This would allow the grand total to be readily available to anyone when taking a deposit on parts before sending a tech to complete the work. Unfortunately, a lot of times my parts dept does not charge tax for customers that are not exempt because they are taking a deposit on a work order and there is no tax calculated.
8 thoughts on “Add tax calculator to the Work Order”
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Do you mean add the sales tax system to the work order . . . just like on an invoice?
Just like on an invoice
The challenge with doing this work is that the work order was not built to be part of the sales system. It is not connected to the accounting systems like an invoice is. It would be very time-consuming work and would likely not excite too many other users. That time could be put into other “wow” development. I will not judge too quickly though. 🙂
I know one of my tech complaints is not knowing what tax is before the invoice. Most
do their notes in the truck before invoicing but they’ll take payment prior. An item subtotal+tax=total would be helpful to eliminate guesswork. Aptora is also more accurate on calculations and the techs will often end up $0.01 off on their totals.
(Our appliance services are taxable where AC is not).
Is there any reason why the techs cannot create an invoice to determine the sales tax? Or, can they say “plus tax?”
It is our policy to collect a deposit on large install jobs before the work is scheduled or parts are ordered. We do not create an invoice for the job until the job is completed. We have found that creating multiple invoices for the same job (one for the deposit, one for the initial service call, possibly a third if another service call is needed, etc) is extremely frustrating and confusing for the customer and more trouble than its worth. We have found that giving them a copy of the credit card receipt marked “deposit for parts only” is sufficient for them to see where their money was spent. Then they see that same amount as a payment on the final invoice and can see that it was used for the parts and the only thing they are currently responsible for is the labor portion of the invoice. When I have to charge tax later because the tax was omitted from the WO, it starts the process over from the beginning when the customer calls and wants their bill explained. Especially after they were told that they “paid” for their parts up front and will only have to make one more payment for the labor after the install is completed.
This is exactly our issue. We don’t invoice for the completed job until it’s done because future work order notes don’t transfer to the invoice. So they don’t create the total invoice until the very end. So knowing that total at first service call is still important.
This would take a lot of labor hours for not a lot of client happiness. There are other things I would rather have us put time and money into. Example: Customer Portal.
On a personal note.
I disagree with adding this capability to work orders. When a tech shows up to a house for repairs, the client is quoted damages before tax. What happens if it is taxed on cost or even gross profit (e.g. Use Tax)? You cannot see the cost on work orders in Aptora Mobile II or Total Office Manager anywhere. Would we also add tax to PO’s too? I would predict that would become a request.
I train to quote service work from a work order without tax. State the total with tax when collecting payment after the work is done. This is how all of my clients have done it for years, going back to before Total Office Manager, when I was teaching flat rate pricing. I know of no problems.
For installation jobs where a deposit is being taken, the best practice is to enter an estimate and create an invoice against the estimate. Add a deposit line for the amount of the payment being taken.
Could we make this process easier for deposits on jobs? Yes; however, this will require discussions of how to handle all the what ifs for the various companies we deal with.