Classic - Equipment and Warranties

This article will review how to attach and maintain Equipment and Warranties to a Service Location. 

Adding New Equipment to a Service Location

New equipment can be added to service locations from anywhere in Successware where you are highlighted on a location. If you are adding a new piece of equipment that is replacing an existing piece, you can edit the existing piece and checkmark the Out of Service option. This will prevent new service work from being associated with the old piece of equipment but will maintain existing history for reporting purposes.

1. Select the Service Location to which you want to add the equipment and open the Equipment screen by pressing F6.

2. If there is existing equipment, click on New Eq to open the Equipment screen. If there is no equipment, an empty Equipment screen will open by default.

3. Choose an equipment type (Eq Type) and a manufacturer (Mfg) from the drop-down lists.

4. Use the System field to identify equipment at locations with multiple systems. Systems can be numbered or identified by letters. Equipment reports will allow you to group a location's equipment by system.

5. Continue to add Size, Model#, Serial# and Location.

6. If your company installed the equipment, check the Installed by Us box. This will allow you to populate Install Date, Installed By, Install Call ID (This can be the Job Number) and Sold By fields. The Age will be calculated on a continuing basis based upon the Install date.

If your company did not install the equipment, you will be able to identify only the Installed By field and Age. The equipment will continue to age using the entered date of the equipment as its "birthday".

7. Continue to add a Condition, Evaluated By and Evaluated On.

8. Use the Notes field to enter any pertinent information about the equipment. This area can be used to identify filter sizes if the unit uses multiple filters of different sizes.

9. Enter the Number of Filters and Size

10. Click Save to save the piece of equipment.

11. Any applicable warranties can also be added at this time.

Equipment Additional Specifications

An Additional Specifications screen has been added as a Popup option in the Equipment form. This Popup allows you to record information related to circuit panels. This information can then be accessed through the equipment form as well as in Equipment reports. 

In order for the Additional Specs Popup to be available, the piece of equipment displayed in the Equipment form must be check marked as a Circuit Panel.

A Piece of Equipment can be Identified as a Circuit Panel in one of two ways:

• The Standard Equipment reference book has the field IsCircuitPanel.  Place an X in this field for any equipment types that represent circuit panels.

• A piece of equipment can have the Is Panel checkbox selected in the Equipment form.

Recording Additional Equipment Specifications

The Additional Equipment Specifications form allows you to record:

• Whether or not the panel has a Main Breaker.

• The Size of Service in Amps.

• Total Spaces and Spaces Used.

• Whether or not the panel has Surge Protection.

To access Additional Specifications from the Equipment form, right click and select Additional Specifications, or press CTRL+A.  This option is available from both the grid view and the detail view.

After making changes, press OK to accept the changes, or click Cancel to revert to the original values. 

Note: Changes made in this form are not saved to the database at this point.  This form operates on the dataset passed from the Equipment form.  Changes are saved to the database when the Equipment form is saved.

Reporting Circuit Panel Information

Additional properties have been added to the Equipment List and Equipment Comparison Reports. When equipment identified as IsCircuitPanel is included in these reports the values related to the circuit panel will be included in the results. Additionally, Size of Service and Has Surge Protection are available as filtering options in the report interfaces.

Warranties

Warranties are added to equipment from the Equipment screen. There are 2 types of warranties available to you to add to a piece of equipment: an in-house or manufacturer/vendor warranty.

When warranty repairs arise under an in-house warranty, the cost of the repair is covered internally. In-house warranties allow you to set aside a warranty reserve which can be charged against when a repair covered by the warranty occurs. By setting up Warranty Reserve, you can have the repair work covered by an in-house warranty be charged against a specified department while giving credit to another department which actually performs the repair.

Manufacturer or Vendor warranties are not handled as an internal billing, but rather, the repair is charged to the warranty holder through a third-party billing. The manufacturer or vendor should be set up as a general billing account.

The warranties that you make available to your customers, whether they be a manufacturers’ warranty or an in-house warranty, must be set up in Successware beforehand. When work is charged to an in-house warranty the price of the warranty repair will not be posted to Accounts Receivable.

Adding a Warranty to a Piece of Equipment

Once a piece of equipment is added to a service location, you can add any applicable warranties to the piece of equipment. A warranty must be either in-house or manufacturer/vendor. No one warranty can be both. If a piece of equipment is covered by both an in-house and manufacturer warranty, then add multiple warranties to the piece of equipment.

1. Bring up the Equipment (F6) screen and select the piece of equipment you want to attach the warranty to.

2. Right-click in the Warranty grid and select New Warranty. A new line item will open in the warranty grid.

3. In the WarrType field, select the type of warranty you are applying. The InHouse, Labor Months and Parts Months fields will default based upon the warranty type setup.

4. Tab to the Start field and enter the start date of the warranty.  End dates will default based upon the length of the warranty.

5. If this is NOT an "In-House" warranty, you must enter a vendor or manufacturer responsible for the warranty.

6. If this is a Manufacturer or Vendor warranty, tab to the WarrantyNo field and enter the warranty number.

7. Press Enter to save the new warranty.

Warranty Reserve

When you offer an in-house warranty, for example, to cover the labor of any repairs on a new piece of equipment, you have the ability to add Warranty Reserve to the warranty. The Warranty Reserve represents an amount of money that has been "set aside" to cover any expenses that may arise as a result of the warranty. Setting aside Warranty Reserve at the time that you add the warranty allows you to take an immediate expense which is equal to the anticipated future the warranty may cause. This expense, taken now, is charged against the department you want to hold "financially responsible" for any repairs which arise due to the in-house warranty.

When a repair is required, a line item is added to the AR invoice which identifies the repair and the value of the repair to be covered by the in-house warranty. The department which performed the repair is referenced as the line item department. This line item is then charged to the in-house warranty. The result is the appropriate amount being moved at the GL level from the Warranty Reserve account and reducing the expense of the department that performed the repair by that amount. This ultimately allows you to use the in-house warranty to have one department "pay" another department to perform a repair.

In order to charge work to an in-house warranty, you must set up a reserve account, even if it has a zero balance. It is in the setting up of warranty reserve that the default department responsible for the warranty service expense is defined.  By setting up such an account the expense of doing the work is not charged to the department performing the work.

If there is not enough set aside in the reserve account to cover the repair, Successware will charge additional expenses against the department responsible for the warranty at the time the repair is charged.

Warranty Reserve (pointed to a Liability Account), Warranty Expense (Pointed to a Cost of Sale Account) and Warranty Expense Excess (Also pointed to a Cost of Sale Account, often the same one used for Warranty Expense) are all set up as default accounts at the time of General Ledger Setup.

Once an in-house warranty expires, if there is still a reserve balance you are legally required to reverse the remaining reserve balance. Expired warranties with a remaining balance can be found using the Warranty Expiration report with the "With Reserve Balance Only" option.

Note: Only in-house warranties can have Warranty Reserve added to them. Warranty Reserve is not used with a manufacturer/vendor warranty.

Charging a Repair to an In-House Warranty

Service work that is covered under an in-house warranty is recorded through the Invoice form. A line item should be added to the invoice to represent the repair(s) covered by the in-house warranty. Be sure to include the Department that performed the repair in the line item. If other work is performed at the customer location which is billable to the customer, there is no need to create a second invoice as only the work covered by the warranty will be charged to the warranty. Any other line items can remain charged to Receivables (the customer).

1. Fill in the invoice indicating separate line items for warranty covered work and work for which the customer is responsible.

2. To relate repairs to equipment, select any line items on the invoice which are related to specific pieces of equipment and select the Equip button (ALT+E). Select the piece of equipment on which the service work was performed and click OK.

3. Select the line item that you want to charge to the in-house warranty and click the Chrg W button (ALT+W). A popup will display any active warranties for the customer. Select the appropriate in-house warranty.

Note: Line Items should only be charged to in-house warranties! Charging a line item to a 3rd part warranty will result in a zero-line item with no General Ledger effect. Charges to 3rd party warranties are handled differently.

Once the line item has been charged to a warranty the line will appear in red with a zero-sale amount. The red shade indicates that the line item is a zero/non-billable line item.

Note: The entire amount of the line item selected will be charged to the warranty. If only a portion of the work is to be charged to the warranty, create a line item equal to the total to be charged to the warranty and create additional line items on the invoice for amounts that should be applied to receivables.

4. Post the Invoice.

Line items which have been charged to the warranty will automatically result in a Warranty Reserve posting.

Looking for a more interactive course on Equipment and Warranties? Check out our Learning Management System (LMS)! Our courses are available to all Successware users. If you don't have a sign-in for our LMS, contact us at [e-mail] for a free account.

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