Service Agreements Archives

Creating Planned Maintenance Work Orders for Service Agreements

The Planned Maintenance form is used to create all of the planned work orders for a service agreement. It proposes work orders based on information brought forward from the “Add/Edit Service Agreement” form. This utility makes it easy to generate the planned maintenance visits before closing the “Add Service Agreement” window.

Accessing the Planned Maintenance Form

This form is only opened from the Add/Edit Service Agreement form. To create the planned work orders use the menu button on the Service Agreement form. Click Menu | Create | Planned Maintenance. The “Planned Maintenance” window will appear.

Step-by-Step Planned Maintenance Work Order Creation

Set a priority for these work orders. Medium is typical for many companies.

From the Work Order Type selection list, select the appropriate work order type. You should have at least one dedicated work order type for maintenance work that is planned (scheduled).

In the Description field, enter a description of the work to be performed.

Using the Assigned To selection list, pick the technician most likely to do this work. You can leave this blank and select someone at a later time.

Using the Department selection list, select the appropriate department that this service agreement revenue belongs to.

Check the “Add Service Agreement Notes to Work Order Notes” box if you want the service agreement notes copied to the work orders.

Tip: The service agreement form includes a Notes form where you can enter detailed notes regarding the service agreement or the work to be performed.

Click the Auto button to build a list of work orders to create. You will see them listed in the grid at the bottom of the form.

If any of the created work orders have already been completed, check the “Completed” box so that the software knows they have been completed. They will be marked “Completed” when they are created.

Change the date of the work orders in the MM/DD/YYYY column. You likely do not know the exact date. Don’t worry, the dates can always be changed later.

Select the work orders that you wish to create. There are some buttons on the right of the grid to speed this process up.

Click the OK button to create the work orders. A list form will open that displays the work orders just created. This gives you another opportunity to edit them. These work orders will be listed in the Work Order List, just like any other work orders.

After setting up the Planned Maintenance form and clicking OK, a confirmation window will appear, reporting the successful creation of new work orders. You will then be returned to the “Add Service Agreement” window, where the “Completed” and “Not Completed” fields will display updated information based on the work orders just created. When finished reviewing and editing information, save & close the window.

Field and Button Definitions in the Planned Maintenance Window

The following is an explanation of every label, button, and control found on the Planned Maintenance form.

Customer: Displays the customer for whom the planned maintenance work orders will be created.

Service Agreement #: Displays the “serial number” of the customer’s service agreement.

Planned Visits: Displays the number of planned maintenance visits which come with the service agreement.

Term (Months): Displays the length of the service agreement in months.

Term Begins: Displays the starting date of the service agreement.

Term Ends: Displays the ending date of the service agreement.

Completed (display): Displays the number of Planned Visits (see above) which may already be complete.

Not Completed: Displays the number of Planned Visits (see above) which are not yet complete.

Other: Displays the number of any additional work orders which are covered under the service agreement plan, but not part of the original planned maintenance visits. For example, say that a service agreement customer has two planned work orders; one for May 1st and one for October 1st. If for some reason a work order is created for a covered equipment problem on June 25th, this would be an “Other” work order and be reported here. When creating a work order manually, it can be associated to an existing service agreement by selecting the service agreement from the “Serv Agmt” drop-down list.

Priority: Used to set a priority of Low, Medium, or High on the planned work orders.

Work Order Type: Used to select a work order type for the planned visits. It is strongly recommended that this be left at “Planned Maintenance” unless a compelling reason to do otherwise exists.

Assigned To: Used to select the technician to whom the work orders will be assigned, if known. This field is not mandatory. Leave it blank if it is not known which technician will be assigned the work orders.

Add Service Agreement Notes to Work Order Notes: Tick this checkbox to have any service agreement notes added to pending work order notes.

Proposed Work Orders Grid: This area of the Planned Maintenance window displays the work orders proposed by the form. Proposals may be edited as necessary.

Create Work Order: The Create Work Order column in not titled but lies just left of the “MM/DD/YYYY” column in the proposed work orders grid. When the OK button is clicked, a work order will be created for each ticked checkbox. Any un-ticked proposals will be ignored when the planned maintenance visits are created.

MM/DD/YYYY (in the grid): Displays the proposed date of each work order to be created. The proposed dates may be edited as necessary. The date of the first work order is always the current date, because the best chance of selling a service agreement to a customer is on-site through a well-trained technician using the service agreement discount as an enticement. See the bullet point “Complete (grid)” below for more details.

Completed (in the grid): When this checkbox is ticked, the proposed work order will not only be created, but also marked as completed in one step. Well-trained technicians are adept at selling service agreements in the field because they can entice customers with, “a discount on today’s work if you’d like to invest in our ‘XYZ’ service agreement right now). Thus, the customer gets to take immediate advantage of the service agreement discount, and you get a new participant in your service agreement program. Of course the immediate work performed will count as the first planned maintenance visit. This is why the first planned work order in the grid is always proposed with the current date. The Completed checkbox is then used as a time saver. Simply tick the checkbox instead of manually locating the work order in the work order list and taking the steps to mark its status as completed in a separate action.

OK: Creates the planned maintenance work orders based on the form’s settings, then exits.

Auto: Builds or resets the proposed work order grid area of the Planned Maintenance window to its originally proposed dates and conditions.

Exit: Closes the form without creating any planned maintenance work orders.

Help Topics Related to Planned Maintenance and Service Agreements

Service Agreements (adding and editing)

Entering and Updating Service Agreements

This help topic covers the basics of managing service agreements. It will show you how to add and edit service agreements. There are definitions explaining each of the fields, buttons, and controls on the service agreement form. There are links to related topics at the bottom of the page. You may also wish to read Creating Planned Maintenance Service Agreement Work Orders.

The Purpose of the Service Agreement Form

This form will keep track of the type of service agreement (SA), beginning and ending dates, status and the value (how many visits are included) of the Customer’s service agreement with your company.

This form will include a list of the Customer’s equipment. This allows you to select what equipment is covered under this service agreement. There is a place to enter notes regarding what the service agreement is for and what it includes. These notes can be copied to work orders create from this service agreement. This form also offers a Planned Work Orders utility that makes created respective work orders fast and easy.

When and Where From to Enter a Service Agreement

The process of “entering a service agreement” is the recording of a service agreement in Total Office Manager. This is typically done directly after the service agreement is sold to the customer. After completing a sales form which includes a service agreement, the user is reminded that the “paperwork” should be completed. If a new service agreement is opted for instead of editing an existing agreement, the “Add Service Agreement” form appears and is used to enter the agreement into the program.

Occasionally a service agreement may need to be entered (recorded) in the program on its own, without recording the actual sale of the agreement. This is especially true of new users of the program who may want to enter all of their customer’s existing service agreements, while not concerned with entering the sale on which the agreement was sold. When this is the case, open the “Add Service Agreement” form from the main menu by clicking Customers > New Service Agreement. (or use the Ctrl+M keyboard shortcut).

Service Agreement Item Type

To be able to sell a service agreement on an invoice, you will need to create one or more service agreement item types. To set up a service agreement ‘Type’ you would create an ‘Invoice Item’. Please see the topic “Service Agreement – Invoice Item” for further information.

Service Agreement Form Access

First open the Service Agreement List from the main menu by clicking Customers | Service Agreements List. Here, go to the Service Agreement List menu and select New Service Agreement.
When selling a service agreement from an invoice or sale, this form will open automatically. Information will be copied from the invoice into the service agreement, saving you a lot time. From that point, the process is the same.
There are many others ways to access service agreements.

Service Agreement Form Field Definitions

This table includes definitions of each label and control found on the Service Agreement form.

Agreement #:	The next available service agreement number will dynamically populate. You have the option of hi-lighting the number and typing in a new number if you wish.
Status:	This field will state if the service agreement is active or expired.
Customer:	Select from the drop down menu the customer, or create a new customer by clicking the hand icon to the right of the customer field.
Type:	Select from the drop down menu the type, or create a new Type by clicking the hand icon to the right of the customer field.
Location:	Will dynamically populate the customers address.
Term Begins:	Today’s date will dynamically populate this field; change the date by clicking on the drop-down menu to the right of the field.
Term Ends:	Date will dynamically populate according to the information that was set up in the ‘Type’ form. Example: 1 year SA would populate exactly one year from the term begins date. Example: 05/20/2004 Begins 05/20/2005 Ends. You may also check the “Override” box and enter a date yourself (see below).
Override:	Check this box to change the “Term Ends” field.
Planned Visits:	Number of planned visits will dynamically populate according to the information that was set up in the ‘Type’ form. Example: 2 visits per year, 3 visits per year etc.
Term (Months):	The length of the contract in months will dynamically populate according to the information that was set up in the ‘Type’ form. Example: 12, 24, 36 months etc.
Completed:	Planned tune-ups or inspections from this SA that have been completed out of the total that have been planned for this service agreement.
Not Completed:	Planned tune-ups or inspections from this SA that have NOT been completed.
Other:	Work orders associated with this SA that are NOT planned tune-ups or inspections. In other words, these are work orders created and associated with this SA but had nothing at all to do with planned maintenance. The SA must be selected on the work order.
Description:	Used to enter additional information. Example: This agreement cannot be transferred to another person or company.
This SA is a Renewal:	Check this box if this Service Agreement was used to renew an existing service agreement for the same customer. Pro Tip: Press and hold both the Shift and Ctrl keys, then single click on the “This SA is a Renewal” label. A box will appear allowing you to enter the number of the SA that is renewed. There is no lookup on this box. You will need to know the SA number. This number comes from the “Agreement #” field at the top of the form. This box will not appear if the service agreement is already a renewal.
Inactivate Item:	Check this box if you no longer want to use this service agreement. It will no longer be available in the various lists used to select it.
Save & Close:	Saves all changes and closes the form.
Save & New:	Saves all changes and clears the form so that you can enter a new one.
Cancel:	Closes the form and does NOT save any UNSAVED changes.

Service Agreement Menu Button Definitions

This table includes definitions of each option found under the Service Agreement’s Menu button.

Save:	Saves all of the information entered or changed but does not close the form.
Revert:	Goes back to how the form was BEFORE your last change.
Notes:	Allows you to enter important notes about this SA. These notes can be included in work order reports. Enter any general information that you might need to know about the Customer.
Delete:	Deletes this SA. This process can NOT be reversed.
Copy:	Creates a copy of the service agreement. You may then make changes to it and save. This is handy when created multiple SAs that are similar to one another.
Equipment:	From the Customer Equipment list (all ready entered), put a check mark in the ‘Add’ column for the equipment that pertains to this particular service agreement.
Customer:Job > History:	Selecting this option will pull up all the history transactions pertaining to the Customer.
Customer:Job > Edit:	Selecting this option will pull up the customer’s account information.
Customer:Job > Contact Log:	Opens the customer’s contact log for reading or editing.
Create Work Order:	This button automatically creates a work order using this service agreement and customer. This makes scheduling the maintenance events easier.
Create Planned Work Orders:	This button automatically creates a work order using this service agreement and customer for any planned maintenance that has not yet been completed. A form will open allowing you to customize these planned maintenance work orders.
Create Invoice:	Creates an invoice (balance due) using this customer’s information.
Create Sale:	Creates a sale (no balance due) using this customer’s information.
Create Credit:	Creates a credit (like a refund) using this customer’s information.
Create Estimate:	Creates an estimate using this customer’s information.

Step-By-Step Service Agreement Creation

Open the Service Agreements List and Sort the list if desired.
To enter a new service agreement, click Service Agreement List menu and select New Service Agreement.
To edit a service agreement, right-click on an agreement in the list and click Edit Service Agreement from the pop-up menu.
To delete a service agreement, right-click on an agreement in the list and click Delete Service Agreement from the pop-up menu.
To inactivate a service agreement, right-click on an agreement in the list and click Make Service Agreement Inactive from the pop-up menu.
When selling a service agreement from an invoice or sale, this form will open automatically. Information will be copied from the invoice into the service agreement, saving you a lot time. From that point, the process is the same.

Service Agreement Tips

Service agreements can be the heart of any good service department. You need service agreements! Contact our office for a complete service agreement kit that includes forms and video training tapes.
Create Service agreements in Total Office Manager to match all of the different types you sell in the field.
Service agreements may include a list of customer equipment that is covered by the agreement. You will check the equipment that is covered. You can always add or remove coverage by unchecking the box.
You can enter customer equipment “on the fly” from this form. You may also go to Customers | Customer Equipment List | Equipment List | New Customer Equipment and enter the customer’s equipment.
Remember that discounts and coverage are determined by the service agreement Invoice Item.
Many users ask about the box labeled “Other”. Here is a little more information about what that box is used for: Example: Let’s say that a service agreement customer has two planned work orders; one for May 1st and one for October 1st. If a work order is created on June 25th for a problem with covered equipment, it would be an “Other” work order. The customer would still receive the benefits from owning the service agreement (like a discount, or priority scheduling), but the work order is not part of the original planned work orders, so it is reported in the “Other” field. When manually created work orders are associated to an existing service agreement (by using the “Serv Agmt” drop-down list) they will appear in the service agreement’s “Other” field.