Smart Service gives users two options when logging a new client; but should you start out with a customer or a prospect? In this article, we’ll cover the benefits of each and include a few examples for comparison.
New Customers
If you’re a long time QuickBooks user, you’re already familiar with entering customers. A customer here is defined as someone who is purchasing products or services from your company. When you create a new customer in Smart Service, we instantaneously and automatically create that exact same customer in QuickBooks for you. In short, you need a new customer if you’re entering a work order.
New Prospects
A prospect is someone who hasn’t purchased anything from you yet, and is currently interested in an estimate. Since this person is a potential client, the prospect will only exist in Smart Service until they are ready to become a customer. Although creating a prospect first is optional, those looking for the ability to schedule and dispatch estimates can take advantage of this great feature. If you need an estimate (and no customer record exists for this client) you would want to create a prospect. Once the estimate is awarded, a job containing the estimate’s information will be created for the respective customer record.
Comparison
If you’re new to Smart Service, you’ll want to ask your office administrator whether or not your business uses QuickBooks or Smart Service for estimates. For new sales, you have the option of using the prospect features from Smart Service, or importing your QuickBooks estimates into Smart Service.
While using Smart Service, you may notice that any estimates created for a customer will not be displayed under the customer itself. Instead, creating an estimate for an existing customer will cause Smart Service to create a prospect record (if one doesn’t already exist) for the customer in question, and place the estimate there.
New Customers Are…
- Someone purchasing products or services from you
- For when you’re creating a work order
- Someone who should also be entered in QuickBooks
New Prospects Are…
- A potential new client interested in an estimate
- For when you’re creating an estimate
- Someone who doesn’t need to have an account in QuickBooks yet.
QuickBooks vs. Smart Service Estimates
If you haven’t considered the benefits of each system before, the biggest benefits are job costing and scheduling. Keep in mind you may use Smart Service estimates for quick and small estimates, and QuickBooks for potential installs within the same company.
Job Costing
If you need job costing, you need to create your estimates in QuickBooks. This is because Smart Service estimates cannot be sent to QuickBooks, which you’ll need for costing and financial reporting. In this case, you will create your estimates in QuickBooks and once you’re ready to do the work, import the estimate data into your Smart Service Work Order.
Scheduling Estimates
Smart Service can schedule and dispatch estimates to iFleet to be completed in the field. If you find that your technicians provide estimates or an upsell while on site, you can create estimates within iFleet. For those using QuickBooks Pro or Premier, you have a limit of 14,500 entries, using Smart Service estimates will allow you to save some space. If you haven’t looked at the space limitations of your version of QuickBooks, you can learn more here.