When is a Contract created during Checkout?

Contract records are typically created at checkout for subscription or recurring-billing purchases, capturing the ongoing terms alongside the order.

Why link checkout to a Contract record?

Linking the checkout to a Contract lets sales, service, billing, and renewal workflows all use the same subscription record as the source of truth.

What does the Contract typically capture?

A Checkout-generated Contract captures the ongoing terms of the subscription, including timing, frequency, and the specific products included.

Contract, Checkout

Platform🔴 Advanced

Definition

A Contract (Checkout) in Salesforce Commerce refers to a contract or subscription agreement created as part of the checkout process in Salesforce Commerce Cloud. It captures the recurring billing terms, subscription period, and product details agreed upon during the purchase, linking the commercial transaction to ongoing contract management within Salesforce.

Real-World Example

At their company, a platform engineer at NovaScale leverages Contract, Checkout to enhance the organization's Salesforce footprint with additional functionality. By leveraging Contract, Checkout, the team avoids building a custom solution from scratch, saving months of development time while gaining enterprise-grade features out of the box.

Why Contract, Checkout Matters

A Contract created during Checkout is a Salesforce Commerce Cloud pattern where the checkout process generates a Contract record alongside the order. This is common in subscription-based commerce: when a customer completes a purchase that includes a recurring billing component, the checkout doesn't just create an order, it creates a Contract that captures the ongoing terms like subscription period, renewal date, billing frequency, and the products covered.

Linking the checkout to a Contract record creates a clean handoff between Commerce Cloud and the rest of the Salesforce platform. Sales and service teams can see the Contract in Service Cloud alongside other customer records, renewal workflows can fire based on the Contract end date, and revenue recognition can happen through Revenue Cloud or Billing tied to the Contract. Without this linkage, subscription commerce would live in isolation, disconnected from the broader customer lifecycle that Salesforce is built to manage.

How Organizations Use Contract, Checkout

•NovaScale — Built a subscription commerce flow where every checkout creates a Contract record alongside the order. The Contract includes start date, end date, billing frequency, and line items for each subscribed product, making it the single source of truth for the subscription's terms.
•Wanderlust Travel — Uses Contract, Checkout for their annual travel club memberships. When a customer signs up at checkout, a Contract is created with a one-year term, and renewal alerts fire 30 days before expiration.
•Vertex Global — Ties their Checkout-generated Contracts to Revenue Cloud for automated billing and revenue recognition. The integration eliminated the manual reconciliation their finance team used to do between Commerce Cloud orders and the subscription tracking system.