Many times once an estimate is sold, parts need to be ordered. Parts can take anywhere from a few days to weeks to arrive. What is the best practice to book the sold estimate but not schedule it.

[Previous ContributorPrevious Contributor]

My pleasure! I don't deal too much with the PO's however, when the job is sold and sent to the follow up tab a project is created. The project will be almost like a folder that will have all the jobs, info, po's, invoices for every job that it contains. You should still be able to add the PO to the job where the estimate sold, that way that process doesn't change. Im still looking for best practices in that area! We haven't started to use POs just yet but they seem like a great feature.

[dmatro_l]

Thank you! The (I think) last question that I have is how do you manage the PO process? We attach out PO's directly to the job that the materials are being applied to for ease of reference but as far as I know there is no way to apply a PO to an estimate.

[Previous ContributorPrevious Contributor]

Absolutely! Yes, we leave all sales not ready to be scheduled as sold estimates in the follow up tab. That tab has a section labeled sold estimates, and in there you can filter by business unit and start/end date. I usually set the timespan to 1yr just to make sure I don't miss anything. You can leave notes inside the summary of the estimate so you can see it right when you open the tab, or there is a spot to leave a note on the opportunity page. Follow Up> Sold Estimate> Estimate > View Opportunity > Scroll all the way down till you see "Log a follow-up". If you leave a note in this page you area able to upload attachments, log the phone call, and schedule a follow up call (This shows up in the unsold estimates tab within follow ups but it can be useful if you touch base with customers all on different days.)

Once the job is ready to schedule, I will call the customer from the sold estimate>estimate page and select book new job. I will only schedule once I have confirmation that the order was received, the selling tech confirms order is correct, and I have spoken with the customer about what day/time they are available. Then the rest is just booking the visit for the date you spoke with them about.

[dmatro_l]

Amy,

I am interested in this and want to make sure I am understanding your process correctly. You leave the estimate as sold but not booked to a job until the parts come in. Upon the parts arrival the person receiving them books the job, placing it into the unassigned and applies the associated material to the job. So the only jobs that you ever have in the unassigned are ones that are ready to be scheduled, correct?

[Previous ContributorPrevious Contributor]

What we typically do is mark the job as sold and tell the tech to select the complete work later option on their tablet. From there the tasks from the sold estimate will wait in the "follow up" tab until we receive parts. I like to update my customers 1x per week and notate in that same tab until the job is ready to be booked. That way anyone can see that it is in that tab pending, and its not confusing looking at the customer page and seeing that a return visit was booked for a date you are not actually going out on. Let me know if you'd like more details on this workflow! 

[dmatro_l]

We are using the unassigned for that purpose but I honestly do not like using it and am looking for a better option. In reference to putting it on hold, with appointments are you still using this process? I like having the hold column empty because it makes it immediately obvious when a technicians asks to "Hold and Reschedule". I would love to have another column on the bottom specifically for sold estimates.

[rc-lport]

Book the job and place it on hold.