What Role Does Software Play In The Field Service Industry? Part 7: Double Entry

How Can Software Eliminate Double Entry and Automate Business Processes For The Service Industry?

Where Does Double Entry Occur The Most?

Double entry can plague many different areas of your business. The list below names some of the most common areas that suffer from double entry in the absence of good service management software:

• Pushing work orders to your accounting software for invoicing
• Converting leads into customers
• Opening new work orders for a customer
• Recurring work orders not being saved or automated
• Distributing work order information and scheduling information to all relevant parties
• Printing hard copies
• Status changes on work orders or invoices
• Converting a proposal into a work order
• Converting a purchase order into received inventory items
• Adding new contacts or locations to a customer account
• Time tracking and payroll processes
• Any handwritten notes, work orders, etc that must be re-entered into an electronic database

How Can These Areas Be Automated?

Pushing work orders to your accounting software for invoicing

• Good service management software will either come equipped with an accounting module that works seamlessly with your work order management module or it will integrate with your accounting software, whether it’s QuickBooks, Sage or something else.
• One-click accounting integration saves you time and prevents transcription errors that come about due to double entry and re-keying information

Video demo of how software can help automate the invoicing process by syncing with QuickBooks

Opening new work orders for a customer

• To open a new work order you should be able to select a customer to tie the order to and then have the customer contact info, site address and more automatically pre-filled on the work order. Changing the contact or other info should be as simple as selecting your choice from a drop down menu that is tied to your CRM system.

Recurring work orders not being saved or automated

• Software will allow you to design recurring order templates and save them to be used again on an automated basis at set intervals or with the click of your mouse whenever you need them.

Distributing work order information and scheduling information to all relevant parties

• A good enterprise software system will automatically update information for all users in real time. Technicians in the field can access the same information using mobile apps on their smart phones or tablets. That way there is no need to print, email or write down information more than once. It’s always available to everyone and it’s constantly updated.

Video of the workflow around opening an order, assigning items and printing a work order ticket

Printing hard copies

• While not technically being classified as double entry, printing documents can be a tremendous waste of time and resources. Good software will offer you the option to email professional work orders, invoices, schedules, and other reports with standard templates specially designed with service businesses in mind. All of those reports can be automatically generated with the click of a mouse, whether it’s a single work order or a  yearly snapshot of a customer account.

Time tracking and payroll processes

• Paper time sheets are a huge source of double entry inefficiencies in a service business. Businesses that utilize paper time sheets probably waste a significant amount of time re-entering paper time sheet data into their electronic accounting system or employee records. This not only wastes time but it can also cause significant re-keying errors. Plus it can be difficult to track down employees who forget to hand in their time sheets. Doing payroll electronically saves time and prevents errors.

 Any handwritten notes, work orders, etc that must be re-entered into an electronic database

• Sales notes, technician site notes, services requested and performed, paper work orders and more are all examples of things that some businesses keep track of on paper that may need to be re-entered into their electronic records. It can be a significant source of double entry inefficiencies that can be alleviated using software that stores all of that info electronically from the start.

Technicians using a mobile app to track their time spent on the job

In Summary…

We hope our software helps eliminate your inefficiencies caused by double entry since we’ve been designing software specifically for the service industry for over 25 years, but we’re quick to acknowledge when the fit isn’t right and we’d be glad to point you to one of our competitors who might suit your needs better. If you have any questions about double entry or automation and how they relate to your specific business processes please feel free to give us a call at 360-293-3000.

This article is the seventh in a nine part series of white papers designed to inform you about the role that software plays in the field service industry. You’ll receive the next article in the series next week, but if you can’t wait until then we encourage you to check out the entire series using the links below. Thanks for reading!

The Team at High 5 Software

The Whole Package

Read The Whole Series

Part 1: Overview

Part 2: Customer Relationship Management

Part 3: Work Order Management

Part 4: Sales, Leads and Proposals

Part 5: Dispatching and Scheduling

Part 6: Inventory Management

Part 7: Double Entry

Part 8: Automated Email

Part 9: Reporting

Watch a video overview of Service Management Enterprise (SME) from High 5 Software