Service Agreements

If your Company offers some type of Service Agreement, or contract, you can set these up in the background, where you and your Customers set terms for more than one job in the future, including Parts and Labor, and method of billing. Here are the basic steps:

1.	Create the Service Agreement

2.	Print and send to Customer for Approval

3.	Activate after Customer Approval

4.	Enter and use Service Calls attached to this Agreement, using its terms

By its very name, an Agreement requires the Customer's consent, so there is a preliminary stage where you create the Agreement, print and present it to the Customer, and then Activate the Agreement to put it into effect. Similar to a Project, the Agreement remains at the Estimate Status until you Activate it. The difference is that Activation does not immediately involve a related Work Order. However, Activation will start Automatic Billing (if any) and trigger Invoices, even without Work Orders.

Also, see Company Preferences for system-level controls for Service Agreements:

•	If your Company does not wish to use Service Agreements at this time, you can use the Features Tab to uncheck Enable Agreements.

•	If your Company uses a similar sort of arrangement, but calls it something else, you can use the Entity Names Tab to use another term for Agreements throughout the system.

One of the great advantages of using Service Agreements is that, once set up, they offer a great deal of automation, providing accuracy and saving company time:

•	Billing methods and amounts

•	Specified Price Margins

•	Schedules for work to be done

•	Generation of Work Orders

•	Specified Parts and Labor Discounts

•	References to Customer Equipment

You can always make exceptions for an Agreement.

For instance, if an Agreement is set up to create automatic Work Orders and Schedule Slots, you can still attach an existing Service Call or Schedule Slot in addition to the generated ones, or delete or change an automatically created entry.

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