Appliance Servicing Company



Introduction

Our client, a business specializing in home appliance servicing and repair, engaged us to improve their existing system. Their existing system had been used for many years for keeping customer data, job and repair data and invoicing. However, existing system's technology used was dated, closed source and lack a number of key features that the client needed. We recommended that they migrate to Odoo, an ERP system that could grow with their business.

Customized Jobs module

One of the key features of the new system was a customized Jobs module. From the Jobs module, the user can:
  • View the customer linked to the Job
  • The appliance linked to the Job
  • View all appointments involved in the Job
  • View all invoices and payments for the Job
The open source nature of Odoo allowed us to easily create this customized module exactly to the client's specifications.

Structured Workflow

Our client had several customer service staff - each one handling a different part of the job process. One handled new job creation, another was in charge of scheduling and procurement, and the last was in charge of invoicing and input of repair data. We had to design the system workflow and configure the proper access rights for each staff. With a proper workflow, the system ensure that:
  • Jobs cannot be invoiced without the proper repair status
  • Jobs cannot be closed until all invoices are paid
  • Managers have to approve invoices
  • Only managers can close jobs, and reopen closed jobs

Customizing scheduling

Scheduling was a particular concern for the client. With 8 repair teams and more than 50 jobs a day, schedules had to be planned according to technical expertise, location and customer's preferred time. The staff also had to consider urgent requests from customers. By customizing the Appointments module and integrating it with the Jobs module, the time needed for scheduling was reduced by almost 50% using the new system.

Reports

In addition to the standard reports - Monthly/Weekly sales, Sales by Customer/Job type, Daily payments, other more customized reports were requested. Some of the custom reports were:
  • Appliance Fault types
  • Jobs completed by team/staff
  • Jobs delay reports
These reports allowed the client to get a better picture of the business's performance, and plan ahead accordingly.