Method CRM Help Center

The equipment tab in Method Field Services is used in two ways: to keep track of equipment your company owns and operates, and to keep track of equipment your company has sold to your customers.

For example: in the first instance, if you are a landscaping company, you can use the equipment tab to maintain a database of the lawn mowers your team uses. In the second instance, if you are in the business of selling and servicing air conditioners, you can use the same tab to keep track of units you have sold and any applicable warranties associated with them.

This is a very handy tool for many businesses in the field services sphere, because it allows you to keep track of all information associated with a piece of equipment in one convenient place, rather than having to maintain a file of paperwork.

This section of our documentation will show you how to add and edit records for equipment, and how to associate them with certain jobs or customers. We will also provide a screen overview detailing the functionality of the screens associated with this tab. Let's get started!

How to add equipment

There are two main ways to access the Add/edit customer equipment screen in Method field services.

From Method Field Services, navigate to Equipment > Add/edit customer equipment

OR

From Method Field Services, navigate to Work order list and choose an existing work order by clicking Edit. Click the Gear icon at the bottom of the Job item grid, click on Equipment and then click Update. This will add an Equipment field to the grid. Clicking on the ellipses button (...) will display the Add/edit customer equipment screen.
From this screen you can fill out the pertinent information for the piece of equipment you would like to record. Obviously the information you fill out depends on the kind of equipment you are recording (mileage, for example, will not be relevant to an air conditioner!) This screen allows you to fill out all information associated with an equipment record so it can be stored in your Field Services.
If this piece of equipment has been sold or rented to a customer, ensure you associate this record with a customer from the drop down list. If, however, you intend for this equipment to be associated with a job item (to use our earlier lawn mower example, you may want to associate the equipment with a job item like "Lawn Care"), you do not need to include a customer. Only the "name" field is required - everything else is up to your discretion. Just fill in what you feel is appropriate.
Once you have filled in all the information you want to store in this record, click Save to save it and then click Refresh to have the equipment item appear in the grid above. This equipment item will now be available in drop down lists elsewhere in Method. Please note that if you associate this equipment with a customer, it will not be visible in that customer's record - only in the Existing customer equipment grid and in drop down lists.

How to edit equipment

From Method Field Services, navigate to Equipment.
From the Existing customer equipment grid, choose the equipment you'd like to edit and click Select. This will populate the field below with the information associated with this record.
From here you can alter information in any of the fields, including assigning the equipment to a different customer. Ensure the name field is filled out as it is a required field (you can leave the existing name or change it, as long as something is there).
Click Save to save the changes, which will now be reflected in drop down menus and the Existing customer equipment grid above. Click Refresh to see the changes in the grid. Alternatively, you can click Delete to remove the equipment permanently - but be warned, this can't be undone.

How to associate equipment with a job item

There are two places you can associate equipment with a job item.

Open the Add/edit work order screen either by creating a new work order or editing an existing one (please see our documentation on Work orders for more information).
Navigate to the Tasks and materials subtab, and scroll down to the Job item grid.
Click the Gear icon at the bottom of the Job item grid, click on Equipment and then click Update. This will add an Equipment field to the grid.
Now that Equipment is visible in your Job item grid, you can use the drop down menu associated with that field to assign a piece of equipment to this job item. Please bear in mind that only one piece of equipment can be assigned to an individual job item.
Click Save to save the changes to the job item, and Update to see those changes reflected in the grid. This piece of equipment will now be associated with this specific job item on this work order. You can disassociate the equipment from the job item by manually deleting the equipment name from the writable field and clicking Update.

Navigate to the Tasks and materials subtab, and scroll down to the Job item grid.
Choose the job item you'd like to address and click on Details. This will display the Enter details & costs screen (please see Work orders for more information).
Use the Customer equipment drop down menu to choose a piece of equipment to associate with this job item, then click Save & Close to return to the Add/edit work order screen. This piece of equipment will now be associated with this specific job item on this work order. You can disassociate the equipment from the job item by manually deleting the equipment name from the writable field and clicking Update.

How to enter inventory/non-inventory costs

Of course, not all job items refer to labor. Materials refer to any Job Item that has the QuickBooks Item Type "Inventory", "NonInventory" or "InventoryAssembly". Here's how to enter them.

Edit the work order from either the Work Order list, or My Calendar screen.
In the Tasks & Materials grid locate an inventory item you want to record cost for, and click Details in the grid.
Click the Job Item Details tab, and click Calculate. This will get the default purchase cost of the item from QuickBooks and multiply the cost by the Qty of units used, to arrive at a final Cost field. If you like, you can override the Cost Per and the Cost fields with whatever value you want to enter.
Click Save & Close.

Screen overview

The following is a breakdown of the screens and grids associated with the Equipment tab. It is hoped this will fill in the blanks not covered by the tutorials above and clarify functionality!

Existing customer equipment

This is a simple Method grid designed to help you keep track of the equipment you want to track in your Field Services. It works the same way as other grids in Method (please see Grid functionality for more details), and can be searched and sorted by only two criteria: Name of equipment and Customer to whom that equipment is associated (if applicable). Clicking Refresh will refresh the grid with any new changes you've made below. Clicking Select next to a piece of equipment will fill the fields below with the information associated with this record.

Add/edit customer equipment

This section is used to fill out any and all pertinent information associated with this particular piece of equipment. Remember, "name" is the only required field to be filled out.

Name: This is the name of the equipment for which you are creating this record.
Customer: If applicable, choose a customer to associate with this piece of equipment from the drop down menu.
Make: If applicable, the name of the company that makes the equipment (e.g. John Deere)
Model: If applicable, the model of the particular piece of equipment (e.g. Tractor)
Model number: If applicable, the model number of the piece of equipment (e.g. 9360R)
Serial number: Sometimes, a piece of equipment may come with a unique serial number. Record it here.
Date acquired: This is the date, if applicable, your company acquired this equipment from a vendor. It generates a drop down calendar from which you can choose a date.
Date sold: This is the date, if applicable, your company sold this equipment to a customer. It also generates a drop down calendar.
Description: A description of the equipment, if necessary.
Warranty expiry labor: If your equipment, or the equipment you have sold to a customer, has a warranty, include the expiry date for any labor done here. This generates a drop down calendar.
Warranty expiry parts: Same as above - include the date for expiry of the warranty for parts. Also generates a calendar.
Warranty miles: If applicable, include the number of miles allotted before the warranty runs out.
Warranty: Include the details of your warranty here.
Delete: Deletes the current equipment record. This can't be undone.
Save: Saves the current equipment record.
Save / New: Saves the record and clears the fields in preparation for a new equipment record.
Clear / New: Clears the fields without saving.

Usage history

This is another simple Method grid used to keep track of when a piece of equipment was being used. This information is drawn from the JobItem table, which means the information displayed here refers to the job item with which the equipment is associated (see How to associate equipment with a job item, above).

When a job is scheduled using the job item in question, this grid will update to show a record of that upcoming usage, including the information attached to the work order (see the breakdown below). The only date and time listed at this point will be Due Date Start, and only estimated hours (if applicable) will be listed. Once the job has been completed according to its end time, the actual man hours (if applicable) will also be listed.

The grid works the same way as most grids in Method (please see Grid functionality for more information) and can be sorted and searched by the following criteria:

Act. No: The activity number referencing the work order.
Due date start: The planned start date and time of the job.
Customer:Job: The customer and/or job this work order references.
Assigned to: The user this job has been assigned to.
Job name/comments: The name of the job and any associated comments.
Item: The job item with which the equipment is associated.
Act. man hrs: The actual number of man hours required to complete the job (filled in after the job is done).
Est. man hrs: The estimated man hours associated with this job.

Clicking refresh will refresh the grid.

Created on	Jan-24-2014
Last modified on	Sep-17-2015