Essentially, a partial period is one where the start date of the contract line item does not fall on the first day of a billing period, or when the end date of the contract line item does not fall on the last day of a billing period. This means that the contract line item has only spanned part of the start or end period.
A more precise explanation of how partial periods are calculated is given below.
Partial First Billing Period
A first billing period is considered a partial period if the following calculation is true:
| (Contract line start date + Billing term) - Billing term ≠ Contract line start date |
In the example illustrated below, a contract line has a start date of Tuesday, August 8, 2017 with a billing term of MB+4d (so each billing period starts 4 days after the first day of the month).
Contract line start date (Tuesday, August 8, 2017) + billing term (MB+4d) = Tuesday, September 5, 2017.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017 - billing term (MB+4d) = Saturday, 5 August, 2017.
This is not the same as the contract line start date (Tuesday, August 8, 2017), which means that the first billing period is a partial period.
Partial Final Billing Period
A final billing period is considered a partial period if the following calculation is true:
| Contract line end date + 1 day ≠ Billing period start date + Billing term |
In the example illustrated above, a contract line has an end date of Tuesday, October 31, 2017 and the billing term is MB+4d.
Final billing period start date (Thursday, October 5, 2017) + billing term (MB+4d) = Sunday, November 5, 2017.
This is not the same as the contract line end date + 1 day (Wednesday, November 1, 2017), which means that the final billing period is a partial period.