Service order lines

A service order line is one part or one unit of labour on a service order: it names the item, how much of it, what it costs, who pays for it, and how far it has got through the workshop. Every action on the order — time sheets, fulfilment, allocation, VOR purchase orders, invoicing, claims and delivery — works line by line, so the lines are where you see what is done and what is still to do.

Overview

A line's Item decides what kind of line it is. A Work Item is labour: it goes on a time sheet, where the technician starts and ends the work. A Part is stock: it is released to the warehouse, allocated, picked and posted to inventory, and bought in on a VOR purchase order when there is none. Only items of these two types can be picked on a line.

Each line also carries:

• its price — Unit Price, the price list it came from, discounts, scheme benefits and taxes, rolled up into Amount and Gross Amount;
• who pays — the Posting Type (customer invoice, claim, expense or accidental repairs), the Item Service Contract the work is charged to, and up to two more contracts that share the cost;
• its progress — a quantity for every stage (fulfilment, allocation, delivery, invoicing, claiming) and a pending quantity for what is left;
• where it came from — the estimate line, opportunity line, campaign, asset maintenance or service recommendation that created it.

Lines are opened from the order. They have no list of their own in any app.

When to use it

Add a line for every part fitted and every operation performed on the job, including free work under a contract or a campaign — the line is what the invoice, the claim, the time sheet and the asset's service history are built from. Change a line when the job changes; enter a Cancelled Quantity when part of a line will not be supplied or performed.

How xMatix handles it

Where lines come from. You can add lines by hand at any time. xMatix also creates them for you:

• from a service estimate set on the order — every estimate line the customer has not declined, with its price, rate basis, markup, contract and discounts. Running the estimate again adds only lines not already on the order;
• from the opportunity the order was generated from — the quantity still open on each opportunity line;
• from a lead — one line for the lead's interested item, quantity 1;
• from the asset's service contract on a new order with an asset and a service contract and no other lines — one line per entitlement line that still has quantity left, provided the asset contract is set to populate its lines and is not used up;
• when you change the Service Contract on a saved order — lines carrying the old contract are removed and one line per contract definition line of the new contract is added;
• from open campaign maintenance for the asset, and from accepted service recommendations.

What happens when a line is created. xMatix copies the item's name, applies any alternate-item substitution, looks up the price on the order's price list, sets the rate basis and standard duration from the item, works out a Cost Plus price, picks the tax group and discount group, copies the order's header discount onto the line, calculates the taxes, finds the matching stock record, and sets the Posting Type (see Business rules). It also checks whether the same operation was recently done on the same asset (see Step 7).

How the price is built. Base Amount is (Quantity − Cancelled Quantity) × the unit price, where Unit Price 2 replaces Unit Price whenever it is above zero. Amount is Base Amount less discounts and scheme discounts; Gross Amount adds the tax. When Apply Post Tax Discount is ticked, discounts are taken after tax instead.

How the rate basis changes the quantity. The line's Rate Basis comes from the item's Service Rate Basis (or from the estimate or opportunity the line was copied from):

Actual Hours and Capped Actual lines are repriced each time work is started, paused or ended on the time sheet, and when you choose Reprice on the order. A quantity you have typed yourself is kept by the time-sheet update, but Reprice recalculates it. A line that has been invoiced or claimed is never repriced.

Prerequisites

• A saved service order and access to its Lines tab.
• Items of type Work Item or Part, with prices on the order's price list. For hourly labour, the item needs a Service Rate Basis and a Service Duration(Minutes); for Cost Plus, a Markup Rate (%) and a cost the system can find.
• For contract work, an asset service contract on the order's asset.
• A security profile that allows the Service Order Line entity and the line actions you need (see Permissions).

Procedure

Step 1 — Add a line

Open the service order and go to the Lines tab. Choose Quick Add above the list to add a row, or choose Edit on an existing row to open it in a dialog. The dialog shows Item, Quantity, Posting Type, Item Service Contract, Unit Price and Tax Group.

Pick the Item — the picker lists only Work Item and Part items. Enter the Quantity. For an hourly labour item you can leave the quantity for xMatix to fill from the hours. Save. The line gets a number such as SVL-11102026-000001, its price, discounts and taxes are filled in, and the order's totals update.

If the order's asset has related items configured on its item, only those related items are accepted on the line.

Step 2 — Check the price

Open the line (select it in the list) and look at the Pricing & Amounts and Discount Details panels on the Details tab. Unit Price is the price-list price; enter a Unit Price 2 to override it for this line. Changing the Price List or Price As On Date on the line looks the price up again; entering a Discount Amount replaces the percentage discount the line got from the order. Tax is recalculated whenever the item, quantity, tax group, amount or discount changes.

If the item has no price, enter a Unit Price yourself — a line priced at zero is refused.

Step 3 — Charge the line to a contract

To bill the line to a service contract instead of the customer, pick the Item Service Contract on the line. xMatix then:

• checks that the item is one of the contract's component lines (once the contract has any);
• finds the asset's matching asset service contract, checks it is still valid for the order's date and usage reading, and fills Asset Service Contract;
• sets Posting Type from the contract's Contract Posting Treatment when the item is listed on the contract.

Set Posting Type to Generate Claims to raise a claim for the line at invoicing — this needs an Item Service Contract. Generate Invoices (or blank) bills the customer. Expense and Accidental Repairs route the line to those treatments; see Invoice a service order.

To share the cost with other contracts, fill Item Service Contract 2 and Service Contract Weightage 2 (and the 3 pair). The weightage is a share of the line: 30 means thirty per cent. Service Contract Weightage shows what is left with the first contract.

Step 4 — Follow the line's progress

The line's record page shows Service Order, Item, Quantity and Amount at the top, with two tabs:

• Related — the documents raised from this line: fulfilment order lines, allocation lines, invoice lines, delivery order lines, claim lines, purchase order lines and quote lines.
• Details — the line's fields in panels: Key Information, Item Substitution, Quantity Details, Pending Quantities, Pricing & Amounts, Discount Details, Scheme Details, Service Execution, Service Contract, Asset & Maintenance, Campaign, Complaint & Failure, Package Details, Procurement & Subcontracting, Inventory & Stock, Billing & Posting Status, Recommendation, Source Documents and System Information.

The Pending Quantities panel tells you what is still to do at each stage. The Service Execution panel shows the work status and times copied from the time sheet.

Step 5 — Cancel part of a line

When part of a line will not be supplied or performed, enter it as Cancelled Quantity on the line rather than lowering the quantity. Cancelled quantity is taken out of the amount and every pending quantity, and a Work Item line whose whole quantity is cancelled no longer holds up the order's Work Completed status. Cancel only what is still open: check the Pending Quantities panel first, because quantity already allocated, released, invoiced or delivered stays on those documents.

Step 6 — Change the item or delete a line

You can change the Item until stock has been allocated to the line. After that the item is locked and the line cannot be deleted; cancel the allocation on the order first. Lines a campaign made mandatory cannot have their item, quantity, cancelled quantity or contract changed, and cannot be deleted.

Step 7 — Review a suspected repeat repair

When a Work Item line is added, xMatix looks for the same item on the same asset in a service order that has already been delivered. If the earlier job was delivered within the repeat window, the line is flagged Suspected and linked to the earlier line, with the days and usage since then. The flag never changes the price and never blocks the save.

The shipped line page does not show the repeat fields or the two repeat actions; your administrator adds them (see Configuration). With them in place:

1. Open the suspected line and read Previous Service Order Line, Days Since Previous and Usage Since Previous.
2. If it is a genuine comeback, set Repeat Responsibility (Workmanship, Diagnosis, Part Failure, Customer or Unrelated) and choose Confirm Repeat. The status becomes Repeat.
3. If it is not, enter the Repeat Reason and choose Not a Repeat. The status becomes Not a Repeat; the link to the earlier line is kept and the responsibility is cleared.

You can also link a line to an earlier one yourself — even a different operation — by setting Previous Service Order Line and confirming it. Who pays for a repeat is a separate decision: bill the customer as normal, discount the line, or raise a claim.

On the mobile app

Lines appear on the service order in the mobile app with their own record layout, including the technician, work status and work start and end times. Work is started and ended on the time sheet, not on the line.

Fields

Key Information

Item Substitution and Procurement & Subcontracting

Quantity Details and Pending Quantities

Pricing & Amounts and Discount Details

Scheme Details — Scheme Benefit, Scheme Slab, Scheme Discount Amount, Net Scheme Discount, Scheme Reward Points, Skip Scheme (leave this line out of scheme evaluation) and Scheme Generated (a line the scheme engine added).

Service Execution

Service Contract — Item Service Contract (the contract the line is charged to), Item Service Contract 2 and 3 with their Service Contract Weightage 2 and 3 shares, Service Contract Weightage (the share left with the first contract), Service Contract Item (the contract's charge item), Asset Service Contract and Asset Service Contract Line (the asset's entitlement the work is drawn from).

Asset & Maintenance, Campaign, Recommendation and Source Documents — the asset, scheduled maintenance, campaign and campaign item, service recommendation (with its Recommendation Type and Recommendation Amount), and the opportunity or estimate line the line came from. Campaign Mandatory marks a line a campaign requires.

Complaint & Failure — Complaint Code and Complaint Fault Code (see Complaints and fault codes), Failed Item Treatment (Replaced, Repaired, Inspected) and Failed Part Info.

Package Details — Package Classification, Package Service and Included In Package for lines that belong to a service package.

Inventory & Stock — Item Lot, Item Lot Type, Storage Location, Inventory Ledger, Inventory Stock, Stock Available and Stock In Hand (read from the stock record for the line's item, SKU, lot type and storage location), and Invoice Group (Parts or Service, which splits invoices).

Billing & Posting Status — Billable (on when Posting Type is Generate Invoices or blank), Invoiced, Claimed, IL Posted and IL Posting Approved. The two inventory ledger flags are set by the system and cannot be edited.

Repeat repair fields (not on the shipped line page) — Repeat Status (None, Suspected, Repeat, Not a Repeat), Previous Service Order Line, Repeat Responsibility, Repeat Reason, Days Since Previous and Usage Since Previous. The last two are captured when the flag is raised and cannot be edited.

Pricing fields not on the shipped forms — Rate Basis, Billable Hours and Rate Set Manually. When Rate Set Manually is on, xMatix never overwrites the line's Unit Price.

Business rules

• Numbering. The Service Order Line Name Setting builds the line number from the series SVL, the date as DDMMYYYY and a six-digit counter, joined by hyphens.
• Quantity and price. Quantity must be greater than zero (Quantity should not be less than 0). Unit Price, when set, must be greater than zero (Unit Price can not be less than 0). The quantity fields cannot be saved with a negative value.
• Item checks. The item must be active, must have a SKU when the item requires one, and must not be a Discounted Item. When the asset's item has related items configured, the line's item must be one of them.
• Posting Type. When the line's contract has a Contract Posting Treatment and lists the item, that treatment is set on the line, replacing what was there. Otherwise a blank Posting Type becomes Generate Invoices. It is set again when the item or the contract changes. Generate Claims needs an Item Service Contract.
• Contract checks run when a line carries an Item Service Contract: the item must be on the contract's component lines; contracts that require an active asset contract, are scope-restricted or are single-use need a valid asset service contract for the order's asset; a lapsed one is reported with the reason; a scope-restricted contract refuses an item it does not list or a quantity above what is left.
• Contract splits. Each share must be between 0 and 1 of the line, the two shares together cannot exceed the whole line, every share needs its contract, and that contract needs a Weightage Invoice Charge Item that is not the line's own item.
• Hourly lines. A Standard Hours line whose item has no standard duration is refused. An Actual Hours or Capped Actual line needs a quantity until hours are logged.
• Cost Plus lines are refused when no cost can be found for the item or when the markup is zero or less — unless Rate Set Manually is on.
• Locking. The service order cannot change. The item is locked, and the line cannot be deleted, once stock is allocated (There are downstream transactions. The record cannot be deleted.). Campaign-mandatory lines cannot be changed or deleted.
• Frozen once billed. After any of the line has been invoiced or claimed, its rate and hours are no longer recalculated.
• Effect on the order. Adding, changing or deleting a line updates whether the order has a Work Item line (which shows Time Sheet), whether it is eligible for a VOR purchase order, and whether it has a confirmed repeat line.
• Repeat detection looks only at Work Item lines on an order with an asset. Lines from a campaign item, asset maintenance or a scheme are never flagged, nor are items in the excluded item groups. A line already flagged or decided is never flagged again. Confirming needs a responsibility and a previous line; rejecting needs a reason unless the organization has switched that off; a responsibility is allowed only on a confirmed repeat; the previous line must exist, be on a different order and not point back at this line.

Example

A tractor comes in with a hydraulic leak and is still under a two-year service contract. On the order's Lines tab the advisor uses Quick Add for the labour item "Hydraulic hose replacement". Its item is set to Standard Hours with a duration of 90 minutes, so the line's quantity becomes 1.5 and the unit price is the hourly rate. The advisor adds a second line for the part "Hydraulic hose 3/4 in", quantity 2.

The advisor picks the tractor's contract as the Item Service Contract on both lines. The hose is on the contract's component lines and the contract's posting treatment is Generate Claims, so the part line's Posting Type changes to Generate Claims. The labour item is not on the contract, and the save is refused with Item 'Hydraulic hose replacement' is not covered by …. The advisor clears the contract on the labour line, which stays Generate Invoices.

Only one hose is fitted in the end, so the advisor enters 1 as Cancelled Quantity on the part line. Its Pending Invoice Quantity and Claimable Quantity drop to 1. At invoicing, the labour goes on a customer invoice and the hose on a claim.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox, open a Draft service order with an asset. Add a Fixed Price part line with quantity 2 and a labour line whose item is set to Standard Hours with a service duration. Expected result: the labour line's quantity equals the duration in hours, and both lines show a Unit Price, Tax Amount and Gross Amount. Enter 1 as Cancelled Quantity on the part line and confirm that Base Amount halves and Pending Invoice Quantity becomes 1. Then try to set the part line's Quantity to 0 and note the message.

Quick reference

• Lines are added and edited from the order's Lines tab.
• Only Work Item and Part items can go on a line.
• Hourly rate bases put the hours in Quantity; Unit Price is the hourly rate.
• Unit Price 2 overrides Unit Price when it is above zero.
• Generate Claims needs an Item Service Contract.
• Use Cancelled Quantity, not a lower quantity, for work you will not do.
• Allocated lines cannot change item or be deleted.
• Invoiced or claimed lines are never repriced.

Permissions

Viewing, creating, editing and deleting lines follow the Service Order Line entity permissions on the user's security profile. Each line action also needs a grant on the profile's Actions tab. In the shipped profiles:

The shipped Service profile has full entity access to lines but no line action grants. Check and extend the grants of every profile your workshop staff use. A user without a grant who runs an action sees The current user is not allowed to execute server action '…' on entity 'ServiceOrderLine'.

Configuration

• Line numbering — Setup → Feature Hub → Platform → Document Settings, setting Service Order Line Name Setting (series, date format, number length, separator). See Email templates and document numbering.
• Item setup — Service Rate Basis, Service Duration(Minutes) and Markup Rate (%) on the item decide how its lines are priced; related items on the asset's item limit what can go on its orders. See Items.
• Prices, discounts and taxes — price lists, discount groups and tax groups; see Pricing, discounts and taxes.
• Contracts — component lines and Contract Posting Treatment on the contract definition; Weightage Invoice Charge Item for split lines; entitlements on the asset service contract.
• Validations — the line's four shipped validation rules (Generate Claims needs a contract, Quantity, Unit Price, and Service Contract Weightage not negative) are entity validations you can review in the data model tools.
• Picklists — Posting Type, Invoice Group, Rate Basis, Work Status, Maintenance Type, Action Taken, Failed Item Treatment, Repeat Status and Repeat Responsibility are entity picklists.
• Layouts — the line page (Service Order Line View), the line dialog (Service Order Line QAP) and the order's Lines tab can be changed with the layout tools. To use repeat repair, add the repeat fields to the line page and the Confirm Repeat and Not a Repeat row actions to the order's Lines list. To let users price a line by hand on a Cost Plus or hourly basis, add Rate Set Manually.
• Repeat repair thresholds — Setup → Feature Hub → Administration → Org Settings → Custom Settings, namespace Service.RepeatRepair. Every key is optional:

With both windows off, repeat detection is off. Exclude operations that legitimately recur — diagnosis, road tests, washing — or the flags fill up with them.

Common problems

"Quantity should not be less than 0"

The quantity is zero or negative. Enter a quantity above zero; to drop a line you no longer need, delete it or enter its quantity as cancelled.

"Unit Price can not be less than 0"

The line has a zero price — usually because the price list has no price for the item. Enter a Unit Price, or add the item to the price list.

"Item Service Contract Is Mandatory When Posting Type Is Generate Claims."

Pick the contract the claim is made against, or change the Posting Type.

"Item '…' is not covered by Item Service Contract '…'"

The contract lists its component items and this item is not one of them. Clear the contract on the line to bill the customer, or ask an administrator to add the item to the contract definition.

"No Active Asset Service Contract…" or "The validity of this contract has lapsed!"

The contract needs a valid asset service contract for the order's asset, and there is none, or it has expired by date, hours or usage reading. Check the asset's contracts and the order's date and readings.

"The quantity of the Item exceeds the quantity allowed under this Service Contract!"

A scope-restricted contract has less of this item left than the line asks for. Lower the quantity and bill the rest on a separate line without the contract.

"Line '…' is priced on standard hours but the item has no standard duration"

Set Service Duration(Minutes) on the item, or change the item's rate basis.

"Line '…' is priced on cost (Cost Plus) but no cost could be established" or "…with a markup of 0%"

Record a purchase or stock receipt for the item, or add it to a cost price list, and set Markup Rate (%) on the item or the line. To bill at cost on purpose, set the Unit Price yourself with Rate Set Manually on.

"Line '…' has a service contract share of …" or "…allocates …% of its value to service contracts"

Enter each share as a percentage of the line and keep the two together at 100 or less; name the contract for each share, and make sure each contract has its own Weightage Invoice Charge Item.

"The selected item is not eligible or not mapped for this asset."

The asset's item has a related-items list and this item is not on it. Pick a related item, or ask an administrator to add the relation.

"'…' is a Discounted Item, which can't be used on a service order."

Remove the discount item and give the discount on the service invoice instead.

"The field ItemId is locked…" or "There are downstream transactions. The record cannot be deleted."

Stock has been allocated to the line. Cancel the allocation on the order first, or enter the unneeded quantity as cancelled.

"Campaign mandated items cannot be modified." or "…cannot be deleted."

The line is required by a campaign. See Running campaigns.

"A positive decimal number is expected for the field: …"

One of the line's quantity fields holds a negative value. Enter zero or more.

"This repeat cannot be confirmed yet." or "This repeat flag cannot be rejected yet."

Confirming needs a Repeat Responsibility and a previous line; rejecting needs a Repeat Reason and a line that carries a flag. Fill the missing field and try again.

Common questions

Why did the quantity on my labour line change by itself?

The item is priced by the hour. On Standard Hours the quantity is the item's standard duration; on Actual Hours and Capped Actual it follows the hours logged on the time sheet each time work starts, pauses or ends. A quantity you typed yourself is kept by those updates, but Reprice on the order recalculates it. Once any of the line is invoiced or claimed, the hours and quantity stop changing.

Why did the Posting Type change when I picked a contract?

The contract definition lists the line's item and has a Contract Posting Treatment, and that treatment always wins for items the contract covers. If the item is not on the contract, a blank Posting Type becomes Generate Invoices and any value already on the line is left alone. Posting Type is set again whenever the item or the contract on the line changes.

Should I reduce the quantity or cancel it?

Cancel it. Cancelled Quantity keeps the original request visible and is excluded from the amount and every pending quantity; a fully cancelled Work Item line no longer holds up Work Completed. Lowering the quantity is refused on campaign-mandatory lines, and once stock is allocated it can strand documents raised for the original quantity.

Does a repeat-repair flag change what the customer pays?

No. Detection and confirmation only record that the operation was done before, by whom and how long ago. To absorb the cost, discount the line, change the order's service type, or raise a claim against the earlier job. Billing the customer as normal is the right answer when the responsibility is Customer or Unrelated.

Related topics

• Service orders
• Invoice a service order
• Recording labour with time sheets
• Contract definition lines
• Asset service contracts
• Running campaigns
• Service recommendations
• Service troubleshooting
• Service Order Line reference
• Order — entity reference
• Service Order — entity reference
• Order Line — entity reference