We are a generator company and sometimes have warranty jobs that we need to track and bill to our vendors. What's the best practice for this?
Should we create an account under our vendors name and then tie the job back to properties? Or maybe through job tags? But then that would show the payment coming from the customer and being applied to their account, no?
Need to brainstorm this with someone, please.
In Jobber, because invoices and payments link directly to the client account on the job, you have two basic ways to handle warranty work depending on whether your main goal is clean billing or keeping history on the customer's account.
If the vendor is paying you, the cleanest method for accounting is setting up the vendor as the Client account. You then add the customer’s street address as a secondary property under that vendor, using the property label to note the homeowner’s name and serial number. When you run the job and send the invoice, everything bills directly to the vendor without creating zero-dollar receipts or mess on the customer's ledger. The downside is that this specific job won't show up on the homeowner’s direct Jobber history.
If keeping all equipment history, photos, and serial numbers on the homeowner’s profile is your top priority, keep the customer as the Client. Use custom fields on the job to track the vendor name, claim status, and RMA number. You put your standard parts and labor on the invoice, then apply a warranty discount so the customer balance reads zero. You then handle the actual claim submission and receivable tracking externally through the vendor portal or QuickBooks.
For jobs where the customer pays a trip charge or diagnostic fee but the vendor covers the rest, you can run a split setup. Put Job A under the customer for their billable portion, and run Job B under the vendor account for the factory claim. Adding custom property fields for brand, model, serial number, and warranty expiration date lets your techs see coverage details right on the app before starting work.
