Field Service Suite FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Field Service Suite.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Field Service Suite Overview.
Setup
Do I need to configure anything before my team can start using Field Service Suite?
An administrator enables the app from Admin → Apps → All Apps. It stays off until then. Once enabled, work orders, estimates, invoices, and dispatch are available immediately. Optional modules (Pricebook Pro, Fleet Pro, Customer Portal, GPS & Routing, Accounting Sync, and Live Assist) are separate toggles in the Settings tab. AI features default to on; disable them from Settings if you prefer to start without AI recommendations.
What are the optional modules and how do I enable them?
Six modules, each toggled independently in Settings:
- Pricebook Pro — versioned service catalog with margin analysis
- Fleet Pro — vehicles, maintenance scheduling, and inspection checklists
- Customer Portal — magic-link self-service for your customers
- GPS & Routing — live technician map and daily route plans
- Accounting Sync — push invoices and payments to QuickBooks or Xero
- Live Assist — remote video help on a work order (requires the Live Assist app and a meeting-provider integration)
Only an app admin can change these toggles. That means a business admin, super admin, or a user with an explicit app-admin grant.
Permissions and access
Who can create and edit work orders, estimates, and invoices?
Anyone with access to the app can view work orders, estimates, customers, and service agreements. Creating and editing records — and using the Dispatch board — takes manager access or the app’s Contributor role. To let a dispatcher or billing clerk record work without making them an HR manager, go to Admin › Apps, open Field Service Suite, and use Manage Admins & Contributors to give them Contributor. The Settings tab is for app admins only.
The rest is set per business in Settings › Who Can Do What, and each starts at managers: who can see invoices and payments, who can see reports and push invoices to accounting, who can see where technicians are, and who can change the active pricebook. Anyone who can write records can always see invoices. The Accounting page shows invoice totals, so it needs both “Who can see reports and push invoices to accounting?” and “Who can see invoices and payments?”.
Why can’t I see the Reports, GPS & Routing, or Accounting Sync tab?
Each needs its module turned on (for GPS & Routing and Accounting Sync) and the matching choice in Settings › Who Can Do What: Reports follows “Who can see reports and push invoices to accounting?”; Accounting needs that choice and “Who can see invoices and payments?” too, because it shows invoice totals; and GPS & Routing follows “Who can see where technicians are?”. All three start at managers. Dispatch, Route Plans, and the Customer Portal admin tab need manager access or the app’s Contributor role. The Pricebook and Fleet tabs appear for everyone with app access once their module is on; changing the active pricebook follows “Who can change the active pricebook?”, and other changes need manager access or the Contributor role.
Can I fill out a vehicle inspection without being a manager?
Yes. Any team member with access to the app can create and complete vehicle inspections, as long as Fleet Pro is enabled. The standard checklist has 17 items across five categories (exterior, under-vehicle, safety, mechanical, interior). Adding, editing or removing vehicles, checking a vehicle out to someone, and scheduling maintenance need manager access or the Contributor role; the assigned driver can check their own vehicle back in.
Day-to-day
How does payment collection work?
Field Service records payments; it does not take them. There is no Pay button on an invoice or in the customer portal — you collect the money and record it with Record Payment on the invoice, using one of seven methods: card, debit, ACH, cash, check, financing, or other. If you take card payments in your own Stripe account (a Stripe Payment Link, your own checkout, or the Stripe dashboard), have a business admin turn on Online Payments (Stripe) in Settings (the card is shown to business admins only), enter your Stripe webhook signing secret there, and add the webhook URL it shows to your Stripe Dashboard → Developers → Webhooks; those payments are then recorded on the matching invoice automatically, as long as the payment carries the invoice id. The invoice balance updates as soon as the payment webhook arrives. Refunds processed in Stripe also sync back and adjust the balance.
Do service agreements create work orders and invoices automatically?
Yes, once the agreement is Active. Each agreement has an auto-schedule setting. When it is on, a daily job checks whether a visit is due and creates an unassigned work order with status Scheduled, and tells the agreement’s owner to dispatch it. Whether or not auto-schedule is on, the same job generates a Draft invoice for each billing period that comes due, with a 30-day payment term, for someone to review and send. One visit and one invoice are processed per agreement per day, so missed periods catch up over consecutive runs.
How do customers approve an estimate I send them?
The customer receives an email with a link to a shareable proposal page. They view the options and approve one by choosing it, or decline with a reason. There is no signature step. Viewing the proposal marks the estimate as Viewed automatically. Approval requires the estimate to be in Sent or Viewed status. Once the Valid Until date passes, the estimate changes to Expired and can no longer be approved. Approving does not create a work order: the estimate’s owner gets an action item, and someone with write access clicks Convert to Work Order.
What notifications does Field Service Suite send, and how do I control them?
The app has sixteen notification toggles in Settings: assignment, assignment removed, dispatch, status change, completion, estimate sent, estimate approved, estimate declined, estimate expired, invoice sent, invoice overdue, payment received, customer service request, agreement visit, agreement expiring, and vehicle inspection failed. All are on out of the box except status change. Nobody is notified about an action they took themselves. Service requests and failed inspections go to the group you name under Who hears about Field Service work with no owner; that group also stands in when a record’s owner has left (a quote approved, declined or expired, a payment, an overdue invoice, a contract visit or a contract ending). With no group named, these go to the app’s administrators; with none of those, requests and inspections reach every business administrator, but an owner-left notice reaches nobody — the settings page warns you when that is the case.
Each person can also mute the Field Service category in their own notification settings. It delivers in-app, by email, and by push by default, and muting it mutes all of the events above — jobs, quotes, invoices and payments, contracts, and fleet alerts — for that person.
How do I sync invoices and payments to QuickBooks or Xero?
Enable the Accounting Sync module and connect an accounting integration. Then open the Accounting Sync tab to push invoices and payments individually or in bulk. Draft and voided invoices are excluded automatically. A payment can only sync after its parent invoice has been synced. Each sync is logged with a status so you can see what went through and retry failures.
Can I use Field Service Suite from my phone?
Yes. Mobile-optimized views are available for work orders, estimates, invoices, fleet, service agreements, and the pricebook. Technicians can capture photos, videos, and customer signatures from the work-order page on a phone. Vehicle inspections work on mobile too. The mobile views are web-based and require an internet connection.
When something looks wrong
I was dispatched to a job but I can’t mark it as invoiced or cancelled — why?
A work order is marked Invoiced when its invoice is created (Generate Invoice). Only someone with write access — a manager, or someone with the app’s Contributor role — can cancel a work order, or close one as Invoiced by hand when it was billed before it was finished. Technicians can move a work order through all other statuses — Scheduled, Dispatched, In Progress, On Hold, and Completed. Ask your office to handle invoicing or cancellation.
My customer says they didn’t receive the portal login email
Check four things: the customer record must have a primary contact email, the customer must be Active (not Inactive), and the customer must not be sample data — no portal email is sent to sample-data customers. Fourth, no other customer record may share that email address (for example, one billing mailbox for two sites): when two customers share an address, the portal can’t tell which one is asking and sends no link. For that customer, use Email or Get Link on the Customer Portal admin page instead.
The sign-in link is limited to five requests per hour per email address. A request over the limit is refused, not queued — the customer sees “please wait N minutes” and can try again after that; a link that already arrived still works. Portal login emails are transactional and always deliver regardless of marketing preferences.
Why did my estimate change to “Expired”?
A daily job marks any estimate in Sent or Viewed status as Expired once its Valid Until date passes. Set a longer validity period before sending to prevent this. Approved and converted estimates are never expired. If the customer still wants to proceed after expiry, open the estimate and click Revise as a new quote: it copies the job and its options into a new draft for you to re-price and send, and links the two, so once you send the new quote, the customer’s old link points them to it.
A customer paid through Stripe but the invoice balance didn’t update
Field Service matches a Stripe payment to an invoice by the invoice id in the payment’s metadata. Whatever the customer paid through — a Stripe Payment Link, your own checkout, or the Stripe dashboard — must set metadata[field_service_invoice_id] to the invoice’s id on the PaymentIntent or Checkout Session. A payment without it can’t be matched: record it on the invoice yourself with Record Payment, and add the metadata to your payment link or checkout so later payments match. Events stuck in processing for more than 15 minutes are retried automatically. If a completed payment with the same Stripe intent already exists, the duplicate is skipped to prevent double-recording.
Licensing and limits
Does Field Service Suite require a licence?
Yes. An administrator enables it per tenant from Admin → Apps → All Apps. The app is not available to any user until an admin turns it on.
How does the customer portal login work?
Customers log in through a magic-link email — there is no username or password. The link is valid for 24 hours and is single-use: once clicked, the token is consumed. A portal session lasts 4 hours; after that the customer must request a new link. You can send links individually or in bulk from the Customer Portal admin tab, up to 100 customers per batch. The login page never reveals whether an account exists.
What are the limits I should know about?
| Area | Limit |
|---|---|
| Pricebook CSV import | 5 MB file size, 5,000 rows max, aborts after 10 errors |
| Pricebook category nesting | 10 levels deep |
| Portal magic-link validity | 24 hours, single-use |
| Portal session duration | 4 hours |
| Portal bulk send | 100 customers per batch |
| Portal login rate limit | 5 requests per hour per email address (refused, not queued, over the limit) |
| Tax rate | 0–100% |
| Work-order number format | Configurable prefix (default WO) + 5-digit sequence |
| Invoice number format | Configurable prefix (default INV) + 5-digit sequence |
| Estimate number format | EST + 5-digit sequence (not configurable) |
| Vehicle inspection checklist | 17 standard items across 5 categories |
More help
- Field Service Suite Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Field Service Suite questions from these articles.