Using CommitCRM & customer signatures

Hello all,

I have a question that has been bothering me for sometime since I started using CRM. What is the best procedure that other fellow IT professionals use when doing customer work and needing a confirmation signature that the job was performed satisfactorily?

A quick run down is that my computer repair business at times is like a corporate help desk. A call comes in from a customer and a ticket is created and appointment scheduled. I then proceed to the customer location. Before I leave, I print out two copies of the ticket using a modified version of "Technician Service Form 3".

Once the work is done, I then log my onsite start and end time, write down the description of work performed, write out the charges for labor, parts, and sales tax and calculate that on the spot. This of course means I must write down everything in duplicate on two sheets of paper which can sometimes be tedious. Along signing my signature and dating the form and asking the customer to sign both sheets with me keeping one and they keeping the other.

My question is, is there any more efficient way to log the details of the work, time on site, and of course making sure I have the customers signature (in case a customer down the road says they didn't authorize certain work)?

I have often wondered if that could be done on a tablet with me taking no paper tickets with me? Is that possible in the newest 6.0 version ofCommitCRM? I would really love it if I could fill out the details on my tablet, have the customer sign the tablet and then have a emailed copy of their ticket sent to them.

How do other technicians/business owners solve this problem?

Bradley

Using RangerMSP Web interface you can log into your system remotely (using the Customer PC, your mobile phone, tablet, etc.) and log the Charge entries directly (e.g. you do not need to hand write anything). After you log everything performed you can download a print the Technician Service Form your're using (or a newly customized one that will lists the Charges) and ask the customer to sign so you'll have it documented. Yet again, you do not need to manually write anything as you'll get direct access to your system via the Web portal.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the suggestions, although those only solve a portion of the problem. I know, I'm a problem child. ;)

I looked at doing the charge entries, but at the moment the way our systems are setup is that CommitCRM does not handle the charging of customers, but rather Quickbooks does. So that when a customer job is done, at the office the date, time, and solution to the problem are documented in the "Resolution/History" area of the tab. Then that info is copied & pasted to a sales receipt in Quickbooks with Quickbooks handling the actual transaction itself.

We may look to change that, so doing charge entries at the moment doesn't look to be the way to solve that, but does look interesting. The other limiting factor is due to this being a rural area, not all customers have internet or high speed internet. Another factor we consider.

I did consider the idea of printing out a completed ticket on site to have the customer sign, but I can see where that would add extra steps, especially if the customer has a non working printer or even no printer. That's why I was wondering if there would be any way to capture their signature via an iPad/Android tablet and email then a receipt/copy.

The idea of doing a Charge entry is a good one, just our Quickbooks system in the office is setup differently at the moment. Unless CommitCRM can make completed tickets go into Quikcbooks as a Sales Receipt and not an invoice, then that would be an immediate benefit.

Thanks for the additional information. It does seem like you should consider using the Charges feature and have this flow into your QuickBooks Invoices directly from RangerMSP - at the customer Account, the service Contract and the Ticket levels (you decide!). We have a request for capturing digital signatures on file and I will add your vote. Thanks for asking.

Thanks for the reply!

The limitation for our office is that the way we use Quickbooks to track revenue paid at the time of work completion or for invoicing, we separately use the QB invoice feature and the QB sales receipt feature. We don't have everything just go into QB invoices.

With that said, is there anyway to use the CRM charges feature and have that data be sent to a QB sales receipt also instead of an invoice?

RangerMSP generates QuickBooks Invoices and there is no way to have it create Sales Receipts instead. As far as I recall we've never received such a request before... Anyway, thanks for the update.

I've used the following method on iPad to get a signature.

1.> Fill in ticket details whilst on-site via the web interface and then use the print pdf option.
2.> Choose the report that you wish to print from the drop down list.
3.> When it opens the preview window of the report tap the screen and choose "open in...." from the top right corner.
4. > Choose PDF Expert (You'd need to buy this from the app store) and the report will open in PDF Expert. PDF Expert has signature options so you can then add a signature to the document and email a copy to your client and yourself or simply save the document.

Mister-C... That's a cool workaround! Thanks for sharing.... Now off to figure it out for android tablets.....I thought of emailing the customer the completed ticket in HTML, and asking them to open the email, review it and simply reply back "I accept these charges". Not exactly an electronic "signature", but probably ok for most jobs.

Support - Could that count as an official submission for a feature? That would allow us not to have to change our office setup with Quickbooks which is the main reason why we haven't had QB and CommitCRM linked yet that way.

Mister-c - Thanks for that tip also! I have an android tablet, but unfortunately PDF Expert is not available for Android. I haven't found any possible similiar apps yet for that.

Baywalker - Adobe Reader on Android allows you to add a signature. It just doesn't handle it as well as PDF Expert on iOS. PDF Expert stores one signature (Yours) but also lets you add a customer signature which it doesn't store. Adobe Reader only stores 1 signature and doesn't have a customer signature option so you have to edit it every time you want a customer to sign.

Bawalker - You might also be interested in this thread I started a few months ago:

@Mister-c - thank you for sharing.

@bawalker - yes (and it was already logged), just keep in mind that your request for sales receipts in stead of invoices is not very popular.