This has been something that has been a struggle for us as well!! A lot of our "non-manged techs" often go out on their own to smaller jobs, or we are slowly training them to be out on the jobs by themselves. As you stated, non-manged techs can't complete jobs without a managed tech having time on that job.
I did find a work around for this.. it's not super pretty but we use it in the rare chance we have non-manged techs on the jobs by themselves. I will assign a manged tech to the job. I will dispatch & arrive the tech from the office. I will then complete the job (it will let me since now there is a manged tech time on the job). usually, the invoice shows that the managed tech only had 1 min of time.. which I always remove from the invoice so the customer does not get billed.
Assigning the managed tec to the job and dispatching them only works if they are not already working on another job. I will often do this when the techs are gone for the day, so it does not interfere with their schedule. Again, not the prettiest work around, but it does its job. I did post an idea about this; that non-manged techs could be on jobs by themselves.
