It’s a frustrating aspect of any company: budgeting. Trying to decide how much to allocate for things to come, or trying to estimate what revenue to expect. Worse still, trying to do the first, despite lacking the second. One way companies and individuals get around this is to ask for and to issue estimates or, as they are often known, quotes.
From Service Orders to Accurate Quotes
Shepherd offers this functionality to its customers as a service they can offer to their own clients: technicians, seeing what needs to be done in future can raise an estimate for work needed by selecting the parts needed, and the likely time required, and issuing these in the field, as an indication of the likely cost to follow.
Before talking about who might use this function, when and how, let’s consider what makes it possible. Firstly, there is the use of service orders: records used to schedule, categorize, and track a given piece of work, complete with where, why, for whom, for how long, and using what. All of which can then feed into the billing system for invoicing, which can go out almost immediately after it has been reported by the technician.
A Complete Picture with Equipment and Parts Records
Then there is the existence of a myriad of asset and equipment records, whether a machine to be serviced, the parts that the technician will replace, or even the specialist tools they’ll need to complete the job. As mentioned, a service order details the necessary tasks. Let’s imagine, for a moment, that one of these tasks is to see what’s what with a newly acquired secondhand machine. There is the standard service, but also a once-over to gauge the state of this machine.
It may be that the previous owners were not as vigilant as the new ones plan to be, and this machine health check highlights jobs that need doing outside the purview of the standard service schedule. The machine owner, understandably, doesn’t want to sign a blank check, and so the technicians start to create an estimate, or quote, there and then.
Using Shepherd’s equipment and parts database, the quote can include the parts needed to get the machine back in spec. He can also document the probable duration of the work. With that, the estimate can be submitted, and the client will have some idea how much they need to put aside rather than expecting the worst and hoping for the best on a bill further down the line.
Editable and Duplicate-Ready
This kind of work doesn’t disappear into the ether. Past estimates remain visible and accessible. Perhaps a technician needs to do the same work again, later, so that the estimate can be duplicated. Maybe, having done the work, the technician knows an additional part will also be needed in future, or that it is faster than expected. Any duplicate can be edited accordingly to save the time needed to create one from scratch.
If that is necessary, though, it should come as no surprise to Shepherd users that the process is easy, quick, and intuitive. The prices quoted, coming from an existing service order, will apply any relevant discount or client pricing that exists. As with parts, the type of labor can be selected, perhaps because of specialist training that is needed, and with it the appropriate rate is included.
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