When a warranty claim has been submitted, the warranty department will receive an email notification containing the claim in PDF form, and any photos or other documents that the person who entered the claim uploaded and requested be sent along with the claim. So now the claims department can start working on that claim.

From the Crik-IT main page, click on the Warranty tab. You'll be shown a list of claims that have been submitted. (To see a larger image, right-click the image and open in a new tab)

One of the first things you'll want to do is assign an internal claim number to this claim and update the status to let the customer or rep know that you are working on the claim.  Click on Update Status.  When the screen shown below appears, click the Change Status Info Above button.

Note: if your screen shows View Status instead of Update Status in the screen shown above, your Crik-IT administrator has not set you up as a Warranty Claim Processor.

Now you can change the following fields:

• Claim Status (the values in the drop-down can be changed from the Tools menu, Change Drop-Down Values button).  Note: when you change the status, the contact who entered the claim will receive an email notifying them that the status changed. Here's a sample of the email:

• Status Notes:  customers can see the notes entered here
• Processing Notes: these are for internal use only; customers cannot see these
• Vendor's Claim Reference #:  this is a really important field.  This lets you to link any transactions entered in your ordering/invoicing system back to this claim; for example, you can link a replacement parts order or credit memo for labor that you enter in your system to this claim.  By doing this, your customers or sales reps can go to Crik-IT to see exactly what's happening relative to this claim without having to call you. See more about the benefits of this below.

Note: if your company uses QuickBooks for ordering and invoicing, see these instructions for how to link your QuickBooks transactions to a claim. 

• Other fields:  The specific fields that show on your screen will be different than those shown above. The fields that show are determined based on the warranty requirements of the item for which this claim is being made.  

What are the benefits of linking transactions (order, invoices, credit memos) to warranty claims?

Linking transactions to the warranty claim, "completes the circle". When customers submit warranty claims, Crik-IT users can check on the status of the processing in Crik-IT, AND, if you link transactions to claims, they can see any replacement parts orders, labor credits, and other transactions that have been created to address specific claims.  Here are a couple examples:

Warranty tab when drilled into customer details; each row is a separate warranty claim (right-click and open in new tab to see larger image):

Linked transaction detail that shows when user clicks the See Transactions link circled above.  (right-click and open in new tab to see larger image):

QuickBooks Users - Instructions for how to link transactions from QuickBooks to claims in Crik-IT

QuickBooks Desktop:

• Set up a custom field on customers called WCNumber
• Customize data layout on orders, invoices, and credit memos to add the WCNumber field to the  header.
• When entering an order, invoice, or credit memo related to this claim, you would enter the Vendor's Claim Reference # entered in the claim processing page into the WCNumber field in the QuickBooks order/invoice/credit memo transaction.

QuickBooks Online:

• Set up a custom field called either "WC Number" or "Claim #" in the Sales section of the settings page.
• When entering a transaction in QuickBooks Online related to this claim, enter the Vendor's Claim Reference # entered in the claim processing page into the custom field created above.