The latest release of SugarCRM, version 7.6, includes a number of enhancements to the Revenue Line Items module. Revenue Line Items, available only with Enterprise and Ultimate subscriptions, adds detailed tracking for each individual component of a sale.

Because Revenue Line Items and Opportunities tie together so closely, SugarCRM added the capability to create Revenue Line Items and an Opportunity simultaneously. At the bottom of the Opportunity screen, there is now a Revenue Line Items area where the user can create one or more Revenue Line Items while creating the Opportunity. This is great! Not only can the user save time by creating the Revenue Line Items at the same time as the Opportunity, the time savings is multiplied by being able to add multiple Revenue Line Items at once!

Another exciting aspect of this change is that it introduces new functionality that developers can leverage for other screens in Sugar. Whether or not this was possible previously, developers now have a model of how to create screens like this. Imagine, for example, a Contact create section at the bottom of the Account create screen.

One quick caution: this functionality currently is only available when creating an Opportunity via the navigation bar or Quick Create, not during the lead conversion process. Organizations that use lead conversion to create opportunities may want to consider converting without creating the Opportunity, and then immediately adding the Opportunity and Revenue Line Items (check capitalization especially in this paragraph) to take advantage of this new functionality. Hopefully, Sugar will be able to add this feature to the lead conversion screen in the near future to finish rounding it out.

Finally, Sugar 7.6 adds an administrator tool to turn off Revenue Line Items. Previously, this could only be achieved through a code customization, and it was not very upgrade-safe. The new configuration settings give organizations the option to easily implement Sugar Enterprise even if they do not want to use Revenue Line Items.