligations to create, here is a tip that will save you time:

1. Create a FO.
2. Make several copies of this FO without changing anything.
3. Go to the lister of the Financial Obligations (click on the double arrow)
   
4. Click on "Edit page"
5. You will be then able to modify all of them at the same time!
   You can configure this lister to add more fields if needed.

This can be very useful, for example for royalties to forecast the next 5 fiscal years.

Validate an Obligation

Once you have created a financial obligation, you can start making a payment.

1. Go to the "Financial Obligations" tab.
2. click on the dollar icon.

1. Enter the due amount. For all forecasted amounts, you have the possibility to change the amount.
2. Add a comment. You can enter the transaction number for example.
3. If your balance is 0, the obligation/payment will be automatically closed after clicking on "Save".
   If your balance is different from 0, the obligation/payment is considered as not closed. You can close it manually by clicking on "Yes" and then "Save".

Once the full payment is made, you will notice that the icon turns green:

The system will automatically display the full balance; therefore, you have the option to make a partial payment or pay the full amount due. If a partial payment is made the system will show the remaining balance and if the full amount is paid, the system will automatically close the financial obligation.