Blog · Appliance Repair · April 29, 2026 · 7 min read
Tracking Warranty Parts in an Appliance Repair Business
Warranty is not “inventory that does not count.” It is inventory that counts twice: once off the van, once toward a claim.
Same scan, different reason
The board still left the bin. Scan it to the job. Note warranty. If you skip the scan because “it is free,” your van will show a board you do not have, and the next paying job will roll empty.
The office should be able to filter last week’s warranty parts in one list. That list is the claims queue. If claims live in someone’s head, they lapse.
Keep good stock and warranty stock apart
Do not toss a claimed board back into the sellable bin. It has a different destination. A “warranty outbound” location in software is enough. The van should not be that location for more than a few days.
Friday: pull warranty parts off vans, match to job numbers, file the claim. Monday: vans are clean. This is boring on purpose.
Serials when the OEM asks
Some brands want the serial of the failed part and the appliance. Capture it on the job when you are already in the kitchen. You will not get a second chance at a clean tag photo after the unit is closed.
Store the photo on the ticket in your FSM. Store the part motion in inventory. They are different records that must share a job number.
Do not let warranty hide shrink
If warranty usage is 3x what claims you file, something else is happening — missed claims, mis-tags, or parts leaving as warranty that were not. The scan trail is how you see the gap.
Review the gap monthly. It is one of the few reports that prints money without selling a new job.
Train the phrase “scan it anyway”
Techs skip scans on warranty because it feels unofficial. Make “scan it anyway” the shop phrase. Put it on the phone how-to. Reward clean claims, not just billed jobs.
FleetStock technician how-tos exist so the field app teaches the habit without an office manual.
FAQ
Should warranty parts have a $0 price?
Keep real cost on the part. Mark the job as warranty. Zeroing the catalog price will wreck the next billed job.
What if the claim is denied later?
The van is already correct. The office posts the cost to the job or to a warranty-denied account. Do not invent a part back onto the truck.
Can we track in-warranty vs out-of-warranty boards as different SKUs?
Usually no. Same SKU, different job reason. Split SKUs only if the vendor part number actually differs.
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