Managing Service Contracts

DEACOM's Service Contracts feature allows customers to easily dispatch service related work, and track preventative maintenance and labor associated with service work.The feature also provides the ability to maintain detailed billing for different tasks as well as recurring preventative maintenance contracts.

Service Contracts utilize normal Sales Orders and Recurring Orders to support maintenance scheduling and execution.

  • Recurring Orders are used to define maintenance work requirements at regularly scheduled intervals. Two fields are available on the "Dates" tab to support the recurring order process: "Recurring Type" - select days, weeks, or months, and "Recurring Interval" - interval for the Recurring Order based on the selection made in the "Recurring Type" field.

  • Sales Orders are used because they allow drivers/workers to use the DEACOM Direct Store Delivery Application to manage on-truck inventory and add any additional work that comes up during preventative maintenance. The additional work will be reflected on the Sales Order invoice.

Ad-hoc service requirements may be accomplished by the generating normal Sales Orders via the "Edit Service Item" form. Additional information on this process is available in the "Launching Sales Orders and Recurring Orders from Service Items" section below.

Configuration

Prior to using Service Contracts, the following prices of date will need to be setup in DEACOM:

Customers and Billing Groups - indicates the customer(s) where service work will be performed, who is responsible for paying the invoice, and linked to Billing Groups, which are used for credit management and to assist with sales and billing analysis. Configured in Sales > Customers and Sales > Maintenance > Billing Groups.

Part Numbers - Non-stock, saleable part numbers representing the labor fees for services will need to be created.

Operations - Operations define the work performed by service technicians in relation to Service Contracts.

User Fields - Optional. User Fields provide companies with a useful tool to add additional information or selection options via the use of list boxes to master data records and orders throughout the DEACOM system.

Labor Rates - Labor rates can be added to Service Items or Service Contracts. This differentiates between negotiations with this specific customer and standard negotiations at the service contract level. The form used to specify labor rates is identical on both the Service Item and Service Contract.

Recurring Orders - Recurring Orders are used with Service Contracts to facilitate the scheduling of maintenance orders.

Process

Creating Service Contracts

  1. Navigate to Sales > Maintenance > Service Contracts.
  2. The "Service Contract" form will be displayed with all active Service Contracts listed.
  3. Click the "New" button to display the "Edit Service Contract" form.
  4. Enter a Name and Description on the "General" tab.
  5. Click the "Add" button to display the "Edit Service Labor Rate" form. This form is used to specify an operation and labor rate for the associated contract. Note that a Service Contract may contain multiple Operations/maintenance tasks. See the "Service Contracts" Encyclopedia page for information on the fields available to this form.
  6. Click the "Save" and "Exit" button to close the "Edit Service Labor Rate" form.
  7. If additional Operations/maintenance tasks are required, they may be entered now.
  8. Uses have the option to enter User Fields for Service Contracts. Additional information is available via the "User Fields" page.
  9. Once all information has been entered, click the "Save" and "Exit" button on the "Edit Service Contract" form to complete the process.

Creating Service Items

  1. Navigate to Sales > Maintenance > Service Items.
  2. The "Service Items" form will be displayed with all active Service Items listed.
  3. Click the "New" button to display the "Edit Service Item" form.
  4. Fill in all required fields, indicated in blue. See the "Service Items" page for information regarding the fields available to this form.
  5. Optional. Click the "Add" button to display the "Edit Service Labor Rate" form. As indicated previously, the Labor Rate on the Service Item represents the Labor Rate for a specific customer, which may be different than the standard Labor Rate at the Service Contract level.
  6. Once all the information has been entered, click the "Save" and "Exit" button to complete the process.

Launching Sales Orders and Recurring Orders from Service Items

The "Create SO" button on the "Edit Service Item" form can be used to create Recurring Orders or Ad-hoc Sales Orders for the corresponding Service Contracts.

  1. Navigate to Sales > Maintenance > Service Items.
  2. The "Service Items" form will be displayed with all active Service Items listed.
  3. Select the appropriate Service Item from the list and click the "Modify" button. Click the "New" button to display the "Edit Service Item" form.
  4. Click the "Create SO" button to display the "Create Service Item SO" form.
  5. The form contains two grids. The grid on the left hand side displays part numbers associated with the Service Item as well any applicable Labor Rates. If the Service Item and Service Contract both contain Labor Rates, both will appear on the left hand side of the grid. If the Service Item is a phantom, the phantom part's components will be displayed with a type of Component. The labor rates on the Service Contract should be in the grid with a type of Labor. Having all of these "Types" on the form allows users to generate orders to first ship the Service Items, ship component replacements and labor for the Service Item, and set up preventative maintenance.
  6. The form contains a "Recurring" checkbox with is unchecked by default. If users wish to create a Recurring Order for this Service Item they may click the box and proceed to the next step. If the user is creating a normal Sales Order to perform ad-hoc maintenance, leave the box unchecked.
  7. Select and move the appropriate parts and Labor Rates to the right hand side of the form.
  8. Click the "Apply" button.
  9. The system will create a normal Sales Order or Recurring Order, with an order number already assigned, containing any parts and Labor Rates that were selected previously. Once the Recurring Order has been created, the "Due to Ship" date will be the date of the first occurrence for the normal Sales Order that is created to perform the maintenance work. Subsequent Sales Orders, based on the Recurring Order, are released via Sales > Recurring Orders.
  10. Confirm all the information on the order is accurate. If changes are made be sure to click "Save" to complete the process.

FAQs and Diagnostic Tips

How does DEACOM track Service Items in inventory?

Service Items are visible in the customer inventory report via Sales > Order Reporting. In regards to phantom parts, when these are shipped, all of its components will enter customer inventory so they can be replaced one at a time. If the items on the phantom BOM are marked “Track In Customer Inventory”, they will all be marked with the service item ID of the line that they were shipped on. The same process occurs if a non-phantom part is shipped, the part will enter customer inventory (if marked as such) and be linked to the Service Item. When a negative sales order is received, Service Items will be taken out of customer inventory.