How Repairs works
The chain a repair travels, from the machine arriving on your counter to the invoice being paid.
A repair moves through Repairs in one direction, and every screen in the app is a stop along it. Learn the chain once and you will know which screen you want without hunting for it, because the answer is always "the one after the last thing that happened".
Highlights
- The ticket is the spine. Everything else either feeds it or comes out of it.
- Nothing is billed until a ticket says so, and nothing is billed twice.
- Estimates come before the work, invoices after it.
- Parts you do not have become a purchase order and a ticket on hold.
- The job is not over when the repair is, it is over when the machine is back.
The chain
| Stage | The screen | What it records |
|---|---|---|
| The machine arrives | Tickets | The customer, the equipment, the fault and the serial number |
| You price the work | The ticket's services and parts | What the labour is worth and what it will consume |
| The customer approves | Quotes | The estimate they said yes to, and the price you are held to |
| A part is missing | Purchase Orders | What was ordered, from whom, and when it is promised |
| A technician works on it | The ticket's statuses and work report | Who did it, what they found, and what they guarantee |
| You bill it | Invoices | What is owed, carrying only the lines not yet charged for |
| They pay | Payments Received | The money, allocated against that invoice |
| It goes home | Packages, then Shipments | What was in the box, who is carrying it, and when it arrived |
What a ticket turns into
A ticket never asks anybody for money. Converting is what turns recorded work into a document a customer can act on, and the menu offers the three destinations at once.
- Forwards, before the work
- Ticket to quote. Raise the estimate early, while the price is still a proposal rather than a bill.
- Forwards, after the work
- Ticket to invoice. It carries only what has not been billed yet, which is what makes staged billing safe.
- Sideways, when parts are short
- Ticket to purchase order, and the service row goes to Waiting for Parts until the delivery lands.
- Outwards, at the end
- Ticket to package to shipment. The package says what went in the box; the shipment says where it is.