Service Orders

Requires the Services module. If you do not see Service Orders in the navigation, the module is switched off for your company.

A service order tracks a repair job from the moment a customer drops something off to the moment they collect it.

Your status flow is yours

Ceretta App does not impose a repair workflow. Each company defines its own statuses under Settings, for example:

Incoming → Diagnosing → Waiting for parts → Fixing → Fixed → Delivered

For each status you set a name, a colour for its chip, and whether it is an initial status (where new orders start) or a terminal one (where finished orders end). Statuses can be dragged into the order you want them displayed.

Transitions are free-form: any status can move to any other. Ceretta App will not stop you sending a job from Fixing back to Diagnosing, because real workshops do exactly that. The discipline is yours to enforce; the system's job is to record what happened.

Parts and labour

A service order has two different kinds of line, and the difference is not cosmetic:

• Parts are sellable inventory items. Adding a part to a service order decrements its stock, exactly as a sale would. This is what keeps your stock figures honest when the workshop consumes consumables.
• Labour is free-form text at a price you type. It is not linked to inventory, so you can describe the work in whatever words suit the job.

Billing a part as labour will keep the money right and the stock wrong, which surfaces weeks later as a shelf that does not match the system.

The audit trail

Every status change is recorded with who changed it, when, and an optional note. The note field is worth using — "customer approved quote by phone" costs five seconds and settles arguments later.

Device information

Each company can record its own device-specific details on every order — serial numbers, model, reported fault, accessories left with the item. What those fields are is configured per company, so a phone repair shop and a generator workshop can both use the screen without either inheriting the other's jargon.

Customer notifications

If WhatsApp notifications are configured for your company, customers are messaged automatically when a service order is created and on every status change. This is the single biggest reduction in "is it ready yet?" phone calls available in the system. Setup lives in Settings → WhatsApp notifications and requires a Twilio account.

Customers must have a valid phone number on their record. New customers receive a greeting message first to confirm the number works.

Payments

Service orders are paid through the same ledger as everything else — see Payments. Receipts itemise the services and costs on the order, so the customer sees what they are paying for.