Charges

Tracking Charges is a key factor for running your service business well and improving its performance. Most employees, however, consider this to be a nuisance or a burden, which makes it difficult to maximize your full income potential.

Three types of Charges can be tracked in Commit:

       Labor Charges for services provided

       Expense Charges for expenses such as travel and delivery

       Parts Charges for parts or products used

Each Charge record includes a description and information regarding the Account being charged, the charged Item (see the section on Items above), quantity, price, and total amount. Each Charge record can also be linked to a Ticket (optional).

All Charges are entered under one of the Account’s active Contracts. Charges may automatically change the current state of the contract where relevant, i.e. a Charge will reduce the time remaining in a Block of Time contract, reduce the amount of money in a Block of Money contract, etc.

A Charge can be set as Billable or Not Billable. When a Charge is set as Billable it means that you intend to bill the customer with this charge. The default billing status for Charges is determined by the type of contract under which the Charge is being created. See "Understanding the Billing Status of Charges" below.

After a customer has been charged for a Billable Charge, the Charge record is set as Billed. This prevents a customer from being billed again for the same Charge.

Adding a Charge is easy and this can be done in Commit’s Main menu, the Tickets window (recommended), the Charges main window, or the Account window. Charges can also be added from anywhere using a web browser and an Internet connection, for this you need Commit Web Interface.

Use Items to speed up the process of entering new Charges. When an Item is selected for a Charge, its description and price are automatically copied into the  relevant fields in the Charge record.

Many types of Charge reports are available. These reports are used to bill customers and analyze business performance.