Purpose
Indirect properties and indirect services are used to record hours for employees that won’t be direct costed to a job. Typically, this is used for hourly office administration that would be clocking in and out through Crew Mobile.
In other words, they are used for your company's internal processes and time. In order to use indirect services, you also need to setup internal properties to record non-costed hours.
Table of Contents
Creating an Indirect Property
An indirect property will be created in the property list for each company branch. Property Name should include Indirect and the Branch Name. The address would be the location of the branch. You'll then assign the corresponding branch from the branch field dropdown.
📌 Note: Indirect Properties are used for indirect services only and not for shop maintenance work or other services/opportunities.
Once the property is created and saved, assign indirect properties to the associated branch. To do this:
Navigate to Settings ➡️ Administration ➡️ Organization ➡️ Branches
Click into the branch record
Select the correct internal property from the Internal Property field (shown below)
Click Save
Repeat this for each branch as needed
Reviewing and Setting Up Indirect Services
Reviewing Indirect Services
Navigate to Settings ➡️ Administration ➡️ Estimating ➡️ Service Catalog
Search for "Overhead" or "Indirect" division.
Review existing services or add new services.
Best Practice would be to limit the number of indirect services to six.
Common Indirect Services listed below:
Shop/Yard – typically used for beginning of day end of day prep work
Down Time – typically used for any nonproductive time due to weather and/or equipment failure
Holiday
PTO – Paid Time Off
Safety/Training – typically used for team safety or training meetings
Hourly Support Personnel – typically used for indirect personnel (common applications are Mechanics and Administrative Support) to be able to record their time in Aspire for payroll purposes
Setting Up Indirect Services
Once you've reviewed or created the indirect services you need, you'll need to finish setting up the services. To do this:
Click into each overhead service created
Check Contract Service box (show below)
Create service schedule for 12 total occurrences, 1 occurrence per month
Select default pay code if applicable
(common example would be PTO or Holiday services)
Creating Indirect Opportunities
In order to have the indirect services available in Crew Mobile and Time Entry, an indirect contract will have to be created. Create one opportunity per branch in order to make indirect/overhead work tickets available on Crew Mobile.
1. Navigate to the indirect property assigned to each branch
2. Click New Opportunity ➡️ then click Contract
📌 Note: This will not be created from a template
3. Name new opportunity Indirect Services
4. Select Fixed Payment Invoice Type
5. Select Overhead/Indirect Division
6. Select Start / End dates. It is recommended an indirect contract is twelve months.
7. Click three dot menu in upper right to create estimate
In the Estimate Screen
1. Search for active indirect service and add to estimate
2. Add any labor item
3. Set occurrences to 12
4. Set quantity of hours to zero
5. Override to zero dollars if price is calculated
6. Repeat previous steps for each indirect service
Once all services are added, the opportunity can be completed and won. The indirect services will be available in time entry based on start date of the indirect opportunity.