ServiceTitan Appointments - Powerhouse Consulting Group

SERVICETITAN APPOINTMENTS ARE COMING

We are making all of our clients aware of the new Appointments function in ServiceTitan that is being rolled out. This is going to be a big change.

The ServiceTitan platform will soon require scheduling of appointments.

We recommend that you follow ServiceTitan’s guidance for preparing for Appointments. It is critical to make a plan so that your KPIs will not be impacted by inconsistencies in the workflow. Preparation is the key to a seamless integration. Here’s what you need to know.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

According to ServiceTitan’s Knowledge Base, “Appointments are the scheduled visits required to complete a job. A job can have one or more appointments, depending on how many visits it takes to complete.”

Job = a collection of Appointments – one or many. The Job page will contain the job summary, invoice, job forms, estimates, and purchase orders.
Appointment = a single visit related to a specific job. The Appointment page will contain the time frame that the Appointment is scheduled, customer dispatch notifications, technician assignment.

A ServiceTitan Project — *This Graphic sourced from* *ServiceTitan’s Appointment Guide*

Put simply, all Jobs will now have one or more Appointments, with each Appointment representing a single visit related to a Job. A technician is dispatched to a Job, and working on a Job. The Appointment is simply the schedule of when technicians are sent out on that Job.

For projects that span multiple days, you will no longer have to create multiple jobs that create confusion to your team or trigger follow ups or emails for your Customers. Instead, you will now have a single Job with as many Appointments as needed.

WHY ARE APPOINTMENTS HELPFUL?

Change isn’t always bad. We see a lot of potential applications of the new Appointments workflow like:

“Done For Now” is going away – You won’t use the “Done for Now” function anymore. Instead, your techs will close the current Appointment by marking it as Done or Done only for myself. Techs can also Pause an appointment when they plan to return to the Job on the same day. A new Appointment is created for any future days. Job information will be preserved on the dispatch board.
Multi-day installs – Where an installation will take two or more days to complete, you can set up one Job with multiple Appointments.
Service Follow Ups – If a technician needs to wait on a part to complete a repair, you can opt for the return visit to be an Appointment under the same Job as the original repair visit, as opposed to a separate Job within a Project.
Adding Helper Visits – You can use the Appointment function on Jobs where a helper, rather than a managed technician, needs to return to a job site to complete items on a punch list without having a managed technician attached to their time.

SHOULD WE IMPLEMENT APPOINTMENTS?

Unfortunately, you don’t have a choice! Appointments are coming. The interface will be slightly different, and your team will need to learn how to work with these new functions.

The decision you need to make is how you want to implement Appointments.

Even if you decide you’d like to continue doing things about the same as you are today, your workflow will change. That’s because every Job will contain at least one Appointment.

As soon as possible, you’ll need to establish the new internal workflows and office practices. Your entire team will need training on Appointments, from your office team creating them to your technicians closing them out.

WE CAN HELP IMPLEMENT APPOINTMENTS AND TRAIN YOUR TEAM

OTHER ITEMS OF NOTE

Here are some other items we found of interest when researching this change.

We expect many datasets and KPIs will be impacted but ServiceTitan has not yet published a full list at this time.
There will be new user permissions for Appointments. We recommend that you adjust these at the Role Level, rather than one by one for each employee.

Changes for Technicians

A managed technician is still required on all Appointments with three key exceptions: Jobs attached to a Project, Warranty Jobs, and Recall Jobs. That means that Appointments enable your team to add non-managed technicians to Jobs within a Project.
Technician timesheets are calculated on the Job. If you are adding a manual timesheet to the Job, your team must take the extra step to link the time sheet to the Appointment.
Technician workflow and user interface on the app is changing. Make sure your team is thoroughly trained on the changes.

Payroll, Accounting, and Invoicing Factors to Consider

If you choose to implement a workflow such that your team can schedule multiple Appointments within a Job, your payroll and accounting will be impacted.

Invoices will be Dated when the Job (not the Appointment) is complete. That means that Commission calculations will happen when the Job (not the Appointment) is complete and the invoice is batched and posted.

If you are using accrual Accounting along with a Job with multiple Appointments, it’s crucial to make a decision on how invoicing will work in the new workflow. Consider a Job that spans across months (ex: started Jan 25 and ended Feb 3). Without any tweaking, the invoice will be dated when the entire Job is completed, attributing all revenue to the month in which the Job is complete. As an alternative, consider progress billing by creating Jobs, Invoices and Appointments to record the revenue for each month. Or, you can split revenue across months in which case any commission will be calculated according to the invoice posting date.

There’s a lot to consider here. While Appointments will add value in many ways, you have some decisions to make about the right choice for how invoices will work. Our team is well-versed in accounting practices for home service companies. We can make a recommendation on the best solution for your business so that everything works the way you want right from the start.

CONFUSED ABOUT INVOICES? WE’VE GOT YOUR BACK!

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NOW

Here is what we’re recommending to Powerhouse Consulting Group clients:

Decide how you want to use Appointments given the changes we’ve shared above. Then, document your new internal workflows.
Ensure all your team members watch the ServiceTitan training, and host internal meetings to review the new company workflows.
Set up scenarios and practice them with your team in the Sandbox, so that everyone is fluent when the change drops. Our team can help conduct these practice sessions.
Host regular touch points with your teams, to ensure everyone is using Appointments consistently.
Refine workflows as needed.