Serialized Concepts

The Serialized application includes a number of windows and tab designed to help you set up your service contracts. They include the following:

To automate the process of using contracts, you first set up the contract types in the Contract Types Types tab. You use this tab to set up a contract type for each type of service that you provide, including leases, rentals, loaners, and so forth. A contract type holds the default settings for a particular type of contract. For example, the contract type for rentals would hold all the default settings to use for a rental contract. These defaults provide the basic guidelines for a rental.

 

You can also set up universal contract types. Universal contract types set default service rates for items that aren’t covered by a specific contract. To set up universal contracts, you first set up the records in the Contract Types Types tab. Then you specify the universal contract names in the Universal Contract fields in the (EZ1O) Serial Order Entry Parameters screen.

 

You can also set up defaults for your lease contract types in the Contract Types Lease tab. In this tab, you can set up the billing frequencies, billing amounts, billing department, and buyout options for your lease contracts.

 

To divide the income from your contracts into separate departments, you can use the Contract Types Departments tab. This tab lets you breakout your income to up to 10 different departments.

 

After you set up all your contract types, you can link the contract types to your serialized items (models). To do this, you assign the contract types to the models in the Item Machine dialog box. Using the earlier example, you would assign the contract type for rentals to all models that you rent. You can assign different contract types to each model. For example, you may have models that you rent, demonstrate, and lease.

 

After you link the contract types to your items, you can use contract types to sell contracts through the Serialized Order Entry window. When you sell a contract, the contract type, together with the settings in the Item Machine dialog box, provide the default terms for the contract. You can change nearly all of these default terms when you complete the sale. Changing these defaults lets you customize each individual contract. Once you sell a contract to a customer, the system automatically adds a contract record in the Contract Detail Contract tab. If the contract includes meters and you enter meter information, the system also adds a record for each meter in the Contract Detail Meter tab.

 

Once all your basic contract types are set up, you can specify default labor and travel rates for each contract type. You specify these parameters in the Contract Types Service Rates tab.

 

See also:

Serialized Window Definitions