Equipment and assets

Freezers, fryers, delivery vans, AC units: Assets in the left menu keeps track of the equipment your business runs on, and every repair it's ever had.

Getting started: locations, then a type, then equipment

Until you've added some equipment, the Assets page shows the three steps in order:

1. Add your locations. Every piece of equipment is assigned to a location (a store, shop or site), so set those up first in Locations → Add and edit. You can paste a whole list from a spreadsheet.
2. Add an equipment type. Click + New asset type (Admins). A type is a kind of equipment, like Refrigeration or Vehicles. Give it a name, an ID prefix (like FRZ, so pieces are FRZ-1, FRZ-2), a color and an icon, then click Add asset type. The type decides which fields every piece of that kind has.
3. Add the equipment. On the type's page, fill in Add equipment: what it is (Walk-in freezer), its Location, Purchase date, Make and model, Serial number and Warranty ends. The form also asks Does it need regular maintenance? (see Maintenance below). Click Add equipment. It opens the new piece's page, where you add its Photo, Receipt and notes. The photo shows above its QR code, so people can tell which machine it is.

Every piece gets an ID and a QR code right away.

Your own fields

Each type comes with the standard fields: Location, Purchase date, Make and model, Serial number, Warranty ends, Warranty details, Photo, Receipt and Notes. Need more, like a filter size or a license plate? Owners and managers of a type click Customize fields on the type's page. It opens the same field designer stacks use, so you can add text, numbers, dates, dropdowns, checklists and more. Types made before warranty fields were standard show Add warranty fields there too.

By location or by type

The Assets page has two views. By type (where it opens) shows a card for each type with how many are in use and how many need repair; click + Equipment on a card to add a piece, or its … menu to print labels or edit the type. Admins add a type with the New asset type card. By location groups everything under the location it's in (pick one to see just that location); equipment without a location is listed under your company's name. Each piece shows its status: In service, Needs repair or Retired. When maintenance is coming up in the next two weeks (or is overdue), a Maintenance due list appears at the top.

Contacts

When the walk-in stops cooling at 9 PM, nobody should be hunting for a business card. Contacts on the Assets page keeps the repair and service companies you call, and the people at each one, right next to the equipment they fix.

Admins and managers of an asset type click + Add a contact and fill in the company: Name, What they fix, Main phone, Email, Website and Notes (account number, rates, how to place a service call), then click Add contact. Then add the people there with + Add a person: their Name, What they do (the office, the after-hours line, the tech who usually comes out), Phone, Email and Notes, and click Add person. A company can have as many people as you need. Each card also shows the types the company is approved for, how many jobs it has done for you and what you've paid it.

Need to keep something else about them, like an account number, a contract end date or a preferred tech? Admins add their own fields: in the company form click + Add your own contact company fields, and in the person form + Add your own contact person fields (or go to Settings → Custom fields). Once a field is added it shows in every company's or person's form under More details, and whatever you fill in shows on the company's card and under the person's name. Later, Change contact company fields and Change contact person fields take you back to the list of fields.

Approve a company where it's needed:

• For a whole type: on the type's page, tick it under Contacts.
• For one piece: on the equipment's page, pick it from + Add a contact….

Everyone who can see the equipment sees its contacts, and their people, and can tap a phone number to call. Repair and maintenance tickets for that equipment show the same list under Who to call about the equipment, so whoever is working the ticket has the number in front of them, along with any of your own fields that are filled in.

Maintenance, warranty and the service log

Below a piece's QR code you'll find:

• Warranty: Under warranty, a heads-up when it ends within 60 days, or Warranty ended, from the Warranty ends field.
• Maintenance schedule: click + Add a schedule for regular jobs like cleaning coils or changing filters. Say what needs doing, how often (Every 3 months, say), Who does it, the Vendor if you call someone in, and when it's next due (leave Next due empty to count from today), then click Add schedule. Each job becomes a ticket in a stack when it comes due, and closing that ticket puts it in the service log and moves the next date on. While a ticket is open, the schedule links to it; to start a job early, click Open a ticket now.
• Service log: every repair and maintenance visit, with the vendor, what it cost and the receipt. Click + Log service, fill it in, attach the receipt (a PDF or photo, up to 15 MB) and click Add to the log. The total spent shows at the top.

Receipts are kept privately in TicketStacker. Admins can also save a copy of each receipt in Google Drive: on Contacts, under Where receipts go, click Connect Google Drive, then Make a receipts folder in Google Drive. Each piece of equipment gets its own folder there.

Maintenance tickets

Coils that never get cleaned are how a freezer dies on a Saturday. So TicketStacker asks about maintenance up front, and turns each job into a ticket when it comes due, where your team already looks for work.

Ask when equipment is added. Under Does it need regular maintenance? in Add equipment, click + Add a maintenance job and fill in What needs doing (Clean the condenser coils), Every 3 months, Next due (leave it empty to count from today) and Who does it: a person, a team, or Anyone. Add as many as it needs, or Remove the ones it doesn't. Each one becomes a maintenance schedule on the new piece.

Usual maintenance for a type. Most freezers need the same care, so you shouldn't have to type it every time. On the type's page, owners and managers use Usual maintenance: click + Add a job, fill it in and click Add job (or Remove one). New equipment of that type starts with these jobs already filled in. You can still change or remove them while adding a piece, and edit them on each piece afterwards. Changing the usual jobs doesn't change equipment you've already added.

Tickets when it's due. Every morning TicketStacker looks for maintenance coming up and opens a ticket for each job, named like Clean the condenser coils · Walk-in freezer. The ticket:

• is linked to the equipment and has its location filled in, so whoever picks it up knows which machine and where;
• goes to the person in Who does it, or waits in that team's queue, so it lands with whoever usually does it;
• is due on the schedule's next date, and opens a week early by default, so there's time to book a vendor.

There's only ever one open ticket per job, so a job that slips doesn't pile up copies.

Where they go. By default the tickets go in an Equipment maintenance stack (To do, Doing, Done) that TicketStacker makes for your company the first time one is needed, so all your upkeep is in one list. To use one of your own stacks instead, pick it under Maintenance tickets go to on the type's page, and set how many days ahead tickets open.

Closing the ticket is logging it done. When the ticket is closed (moved to Done), the job goes in the equipment's service log with that date, and the schedule's next date moves on from there. The next ticket opens when that date comes around. To add what it cost, click Add repair details on the ticket. There's no separate "done" button: work the ticket through the stack like any other, so it can be assigned, commented on and reported on.

Every ticket for a piece of equipment

A piece's page lists its Tickets: every repair and maintenance ticket ever linked to it, open or done, archived ones included, each marked Repair or Maintenance with what each fix cost. That's its whole history in one list, so before you replace a freezer you can see how often it broke and what it cost to keep running. To report something, click Report a problem, say what's wrong, pick the stack it goes in (like Repairs) and click File the repair. The ticket is linked to the equipment, its location is filled in, and the equipment is marked Needs repair. You can also link any existing ticket to a piece of equipment with Link an asset on the ticket.

When the repair is done, open the ticket and click Add repair details next to The fix. Pick the vendor who did it (vendors approved for that equipment are listed first), type the cost and the date, attach the receipt and click Save repair details. It shows up in the equipment's service log, so its whole repair history and cost are in one place.

QR labels

Every piece of equipment gets a QR code to stick on it. On the type's page, the QR labels box chooses what prints next to the code: tick any of Your logo, Company name, Asset ID, Equipment name, Location, Asset type, Serial number and Purchase date, and type a Short note (like Scan to report a problem). The preview shows the label at actual size; switch it between the sheet sizes to check everything fits. Click Save label. The choices are per type, so vehicles can show the serial number while freezers show the location.

Print a sheet of labels

Click Print labels on the type's page, in the … menu on its card, or next to a location on the Assets page (By location). Then:

1. Pick the Label sheet you bought. Under it, Shop for it searches Google Shopping for that exact product. Store brands that say "compatible with" the same Avery number work too.
2. Untick any pieces you don't need under choose.
3. Half-used sheet? Set Start at label to the first empty spot (counting across, then down) and click Update.
4. Click the print button. In the print window choose Actual size (or 100%) and no margins.

Which labels to buy

For kitchens, freezers or outdoors, look for the weatherproof or waterproof version of the same number.

Labels a little off? Click Alignment test page, print it on plain paper, and hold it over a label sheet against a window. Use Nudge right and Nudge down (in hundredths of an inch; negative numbers go left or up) until the boxes line up, then print the real thing.

To print just one, click Print label on a piece's page for a single 2 × 2 inch label.

When someone scans it:

• Staff who are signed in go straight to the equipment's page.
• Anyone else, like a shift worker without an account, sees which machine it is. If you've chosen where problems go (on the type's page, Problems reported from QR codes go to, picking a stack whose web form is on), they can describe the problem and leave their name and email. It arrives as a ticket in that stack, linked to the machine, and they get a link to follow the repair.