Service Management

XBuddy Service Management covers the full lifecycle of post-sale service delivery — service contracts, ticket management, field technician dispatch, time and materials tracking, and automatic billing. It integrates tightly with Finance (invoicing), Inventory (parts), and HR (technician scheduling).

Apps involved: Service Management · Field Service · Contract Management · Inventory · Finance

Service Management — Contract to ticket to invoice flow

Core Flow

SM Contract → Ticket → [Assign / Dispatch] → Work → Log Time & Parts → Invoice

Which document does the work go on?

Selling a service is not selling a product, and XBuddy does not force them down the same pipeline. When a quote is accepted, it converts into one of two documents:

You are selling	Document	What “fulfilled” means	Needs a delivery note?
Goods	Sales Order	Stock leaves the warehouse	Yes
A service	Service Order	The work is scheduled, done and accepted	No
Work on site	Service Order → Field Service job	A technician attends and the customer signs off	No

A Service Order carries its own lifecycle — draft → awaiting approval → confirmed → scheduled → in progress → completed → invoiced — which a sales order simply does not have. It can dispatch one or many field jobs; the Service Order is the plan, the field job is the execution.

Mixed quote where delivery is the main event (selling a machine with installation included)? Use a Sales Order — the service line counts as fulfilled when you invoice it. If that service genuinely needs scheduling and sign-off, split it onto its own Service Order.

A quote can only be converted once. Whichever document you create, the quote is marked converted, so the same work can never be sold twice.

Service Management — Ticket board with SLA status

Service Contract — Contract / Service Management

A Service Contract defines the commercial terms under which you provide support or maintenance to a customer. It is the parent record for all service activity.

Types: Fixed-fee, Time & Material, Retainer, Milestone-based
SLA policies: Response time, resolution time per severity level
Status: draft → active → expired / cancelled
Contract value tracked against revenue recognised from linked invoices

Ticket (Service Request) — Service Management

Customers or agents open tickets against a service contract. Each ticket inherits the SLA policy from its contract.

Status: open → assigned → in_progress → resolved → closed
SLA clock starts on ticket creation; escalates automatically if breached
Priority levels: Low / Medium / High / Critical
Internal notes vs. customer-visible comments (separate threads)
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey sent on close

Dispatch (Field Service — optional) — Field Service

For on-site work, a technician is dispatched from the ticket. The dispatch engine considers skill, availability, and location.

Job card created for the technician: customer address, required parts, checklist
Technician accepts job via mobile app
Status: scheduled → en_route → on_site → completed
GPS check-in recorded at site arrival and departure

Work & Logging — Field Service / Inventory

The technician (or support agent) logs work against the ticket:

Log type	What is captured
Time logs	Start time, end time, work description, billable/non-billable flag
Parts used	Item SKU, quantity, from which warehouse — triggers Inventory Goods Issue
Checklist	Step-by-step task completion recorded on job card
Photos / attachments	Evidence of work done, customer signatures

Invoice Generation — Finance

When work is complete, billing is triggered based on contract type:

Contract type	Billing trigger	What is invoiced
Time & Material	Ticket resolved	All logged hours + parts at contract rates
Fixed Fee	Monthly / on milestone	Fixed amount per period
Retainer	Monthly	Retainer fee; surplus hours billed extra
Milestone	On milestone approval	Milestone value

One click from the ticket or contract generates a pre-filled invoice in Finance. All line items carry over — no re-entry.

SLA Management

SLA policies define your response and resolution commitments. They attach to contracts and drive escalation.

SLA Policy structure

SLA Policy: "Enterprise Support — 24/7"
  Critical tickets: respond in 1h, resolve in 4h
  High tickets:     respond in 2h, resolve in 8h
  Medium tickets:   respond in 4h, resolve in 24h
  Low tickets:      respond in 8h, resolve in 72h

Escalation rules

Near breach: notification to assigned agent at 75% of SLA time elapsed
Breached: auto-escalate to team lead; update ticket priority
Overdue: second escalation to service manager; flag on contract health score

SLA reporting

SLA compliance rate (% tickets resolved within SLA)
Average first response time by priority
Breach root cause analysis (agent, time-of-day, complexity)

Billing Models in Detail

One-off

A single job, billed once. No contract, no project, no billing queue — the Service Order is invoiced directly when the work is done. This is the right model for an ad-hoc repair or a small consulting package, and most service businesses use it more often than they expect.

Time & Materials

The most flexible model. You bill exactly what was logged.

Ticket resolved
  → Review logged hours (engineer reviews for accuracy)
  → Review parts used (reconciled with Inventory)
  → Generate invoice: hours × labour rate + parts × unit cost

Discount rules, minimum billing increments (e.g. 30-min minimum), and non-billable categories are configurable per contract.

Retainer

Customer pays a monthly fee for a block of hours. Overages are billed extra.

Month end:
  → Invoice retainer fee
  → If hours used > retainer block: invoice surplus at overage rate
  → If hours used < retainer block: carry-over rules (configurable: use-it-or-lose-it / rollover cap)

Milestones

Break a project into stages; invoice each stage independently on approval.

Milestone 1: Installation complete      → Invoice £5,000
Milestone 2: User acceptance testing    → Invoice £3,000
Milestone 3: Go-live + handover         → Invoice £2,000

One engagement, one billing path

Retainer, milestone and materials billing all queue up in one place for review before an invoice exists — nothing bills itself automatically. A scheduled job only ever proposes a charge; a person approves it.

⚠️

The same piece of work must travel down one billing path only. If a job was dispatched from a Service Order, that order does the billing — the job will not raise a second invoice on top. Likewise, if the Service Order already lists the parts, record them there rather than logging separate material consumption against the contract. Two paths for one job means billing the customer twice.

Parts & Inventory Integration

Technicians consume parts from the warehouse. Every part used is recorded and deducted from stock automatically.

Job card: "Replace compressor unit × 1"
  → Part SKU looked up in Inventory
  → Reserved for this job (holds stock)
  → On job completion: Goods Issue confirmed → stock deducted
  → Part cost added to invoice line (T&M contracts)

Technicians can request parts not in stock → triggers Purchase Request in Procurement.

Status Reference

SM Contract:  draft → active → expired / cancelled
Ticket:       open → assigned → in_progress → resolved → closed
              (any stage → on_hold, then back)
Dispatch Job: scheduled → en_route → on_site → completed / cancelled

Integration Points

Module	What happens
Finance	Invoice generated from ticket/contract; payment updates AR
Inventory	Parts used → Goods Issue; stock deducted on job completion
CRM	Ticket linked to account; open tickets visible in Customer 360
HR / Scheduling	Technician availability from HR attendance; dispatch considers leave
Customer Success	CSAT scores feed health score; repeat tickets flag at-risk accounts

These assistants automate the service delivery lifecycle:

Agent	What it does	Cadence
Support Concierge	Predicts SLA breaches, finds unbilled time/parts, monitors CSAT trends	Hourly / daily
FS Dispatcher	Scores technician fit per job (skill + location + availability), balances utilisation	Event-driven / weekly
Contract Lifecycle	Flags contracts approaching expiry with a renewal probability score	Weekly

CRM · Sales · Customer Success HR · Payroll · Performance · OKR · L&D