Doing one for nothing, and knowing what it cost you

A car comes back for the same fault and you eat it. The customer pays nothing, and the parts and the hours were real. Issuing that at no charge keeps both halves true: the invoice the customer holds says zero, and the month's margin still carries what the job cost you.

It is the same invoice mechanism as any other — same numbering, same snapshot, same move on the board. What changes is that every customer-facing figure is zeroed down to the line, and the retail value of the work is frozen on the document as what you gave away.

Issuing one

On an order that has not been invoiced yet, open the arrow beside the Order Status button in the rail and choose Invoice at no charge…. It is offered once approved work is waiting to be billed, and only to somebody holding the refunds key — owners and managers hold it out of the box. That is deliberate: an advisor who can ring up a four-thousand-dollar ticket cannot give one away.

1. 1

   Step 1: Say why

   Four reasons and no more: Warranty — our own work, redone, Comeback — it came back for the same fault, Goodwill — we chose to eat this one, and Other — say what it was. You cannot add a fifth. There is a note box with it, required on Other and kept on every one of them.

2. 2

   Step 2: Press Issue $0 invoice

   The approved work not yet on an invoice goes out at no charge. The invoice is created and settled in the same moment — there is no payment to take, so it is paid the instant it exists.

You can write off only some of the work. The form opens under a line reading Customer pays zero; shop costs stay in margin., and when more than one approved, uninvoiced service is waiting, every one is ticked under Services going out at no charge. Untick any that the customer is still paying for — a part-write-off is a normal thing to do. The result is stamped under the document heading, reading like No charge · Warranty and $318.00 of work given away by Sam Ortiz with your note under it.

Every service on that invoice then says so where it used to show a price: the card's header, each line's Subtotal and its Service total read like No charge — Warranty instead of the retail figure nobody was charged. The invoice the customer opens prints No charge beside each line and never the reason — warranty, comeback and goodwill are the shop's own words for its give-away report, not something printed on the customer's bill.

There is no shop-wide no-charge total on Reports today. To audit one, open its invoice or the repair order's activity; the audit screen also records that the invoice was issued at no charge, why, its retail value and who decided.

Why it sometimes says the cost is not known

What the work cost you is only knowable when the part costs are on file and somebody clocked the time. If a single invoice in the period is missing either, the whole figure reads not known rather than shrinking to a smaller number, and the card explains itself: 3 of these have no cost on file: part costs or clocked time are missing, so shop cost stays unknown.

That is the same rule the ticket's own profit panel follows, and the reason is the same — an understated cost is a worse answer than a missing one. What a job made covers how to close the gap.

This is separate from Settings → Order checklist, where Issue the invoice when the order is paid in full controls ordinary paid invoices. When that rule is on and a full deposit lands before the work is finished, Torqix waits; it checks again when the order reaches Complete and issues the ordinary paid invoice then. Turning the rule off leaves invoicing to the person at the ticket.