---
title: Service Orders
description: Tracking repair jobs through a status flow your company defines, with parts and labour billed separately.
order: 5
module: services
---

# 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.

<!-- mock:service-orders -->

## 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](/docs/en/payments). Receipts itemise the services and costs on the order, so the customer sees what they are paying for.