Working With Equipment Records

With Service Management, you can track your customer's equipment with a complete equipment database for each customer location. The equipment database tracks the manufacturer, type, model, serial number, and location of each piece of equipment. Fields are also included on each record to keep track of the installation date, installer, and warranty information. Each equipment record can contain user-defined fields, as well as notepad and document management functionality. You can set up component records, which can be assigned to equipment records if you want to track individual parts.

The equipment database allows you to monitor equipment warranty types and expiration dates, which helps you avoid billing a customer for a service that is covered under warranty. Tracking equipment information can also help your marketing efforts by identifying the recommended service or maintenance contract sales opportunities.

A Warranty indicator appears in several windows if equipment associated with a service call or maintenance call is covered by a warranty. You associate equipment with a service call in the Service Call Tasks or Service Call Tasks window. You associate equipment with a maintenance contract in the Contract Coverage Maintenance window. The indicator appears in the Service Call, Service Invoice, Maintenance Costs, and Adjustments to Costs windows. If the date in the Warranty Expires or Extended Warranty Expires field in the Equipment window is greater than the date the service call was opened, the indicator appears.

Another feature for servicing and tracking equipment is refrigerant tracking. Organizations are required to report annual refrigerant usage and track leak rates to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). If you work with a third-party agency to manage or confirm refrigerant safety, reporting can be done through that agency.

Notes:

• When setting up an equipment record, we recommend that you enter data in as many fields as possible. Detailed record keeping helps to fill report information more completely. It also helps when using the Find button on the Service Manager window to locate a customer based on equipment information.
• You can set up Equipment Types to save data entry time when creating new equipment records. Think of equipment types as templates to be used when creating similar equipment records. When you create a new equipment record, information from the equipment type template, including the task list if associated with a maintenance contract, appears on the equipment record. See Setting Up Equipment Types.

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