SAP Business One Implementation: Rentals as Service Warranty Contracts

SAP B1 is in expansion mode and we expect more new software purchases, data conversions, and installations. This might be the time when ERP implementation ideas are appreciated. The fact that SAP BO logic is relatively simple should not make you think that system doesn’t fit to the majority of industries. In opposite, SB1 application logic is very flexible and adaptable, and often we see the cases, when new customer requested customization or modification through SB1 SDK and later one decided not to use it and instead do it procedurally in standard logic. This article is dedicated to

equipment rentals contracts:
1. Warranty Contracts overview. In Service module you can associate warranty contract templates with serialized items. In the contract template you can specify which expenses are billable and which are covered: items or parts, labor, travel. Nice thing about warranty contract is the logic of service call resolution – if you have technicians or technical support staff, you know that they need to have knowledge base and they have to document resolution in its phases to secure resolution audit, if required in the future

2. Rental Contract as Warranty contract. In rental you often do similar activity – you support your rented equipment in the sense of providing replacement parts, sending field technician onsite and incurring travel and lodging expenses. However the nature of Warranty Contract in SB1 is serialized item, or group of items sale to the customer, not rent

3. Rental Logic Proposed Procedure. We propose the following logic. Rental item what you sell is in essence rental service price item and the real item is allocated to rental contract through Sales Order. In this case Sales Order allocates the item during the life cycle of rental contract and when contract expires SB1 contract administrator receives alert to cancel expired contract Sales Order, which in turn releases allocated item back to available for rentals item inventory. In the suggested logic we keep item allocated in our own inventory, meaning that financially it sits on our balance in GL and at the same time it is tracked in real Warranty contract, where we see all the technical support history and logs

4. Rental Reports. Having Sales Order in place you can print various forms, which could be modified to fit your renting documentation requirements

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group, http://www.albaspectrum.com help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, serving USA and Canada nationwide: CA, NY, GA, IL, IN, SC, FL, NC, AZ, OH, MI, NC, TX. For 2008 we offer promotion to country site businesses – we’ll send our Sales Engineer who will make custom presentation and sales cycle, and implementation Consultant onsite at no cost for you, assuming lump sum rapid deployment and user training. Please visit our information portal Pegas Planet http://www.pegasplanet.com