Route Management: General Information

You perform the configuration of the route management functionality if the company that you are configuring performs scheduled routes and provides services.

This topic provides a general overview of the configuration steps that you have to perform before you start entering route-related entities and processing routes in the system.

Learning Objectives

In this chapter, you will learn how to perform the initial configuration for the route management functionality. In particular, you will do the following:

• Learn about the settings that have to be specified
• Enable the needed system features
• Specify the required settings for the service management functionality that are relate to the route management
• Specify the required settings for the route management functionality

System Features to Be Enabled

To be able to configure and use the equipment management functionality in the system, you need to first enable the following features on the Enable/Disable Features (CS101000) form:

• Service Management: Is required for service management; allows you to configure service order processing.
• One of the following features, depending on the number of employees that will perform services in the organization:
  • 10 Staff Members: You can define and track up to 10 employees in the system as staff members.
  • 50 Staff Members: You can define and track as many as 50 employees in the system as staff members.
  • Unlimited Staff Members: An unlimited number of employees can be defined and tracked in the system as staff members.
• Route Management: Is required for route management; allows you to process routes and the related service contracts.
• One of the following features, depending on the number of vehicles that are used by the organization:
  • 10 Vehicles: You can define and track as many as 10 vehicles in the system.
  • 50 Vehicles: You can define and track up to 50 vehicles in the system.
  • Unlimited Vehicles: An unlimited number of vehicles can be defined and tracked in the system.

Prerequisites

The company configuration, sales order management configuration, and service management configuration must be completed before you implement the service management functionality. For details, see Company Without Branches, Order Management with Inventory, and Basic Service Management Configuration.

Before you start implementing route management functionality in the system, on the Numbering Sequences (CS201010) form, the numbering sequence for route executions has to be created in the system.

After all prerequisites have been met and the necessary entities have been created, you can specify equipment management preference settings that include warranty settings and billing.

Configuration of Billing Settings

For service contracts with standardized billing, in the Billing Settings section of the Route Management Preferences (FS100400) form, you have to specify the type of the billing document to be generated. You do one of the following under Generated Billing Documents:

• If company generates billing documents for route service contracts with services only, you select the AR Documents option button.
• If company generates billing documents for route service contracts with both services and inventory items that were sold to customers along with the services, you select the Sales Orders option button. With this option selected, you can create shipments if needed and add additional freight costs.

When you have selected the document type, the default settings for it to be used in the billing documents appear on the form; specify the needed settings.

To configure the system to automatically activate the next period when an invoice is generated for the previous one, you select the Automatically Activate Upcoming Period check box.