A service claim is the money a workshop or service organisation recovers from whoever covers the work — the principal for warranty repairs and free services, an insurer for accident jobs. In xMatix the claim is not typed after the fact: it is generated from the service order's own lines, because the decision about who pays was already made, line by line, when the work was recorded.
The entitlement decides who pays
Every service order line carries a posting type, filled from the asset's service contract entitlement (falling back to the contract definition):
| Posting type | What happens at billing |
|---|---|
| Generate Invoices | The line bills the customer |
| Generate Claims | The line becomes a claim line on the paying account, created when claims are populated |
| Auto Generate Claims | As above, and the claim is created automatically from the service order |
Because the decision is per line, one job can mix payers: a warranty repair, consumables the customer pays for and an insurer-covered accident line can sit on the same service order, and each party is billed or claimed for exactly its own lines.
The three common lanes are all this one mechanism with different entitlements:
- Warranty — the asset's warranty contract covers the repair; covered lines claim the principal.
- Free service — the free services sold with a vehicle or asset are contract entitlements; when the second free service is performed, the labour the customer does not pay becomes a claim line on the principal.
- Accident job — accident and insurance repair lines follow their own payer lane on the job; whoever the entitlement names as payer is the account the claim is raised on.
Where entitlement is shared, up to three weightage contracts can split a line's value across payers.
Generating and populating claims
Claims marked Auto Generate Claims are created from the service order — one claim per service order, invoice group and contract. For the rest, the claim's Perform Populate Lines action fills claim lines either from a named service order or as an as-on-date sweep across a branch; only work that has been invoiced or delivered qualifies, so a claim can never run ahead of the work.
Each claim line carries its evidence: the complaint, the fault code, the technician, the contract and the source service-order line. Claimed quantities are written back to the service-order line, so the order always shows how much of it has been claimed.
Deciding and settling
Decisions are per line — approved and rejected quantities — with Approve All and Reject All for clean claims, and claims can be grouped into batches that carry the same controls with rolled-up totals. A partly approved claim settles partially, from the approved figures only.
The claim's Perform Reconciliation action closes the loop into the books: it creates the inventory adjustment and the sale invoice the approved figures call for and marks the claim reconciled; a batch reconciles the same way in one action. Claims can also settle through the claim settlement setup for their type, as a credit note posted against the payer's account.
Submission formats vary by principal, so sending a claim or batch to an OEM's own claim system is handled through integration flows configured per principal, not by a built-in transmission step.
Common questions
Can one service order produce both an invoice and a claim?
Yes — that is the normal case. Posting type is decided per line from each line's entitlement, so the customer is invoiced for their lines and the principal or insurer is claimed for theirs, off the same order and the same visit.
How do free-service claims know what to claim?
From the contract. The free services sold with the asset exist as entitlements on its service contract; when one is performed, the covered lines carry a claims posting type and populate into a claim on the principal with the service order, technician and complaint attached.
What stops a service line being claimed twice?
Populated lines flag their source and write the claimed quantity back to the service-order line, so a line that has been claimed does not qualify again — and re-running population picks up only what remains unclaimed.