Although the Support module provided in the ERPNext is very good but as it is intended for After Sales Support i.e. for providing the support and assistance to customer during the warranty period of a product sold by the company, but the support module is missing a crucial aspect of warranty which is on item/parts account. Support Module doesn’t have any option to record the cost of parts/spares consumed by the technician to repair the defective item under warranty complaint.
Standard Work Flow of Warranty Complaint
When any company receives a warranty complaint from a customer (either through customer portal or through email or through phone call), the workflow of support department goes like:
- Register the warranty complaint in system. (Being done by Support Module).
- Assign the complaint the a technician/product specialist.
- The concern person gets in touch with the customer (Over the phone) to understand the problem in depth.
- Prepare the First Hand Report (FHR) about the problem.
- If a Maintenance Visit is needed, Then he submits a travel request to his manager to visit the customer site.
- if some parts are also needed, he submits a material request to stores.
- Stores issues the material against the Warranty Complaint Number / Material Request.
- Technician Visits the customer site, repairs the product and comes back.
- after return, He’ll prepare a service visit report and will document the repairs carried out be him on the product.
- will record the components/items which were replaced by him against the serial number of product.
- Return the left over parts to Stores and defective parts to Research Team / Scrap Ware House / Submit a Scrap Note to his manager.
- prepare the expense claim against his visit to customer site and submits to manager for approval.
- Close the Warranty Complain.
Missing Features from ERPNext Support Module
- No Option to record the material/items consumed against the warranty complaint.
- No Link between Maintenance Visit and Warranty Complaint.
- No Warranty Cost Analysis
- can’t generate report for Frequently Failing Items which is the key goal of having a support module in order to improve the product quality.
Proposed Solution
- Option to list the items (Coming from BOM child table of a product) along with their purchase/manufacturing Cost
- An Additional Comment Box - to record the first hand report.
- Complaints/Maintenance Visits should be assigned to Service Representative instead of Sales Representative.
- Option to Raise a Material Request Against Warranty Complaint. (Creating a link between warranty complaint and material request)
- Option to Submit the Travel Request against warranty complaint. (linking the cost of maintenance visit to the warranty complaint)
- A table of Replaced Items within the Warranty Complaint form. (linking the material cost to warranty complaint)
- Option to return the Left over items back to stores after closing the warranty complaint.
Reports Needed in Support Module
- Reports based on Item Code
a. Warranty Cost Analysis.
b. Warranty Failure Analysis.
c. Time in Service Before Failure. ( can be achieved by having the difference between Date of Sale/Date of last replacement and date of failure/Warranty Complaint) - Reports based on Item Serial/Batch Number.
a. Number of Failures during Warranty Period.
b. Cost of Warranty for Serial Number.
c. Time in Service Before Failure. ( can be achieved by having the difference between Date of Sale/Date of last replacement and date of failure/Warranty Complaint).
If I am not clear in explaining the feature,
please leave a comment and I’ll try to clarify further.