Practical guide

Employee custody: the goods that left with the technician

A technician left this morning with ten pieces for an installation. He came back at night with three. Four were used at the customer, one broke, and two are in the van. The warehouse says those quantities went out, the books say nothing, and the technician remembers. Nobody knows how many pieces are out right now or what they are worth — until stocktake, by which time it is too late to ask.

The idea in a minute

A custody permit=The employee+The warehouse it left+The items and quantities

Goods with a technician are not sold, not lost, and not on the shelf. A custody gives them a name: they left this warehouse, they are with this person, until they come back.

How it works

1
1. You issue the custody in the employee's name
You pick the employee, the warehouse the goods leave from, and the items and quantities. If this is for a customer visit you link the permit to that visit and the customer fills itself in. If it is supplies for your own workshop or a department, you leave the customer empty.
2
2. The goods really do leave the warehouse
The moment you issue, the quantities drop out of the warehouse balance — because they genuinely are not on the shelf, and if you tried to sell them to someone else they would not be there. Their value is booked in the employee's own name, not in a fake warehouse called the van. The employee is not a warehouse — he is the name on the value, the way a customer is the name on a receivable.
3
3. Who has it — see at any moment who is holding what
One screen tells you every item that is out right now: who has it, how many, what it is worth at cost, and which visit it went out on. Plus the total value sitting with all your staff as a single number. Without opening permits one by one or asking anyone.
4
4. Settlement: just four boxes
When the technician comes back you enter, per item: how much was used at the customer, how much at the company's own cost (warranty, or an installation you are not billing), and how much was damaged. What came back the system works out itself as the remainder — so the four figures can never fail to add up to what went out. Value is taken at the cost on the day it was issued, not today's cost, so a later price change cannot distort the settlement.
5
5. What the customer used becomes an invoice
Whatever was charged to the customer becomes a confirmed sales invoice at the same moment as the settlement — not a second step someone remembers a week later. And if the technician came back with cash, you enter the amount and which till it goes into, and the collection is recorded against that invoice straight away. Left it empty? The invoice simply stays on credit.
6
6. Custodies that stayed out show up
Any custody still with an employee after three days surfaces in an alert above the list, so you chase it before you forget it. And if the trip was called off — the customer postponed, the visit never happened — cancelling returns everything to the warehouse at the issue cost and clears the value that was sitting on the employee.

In short

The goods are not lost and not sold — they are booked in the name of whoever took them.

What came back is the remainder, so the four figures equal exactly what went out.

Cost is frozen on the issue date — a later price change cannot distort the settlement.

What the customer used becomes an invoice with the settlement, not a separate step.

Who this is for

Air conditioning & appliances

The technician takes the unit and the fitting materials. What was installed is charged to the customer, what came back returns to the warehouse, and the pipe cut wrong is recorded as damage — all in one settlement.

Maintenance & warranty

Spare parts going out for a repair under warranty. They will not be sold to anyone — they are booked as the company's own cost, which is exactly what lets you see what warranty work costs you a month.

Contracting & fit-outs

Materials going down to site with the crew. Which warehouse they left, whose name they are in, and how much came back — so the site stops being a black box that swallows materials.

Internal use

Supplies going to your own workshop or a department, with no customer at all. You settle the lot to the company and that is it, and the warehouse stays accurate.

The limits, stated plainly

One settlement closes the custody. There is no settling half now and half later. The technician comes back, you enter the four figures once, and the permit closes. If he goes out again, that is a new permit.
Serial-tracked items are not in yet. An item tracked piece by piece or by serial number cannot be taken into custody yet — quantity-tracked items only.
Web only. The custody screens are on the web app. A technician cannot issue or settle from his phone yet — the office does both.
No approval cycle on issuing. Issuing and settling are controlled by permissions — who may issue and who may settle — not by a step-by-step manager approval the way other documents can be.
Custody is not selling from the van. If your rep sells off the van all day, collects cash and takes returns, that is the van-trips module, not custody. Custody is for goods that go out to do a job and come back.