CESS Setup Questionnaire

Contact

Who is filling this out?

Best email or phone number for follow-up?

Start first 1. Service pricing

Are techs paid hourly, salary, or by the job? How is overtime paid?

What are your labour rates? Normal, after-hours, weekend, holiday, emergency, and any rates by type of work.

Your 2-hour minimum: is it per visit, per job, or per day?

If one trip covers several small fixes in the same building, how many minimum charges apply?

Do you charge a trip, truck-roll, or call-out fee?

What counts as after-hours or emergency work?

How do you round billable time? Exact minutes, nearest 15, nearest 30, always round up, etc.

Do you ever bill a fixed price instead of time and materials?

Do techs ever need to stay under a spending limit on a job? If yes, how should they see that limit?

Start first 2. Cost and markup

Which price should markup be based on: your real buy cost, or the retail/list price?

Confirm whether the app should ever mark up your real/net cost.

How is markup decided? One company-wide percent, by department, by item, by labour/material, or entered manually.

Should the system enforce minimum markup levels?

For service invoices, what markup should materials get automatically?

Do you use quantity-break pricing?

Start first 3. Payroll

Where do you run payroll today?

Should CESS be the official record of hours, or should it only export hours to another system?

Which hours are payable? Clock-in to clock-out, only job time, drive time, shop time, breaks, lunch deductions.

Should CESS calculate overtime and stat-holiday premiums, or should payroll calculate them?

How should office or salaried staff hours be handled?

What is your pay schedule and pay-period start day?

What file format does payroll need for importing hours?

List each person's pay rate and optional bill-out rate.

Start first 4. Commissions

Confirm the default commission percent and what amount it is based on.

Who receives commission by default?

When two people split commission, do you enter each person's percent manually?

Do commission splits always have to total a specific percent?

When is commission earned: accepted quote, invoiced work, or paid invoice?

Who earns a manager or override commission on all invoiced revenue, and at what percent?

Start first 5. Customer delivery

For day one, should staff send quote and invoice links themselves from Outlook, or should the app auto-send?

If the app auto-sends, which mailbox should messages come from?

Who controls the domain/DNS for email setup?

What should customers see on a quote: summary and total, or full line-by-line pricing?

Do you ever hide the quote breakdown from customers?

How long are quotes valid?

What workmanship warranty should appear on quotes?

Do you take deposits or bill in stages? If yes, what are the stages?

What counts as official quote acceptance?

Do any quotes use USD? If yes, how should exchange rates be handled?

Start first 6. Sage accounting

Which Sage company/database should CESS write to?

Should Sage assign invoice numbers, or should CESS supply them?

What is the current invoice prefix and next number?

How is tax handled? Flat HST, tax group per customer, tax-exempt customers, etc.

Which GL accounts should invoices post to?

Do you want cost-of-goods entries when materials are used?

What payment terms should be used?

How are credits, write-offs, and invoice corrections handled?

Are there customers or job types that should never auto-send to Sage?

Who reviews and posts draft invoices in Sage?

Which customer should be used for test invoices?

How should CESS know an invoice has been paid?

Later 7. Customers and sites

Does every customer have a Sage customer number?

What should happen for one-off or cash customers without a Sage number?

What site access details do techs need? Gate codes, lockbox, parking, escort, check-in, hazards.

Where are site access details kept today?

For urgent calls, how fast do you need to be on site?

Does required response time differ by customer, building, or job type?

Do you have service contracts or maintenance agreements?

How do warranties work, and who decides warranty vs billable?

Who are the main customer contacts and what are their roles?

Later 8. Scheduling

When does the promised response-time clock start?

When does the promised response-time clock stop?

Who can assign, reschedule, and cancel jobs?

How are crews set up? Solo, driver plus partner, larger crews, fixed crews, rotating crews.

How does after-hours or on-call coverage work?

How should recurring or maintenance visits be created?

Should the app block or warn when assigning someone on approved time off?

Should the app block or warn for expired certifications, truck maintenance, or double-booking?

Later 9. Field tablet

Can one site visit turn into several jobs or invoices?

If several jobs share one visit, how should time and parts be split?

Does each job get its own minimum charge when one visit covers several jobs?

If nobody is available to sign, what should the tech do?

Who is allowed to skip a customer signature?

Which jobs require a certified tech?

Should uncertified tech assignment be blocked or only warned?

How often do techs need to work with no cell/data coverage?

Later 10. Inventory

At go-live, should starting stock come from a physical count or current records?

Who are your suppliers?

Does each part have a default supplier?

How do purchase orders work today?

What is your PO number format and next number?

Who approves and sends purchase orders?

Do you set minimum stock levels per truck and warehouse?

If a tech uses more stock than the truck shows, should the app block or warn?

Do you want CESS barcode labels for parts?

Later 11. Access

For each office person, what should they not be allowed to see?

For each office person, what should they not be allowed to change?

Should one person be allowed to create and approve their own quote or invoice if it is logged?

Who may edit or back-date tech clock entries?

Who may send invoices to Sage?

Who may change company settings?

When someone leaves, who turns off access that day?

Later 12. Reports and ops

For reports, should revenue mean invoiced, paid, or recognized in Sage?

How should paired-crew revenue or profit be split?

What timezone and week-start day should reports use?

Would a short daily summary email be useful? If yes, who gets it?

Any data hosting, backup, or record-retention rules we should follow?

Who should we follow up with about setup?

Anything else we should know before go-live?