Service Agreements
A Service Agreement is a standing contract with a customer — a warranty, a maintenance plan, a service-level agreement, or a support contract — that covers some of the customer's equipment for a period of time. Beyond recording the terms, an active agreement can create maintenance visits and recurring invoices on a schedule, driven by its Next Visit and Next Billing dates.
Where it lives
Field Service → Service Agreement. Each row is one contract with one customer. The list can show each agreement's Visit Frequency, Next Visit, Next Billing, and Auto-Renew, and filters on status, type, customer, and start and end dates.
Key attributes
- Agreement Number and Name — both required; the number is pre-filled with the next one
- Customer — required
- Agreement Type — Warranty, Maintenance, Service Level Agreement, Support Contract, or Other
- Coverage Type — Full Coverage, Parts Only, or Labor Only
- Covered Assets — the customer's equipment this agreement applies to. Available once a customer is chosen, and maintenance visits are created for these assets.
- Start Date (required) and End Date — leave End Date empty for an open-ended agreement
- Response Time (hrs) — how quickly you commit to respond; shown on the customer's service requests
- Term & Renewal — Renew automatically and a Renewal term (months), from 1 to 120
- Visits & Billing — Visit Frequency (No scheduled visits, Monthly, Quarterly, Every 6 months, or Yearly) with Next Visit, and a Recurring Amount with its Billing Frequency (Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, or One-Time), Next Billing, and Last Billed
Creating and activating an agreement
Create a new agreement and fill in the number, name, customer, and start date, then set the term, visit schedule, and recurring billing you've agreed. Save — a new agreement starts as a Draft — then click Activate in the action bar at the top. Visits and billing are counted from the start date.
Agreement actions
A saved agreement shows the actions its status allows (save any edits first). The same actions are available as row and bulk actions in the list.
| Action | When it's offered |
|---|---|
| Activate | Draft. Needs a customer; if an end date is set, it must not have passed. |
| Generate due visits | Active, with a visit frequency. Creates the maintenance requests due now. |
| Bill current period | Active, with a recurring amount above zero. Creates the invoice for the current period. |
| Renew | Active or Expired, with an end date. Extends the end date by the renewal term, as many times as needed to reach today; visits and billing carry on into the new term. |
| Cancel agreement | Draft or Active. No further visits or bills, and it can't be attached to new requests. |
What happens automatically
The system checks active agreements every hour:
- Maintenance visits — each visit that comes due becomes a new Maintenance service request for each covered asset (or a single request if no assets are listed), waiting in the Dispatch Board's Pending Requests. Under Full Coverage, those requests are No Charge.
- Recurring invoices — when a billing period starts, an invoice for the recurring amount is created for the customer. Recurring billing uses the Field Service Billing Item — see Billing Service Requests.
- End of term — once the end date has passed, an agreement set to Renew automatically has its end date extended by the renewal term and keeps creating visits and invoices for the new term; otherwise it becomes Expired. An open-ended agreement never ends.
When the last period of a term has been billed, Next Billing shows the start of the next billing period, even though it's after the End Date. That date is only used if the agreement renews.
Renewing an agreement that has already expired bills the months it was lapsed, one invoice each hour until it's caught up, but creates no maintenance visits for dates that have already gone by — visits pick up from the first scheduled date on or after today.
If an agreement that renewed some time ago shows an empty Next Billing, Bill current period restarts billing with the first period that starts after the last invoice date, and later periods follow one each hour. If Next Visit is empty, Generate due visits resumes visits from the next scheduled date.
How it relates to Service Requests
When you take a call from a customer with exactly one active agreement in force, the agreement fills in on the new request by itself; otherwise you can pick one of the customer's active agreements. The request then shows Respond within N h from the agreement's response time. Expired and cancelled agreements can't be attached to new requests, though requests already on them can still be finished.
Coverage type and response time don't change prices on requests you create by hand; set the request's Billing Method to match what the contract covers.
Default settings
The Service Agreement Settings dialog lets each user set a Default agreement type, Default coverage type, and Default billing frequency, so new agreements start with your usual terms instead of Maintenance, Full Coverage, and Monthly.
Only a draft agreement can be deleted, and only if it was never billed and no request uses it — otherwise cancel it. Copying an agreement keeps its terms but starts a new Draft with fresh dates.