Introduction
The contracts manager helps you define the parameters of each service contract period. Each period may represent one or more years (or months if required). By saving each period in a separate contract allows you to preserve information for each contract as and when they are renewed.
Service jobs can be automatically created and completed as part of a service route by your engineers, or allocated directly by office personnel. In any event, it is difficult to miss a service visit without a clear indication that this has happened. This will be flagged up in either a report, or on the main diary page by clicking the 'Service' tab in the LH menu. Service jobs that have gone past their due date will be clearly identified within the job age column.
On the Site Record, the service contract details are displayed in the centre panel.
Clicking on the Status dialogue or the dates will open the Contract Manager dialogue.
Setting the values
Status
By default, the only values that exist in this list are 'Undefined', 'Cancelled / Terminated' and 'On Hold'. You may populate this list with your own service contract names by visiting Custom Values in the settings section and entering your own contract names and associated screen colour.
Every contract will be 'undefined' when first created, once you enter some of your own contract names in the custom values section, these will be in the list and available for selection.
The 'Cancelled / Terminated' option allows you to tell the system that your customer has cancelled the contract mid term but allows you to keep the dates recorded and any other options that may have been set. You can run reports on this status that allows you to determine how many contracts have been cancelled within a period. When a contract is Cancelled / Terminated', associated service visits are suspended from the Mobile App 'Service Route'
'On Hold' allows you to temporarily suspend the contract. You can run reports on this status that allows you to determine how many contracts have been placed 'On Hold' within a period. While a contract is 'On Hold', associated service visits are suspended from the Mobile App 'Service Route'
Route
Each site product can be assigned to a given service route / engineer. As with the contract names, you can set up these routes within the Custom Values section. See the individual help topic 'Service Routes' Service routes allow you to assign multiple service jobs to one engineer for viewing and completing on his mobile app.
Start / Expiry
These dates represent the start and end dates for the full contract. this can be for any period from a matter of months to several years. Clicking on these dates will open a date picker dialogue allowing you to select the correct date. (Please note: dates are selected and entered onto the main page on clicking the actual day number)
To avoid conflict with dates set back to front, always set the start date first, otherwise setting the end date will overwrite value in the start date if it is shown to be earlier than the start.
PLEASE NOTE: All service visits between the two dates provided will be created within your job history. This includes service visits from dates already passed. If you wish to prevent past service visits from being created, check the box labelled 'Exclude Past Incomplete'. Checking this box will remove all service visits from the past that have not been completed (Completed visits remain on the system)
R +1 buttons
These two buttons apply to the expiry date only. When first entering a start date, the expiry date will automatically default to 'Plus one year'. Clicking the R button simply allow you 'reset' (R) the Expiry date back to the same date as the start date. The '+1' button adds one year to the expiry date for each click.
Put simply, if you get confused with the dates, R will reset the date back to the beginning allowing you to then add the correct number of years with the +1 button.
Insurance Paid
This is an optional field that allows you to record the date your customer paid for the contract.
Contract Price
Record the value of the contract. This requires some consideration for how your particular company prefers to record the value of a contract.
E.g. For a single year contract, it is easy to say what the value of the contract is because it covers one calendar year. What if some customers take a one year contract and others a three or a five year contract.
One method would be that this field always contains the single year value. So if a one year contract was £100 but the customer opted for a 5 year contract, you would still record £100, or at least one fifth of the total contract value. You could then say in the description how this value was calculated. This method allows you a uniform pricing structure that is always based on one year. There is just as good a reason to enter the full contract price. We have raised the point so that you may consider it and act accordingly.
Is Current Contract
Within AutoVu, you can define multiple contracts for the same product. This allows you to create a completely new contract for each payment period. So, if your customer paid for a contract in 2018 that expired in December, you would want to preserve that detail and create a separate new contract for 2019. This toggle allows you to tell the system which is the 'Current' contract, I.E. the one that is in force now and will be reflected in your reporting. See below for details on how to create a new contract period.
Remind on Expiry
This toggle simply sets a flag so that when reporting on service contracts that are due for renewal, you may easily determine which contracts have been set to renew. the default setting for this flag is 'On'
Rental Product
This option sets a flag so that within your reports, you can identify if the product is a rental item or not.
Please Note: If you wish to include automated service entries for rental products, it is necessary to set the start / end dates for the contract period including any service months required.
Use the contract end date as a flag to indicate the contract review point in time. E.G. as the product is a rental item, utilising the contract end date is a useful feature that allows you to set a point in time where you may review the terms of the rental contract or determine the continued suitability of the product for possible replacement.
Exclude Past Incomplete
By default, all service visits between the start and end date will be added to the system. If you have added the contract part way through a contract and do not require the past uncompleted service visits to be shown, toggling this switch will automatically remove them.
Include First Service
When first supplying a product, a service is not usually performed on the same day as the supply date so the system will automatically miss out the first service renewal as the product is deemed serviced on supply, subsequent renewals may require this toggle to be set in order to insert the correct number of service visits into the job history. Clicking save, with this option on and then with it off will demonstrate the feature.
Deceased
This toggle simply sets a flag within the system so that when running reports, you may easily define which Products / Sites should be included in the report.
Contract Invoice
By default, AutoVu will flag up any job ticket type that has not been set for invoice, or marked to the contrary with the 'Invoice not required' flag. By toggling the 'Contract Invoice' flag to 'Ticked' prevents the system from flagging up job ticket type 'Service' as requiring an invoice unless the 'Ready For Invoice' toggle is specifically set. This would usually mean that you have the service contract payment covered as a single invoice usually linked to the first visit in the series.
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By setting the 'Ready For Invoice' flag means that even though the Service Job was part of a Service Contract, you have indicated that additional works over and above the inclusive costs of the Service Contract have been incurred and an additional invoice is required for that particular visit.
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Invoice Created
This setting allows you to indicate to the system that an invoice has been issued that relates to this contract. This can either be manually set by toggling the check box, or it can be automatically set by creating an invoice from one of the service job tickets relating to this contract. See below for additional information regarding this control.
Rolling Contract
A rolling contract would indicate that your customer continually pays the premium until either you or they terminate it. The start date would reflect when this agreement begun, the expiry date would reflect a date that you would like to review the rolling contract agreement.
Checking the Rolling Contract checkbox makes visible a drop down list that allows you to determine how service visits are automatically generated by the system.
Left at the default state 'By Service Months' maintains the automatic generation of all service visits between the start and expiry date of the contract. Selecting any of the other options changes the method of producing automatic service visits so that each one is produced on completion of the last, with a next service due date being created exactly the period selected from completion of the previous service visit.
The first service is based on the contract start date and and will be the selected period in the future. If the 'Include First Service' check box is ticked, the first service will be on the date of the start date. If the start date is too far in the past to meet the selected frequency period, todays date will be used. (This may be edited where required)
Each time a service visit is completed, the next one will be automatically generated up until the expiry date.
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A new service visit based on the last service completion date will be produced with a Due Date in the future to the selected frequency.
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Service Months selection is greyed out while using the rolling contract option combined with any frequency selection other than 'By Service Month'
Service Months
You can select any or all of the months that this contract covers. Just tick the appropriate months and if they fall between the dates you have set, a service job ticket entry will be created.
Notes
Any additional notes about this contract can be recorded here.
Delete
You may delete the contract in its entirety. You cannot physically delete the currently active contract, but clicking this option will reset the parameters. Only contracts that are not currently the 'currently active contract' can be physically deleted.
Files
Any documentation can be uploaded here. This may be contract documents from your customer or those created by you.
Save
Upon saving the details on this form, the service job tickets will be recorded within your job history (where applicable) these will be 'Non Booked' service jobs that are available either on a service route when they become due, or, on the diary page when clicking the 'Service' button in the LH menu. Only services due within the next 30 days or until they are completed will show on the main diary page or the service engineers app.
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It is Important to Note
All automatically generated Service visits will include a description of the contract and a due date.
Should you edit this description by add extra information that is relevant to the visit, this visit will no longer be automatically updated/deleted by the system.
For example, if you initially create 12 monthly service visits, then decide it should only be 6 monthly visits, once the save button is pressed, the system will automatically adjust the number of visits accordingly. If you had edited the automatically generated description to one that is longer than the original, the details of this visit will not be overwritten.
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Creating a New Service Contract
You could keep this simple and only alter the dates of the existing contract and enter notes to reflect what has happened between each contract period.
If you would prefer to keep each contract period separate, you can do so by creating a completely new service contract entry.
Click the 'Service Contract' tab shown in the LH menu when on the site record.
This will open a table grid showing the current service contracts. Details recorded in the current contract (if any) will be shown in the grid. As you add additional contracts, each will be recorded here with the ability to select and review its contents at any time. The column labelled 'Current' identifies which contract is the currently active one. The currently active contract will be the one that shows in your regular reports for determining due dates etc.
Clicking add, will open a new Contract manager dialogue (as shown above)
A new contract will not become active until you tell it to do so by opening the contract you now wish to be active and selecting the 'Is Current Contract' toggle and save.
A new contract and its associated job tickets will not interfere with job tickets created from other contracts. They are kept separate. I.E. any unused past job tickets will not be affected by saving details from a new contract.
Contract Expired
When a contract goes past its expiry date, the Status will turn to red with the words 'EXPIRED' displayed. (this also shows on the service engineers app if the job was specifically booked for him out of contract period) This is a very visual indicator that any agreements on what this contract contained have now expired. The original name of the contract is shown underneath the status.
Contract Cancelled
When you or the customer cancels / terminates a contract early, the 'Cancelled / Terminated' option can be selected within the 'Status' drop down. Utilising this option allows you to report on 'Cancelled / Terminated contracts. The words 'Cancelled / Terminated' will appear in the status column. Please note: The words 'Cancelled / Terminated' will only show while the contract is actually still within its contract period, once it expires, the 'Expired' flag will then show. However, the original status 'Cancelled / Terminated' is still shown within the Contract Name field. (See the second image).
The date the contract was cancelled as shown below can be set within the Contract Manager dialogue. This will become visible after setting the 'Cancelled / Terminated' option.
Image showing a cancelled contract that has now also expired its contract term.
PLEASE NOTE: Once the Cancelled / Terminated option has been set, the relevant service visits will be removed from the service engineers app and also from the 'Service' tab on the LH diary menu.
The service visits will remain in the job history as outstanding.
Invoice Created
The invoice created toggle can either be manually set (for invoicing prepared outside of Workforce Manager) alternatively, this will be automatically set via a 'Service Job Ticket' related to this contract.
To have this toggle automatically set, the invoice must be prepared from a linked 'Job Ticket' that has been created as part of the contract. I.E. go to one of the automatically generated service visits then click the 'Invoicing' button shown in the LH menu, then click 'Add'. you will then be able to create a 'Linked' invoice.
For contracts that create multiple visits within the same contract, I.E. several of the 'Month' toggles have been selected, any one of the visits can be used to record the invoice, although we would recommend using the first in the series, I.E. the one with the earliest date. This way, you will always know which of the visits has been used to set up invoicing.
If you use recurring invoices, again, providing the initial recurring invoice was set up from one of the 'Service' visits from this contract, all subsequent invoices will appear linked to the same service visit.
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Recurring service contract invoices will always list within the same Job Ticket as initially created.
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If you do not link the contract invoice to a related service visit, the 'Invoice Created' toggle will remain un-checked.
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In order for this procedure to work, it is imperative that each new Contract is created separately. I.E. each year, create a new service contract with the new date period. DO NOT simply move the dates along on the existing contract. Clearly, the existing contract will already have been invoiced, with the 'Invoice Created' toggle already set.
Contracts Maintained by Others
Where a service contract is provided, but the visits are conducted by another company can be recorded within the 'Held By' section.
An example of this as follows;
- A client bought a product from you with a five year warranty
- You purchased this product from a company that offers 12 months comprehensive warranty
- In the first year, the Supplier / Manufacturer would cover all call outs
- Second and subsequent years you would cover the contract yourself
In the Service contract dialogue, click the company name as indicated in the image below.
The default setting is that you Installed / Warranty the product.
Toggle the switch to 'No' will open up a drop down list enabling you to select the company that Installed / Warranties the product.
Once a Company has been selected, it is then possible to record the period of warranty by selecting their warranty expiry date.
On clicking 'Save' the details will be recorded within the contract panel.
Key Accounts
See the separate How To guide on Key Accounts here.