Field services are unavailable if the company is a product based on or service-based one. In the case of products, the company should send the employees while installation and any fault occurs in the product. In case of service-based if a client needs your technical support on an issue. At all these instances the employees of your firm are working off-grid and they have to be moving around to reach the client destinations. Invoicing the clients will not be possible from the head office for these field services. The Odoo platform has an apt solution available with the field service module. The field service module in Odoo helps the user to enable the employee to generate invoices directly from the field and get paid in certain instances.
In this blog you will learn about:
Field Service Module in Odoo
The field service module reduces the hectic task of moving around from the client location to the office just to generate the invoices for the employees. With the interface of IoT gadgets, the employee can do the process in a fraction of time. Since the module enables the employees to record the time taken for each process and pause the operation if needed the module will showcase the exact time taken by the employee to finish the task and invoice accordingly of the time duration.
How to Setup Invoicing time and materials to customers
Initially to generate an invoice lets create a schedule of operation to be done by one of our employees. The client wants a new control panel to be installed and the manager of the service provider company assigns an employee for the field service project and the duration in which the work should be completed is also assigned. The manager has provided a custom made information to the employee regarding the project. A custom made worksheet template is also assigned to the project the templates can be created in configurations -> worksheet template.
Upon reaching the client location and in progress to start the work the employee should enable the start option. The employee can pause the process when he/ she takes a break or stop the project if it's completed or any mishap occurs. The employee can add the products used in completing the project in the product menu of the project. Thus products used will be added to the invoice to the customer.
Upon completing the work the user should get the authorized signature form the client or the client's employees. The user can provide a custom made comment on the project to depict the status and the tasks completed. The sign report menu can be customized while creating the worksheet template.
Once the reports are being signed the user can validate the details aging and check whether the credentials of the worksheet and the product used are complete and correct by selecting the respective menu from the project dashboard. If the details are being verified the employee can opt the option of the mark as done to officially describe the completion of the task. Once the details are being verified and the task is done the option to create an invoice appears in the dashboard where the employee can create the invoice straight from there.
While enabling to create the invoice option the payment categories tab appears to the employee. The user can select one by consulting with the client and the manager of the employee. The options are the regular ones that are available while creating a general invoice.
The created invoice appears to the employee where he/she can modify the bill details and verify the information. As you can see in the image below the invoice generated will include the service charge for the duration spent by the employee on the client's site and the products used while completing the project.
In certain instances such as free servicing and manual routine check-ups of the machinery or the products, the servicing charge may be excluded by certain organizations at these instances the service charge can be excluded by deleting or reducing to null.
The employee can always print the invoice and hand them over to the client in hand or opt to send it by post or email. Since the field service will be done in remote locations usually the emailing services are most used. The email template will be auto-generated and at instances, the employee likes to mention certain details, those can be edited along with the template or create a new one.
With the new functionality in the field service module to generate invoices for the service done and the products used, the invoicing functionality is made easier and adaptable. This tool is much helpful for the maintenance of service technicians and companies and various other service-based industries.