Work on a customer's aircraft

Dispatchers and technicians can see the shop, its aircraft and its owners. Adding an aircraft or an owner is an admin job, so if you are a technician the list is yours to work from and somebody with an admin role sets it up.

Add the aircraft#

Add another owner#

Open the aircraft, then WebOwners → Add owner. Who lists everybody on your roster, found by name or by email: pick them if they are already here, for example a member who owns their own aeroplane, or one of your staff. Otherwise choose Add a new person. A name is all that is required. Add an email and a phone number too: the email is where the invoices you raise for them are sent, and the phone number is what you will reach for when the annual turns up something. On the owner's row, the phone number is a link you can tap to call.

The owner goes on your roster, marked Aircraft owner and Not signed up. They cannot sign in yet. If you record an email address, AerScheduler writes to them there about their aircraft, and nothing else (no marketing):

• when a job on it is booked in, arrives, is ready, or its promised date moves;
• when you click Send to owner on a job;
• when an inspection on it is coming due;
• the invoices you raise for them;
• when you click Email how to sign in on their page (below).

Each of those emails says how to sign up with that address and join, after which they see their aircraft and answer in AerScheduler. Every one can be turned off from the email itself. See See your aircraft and approve work.

The first owner you add is marked Billed: the one the work is invoiced to. If the aeroplane is owned by a partnership, add the others too, and click the star on a row to move who gets the bill.

For an aeroplane owned by a business or a flying club, record the business as the owner (as the owner's name, or on the billing address under Customer details on their page), and add each person you deal with as a co-owner, so they hear about the work too.

When the email address is already on your roster#

If somebody on your roster already uses the address you typed for a new person, the form says so as you type, before anything is saved, with a button to use them instead. The same name as somebody on your roster is pointed out too; click A different person if it is not them. An address the form cannot see (somebody archived) is checked when you click Add owner, and the form stops and says who, instead of quietly creating a second record or merging two people.

If it is a different person who shares the address (a partnership's office inbox, a couple with one email), click Add name as a new person. They are kept as two separate people.

Correct an owner's details#

On the aircraft's Owners panel, click the pencil on the owner's row. For an owner who has not signed up you can change the name, email, phone and role, and the change also updates where Stripe sends their invoices.

If the owner is a member of your school, only the role is edited here. Their name and contact details belong to them and are changed from their own profile.

You cannot give an owner an address that somebody else on your roster already uses. The form says who has it.

The owner's page#

Click the owner's name, on the Owners panel or in People, to open their page. It is deliberately short, because they have no schedule, training or permissions to manage:

• Overview: their contact details, and Customer details: the billing address, whether they would rather get a call, a text or an email, and the shop's notes about them. Owners and admins click any of these to change it; technicians can read them. The owner never sees the customer details.
• Aircraft: what they own with you, which ones they are billed for, and where each one's current job stands.
• Work orders: the jobs billed to them, open first, with Open a work order.
• Files: the papers on their account, below.
• Invoices.

Files on a customer's account#

The signed work authorization, their insurance certificate, a letter: open the owner's page, then Files → Add files, and choose Keep to the shop or Show to the owner before you pick the photos or PDFs (up to five at a time). Owners, admins and technicians add and remove them; dispatchers do not see this tab.

• A file you show to the owner is on their home page under Your documents once they sign in. Change your mind from the file's menu: Keep to the shop hides it again.
• An owner who has signed in can add their own documents (their insurance, their registration) from Your documents. Those show here marked From them. They always stay visible to the owner, so the menu offers no Keep to the shop for them, and they can remove what they added.

Files on a job (the logbook entry, the 8130-3, a photo of a finding) belong on the job instead. See Run a work order.

The aircraft's details#

On a customer's aircraft (and your own), Airframe, engine and propeller on its Overview keeps the airframe's total time, the engine and propeller models and serial numbers, and notes. Enter the total time once, with the Hobbs reading it was taken at (the tach, on an aircraft that has only a tach): it is carried forward by the hours flown since, so it stays current without being typed again. Copy both from the same logbook entry. If the Hobbs on record is old, the hours flown elsewhere since would otherwise be counted twice. Owners, admins and technicians change these in place; dispatchers can read them.

Show the aircraft's papers to the owner#

On a customer's aircraft, the Papers tab asks Who can open it as Keep to the shop or Show to the owner, instead of bookers and staff (nobody books a customer's aircraft). A paper you show to the owner is on their aircraft's page under Papers once they sign in. Click Keep to the shop on the paper to hide it again. See Aircraft papers.

Record the Hobbs and tach#

A customer's aircraft flies somewhere else, so its hour-based inspections are only as current as the last time somebody read its meters. Hobbs and tach on the aircraft's Overview lists every reading: the ones your people recorded, with who, when, a note and a photo of the meter, and the ones close-outs took.

Two readings stop and ask first:

• Lower than the times on record. The form asks why. The last reading was mistyped puts the meters back to this reading and leaves the airframe's total time alone. The meter was replaced also carries the total time on from the new meter, and the activity log records the total before and after. Either way the list marks the reading Correction and keeps what it replaced. Pick the right one: choosing "replaced" for a typo adds the typo's hours to the total time.
• Past an inspection that grounds the aircraft. Saving it grounds the aircraft and emails your organization, the same as a flight that reaches the due point.

Track the job#

Open a work order for each visit: who pays, what the owner asked for, when you promised it back, and where the job stands. Owners, admins and technicians work on jobs; dispatchers see the aircraft and its hangar bookings but not the jobs. See Run a work order.

On the Schedule, a maintenance booking that holds a job says whose aircraft it is and, for owners, admins and technicians, what they asked for, on the block itself and when you open it. A grounded aircraft's booking carries a small grounded mark. Dispatchers see the customer and the grounded mark but not the request. Your pilots never see these bookings at all.

Everything finished on the aircraft (inspections signed off, squawks resolved, jobs completed) is on its History tab, and every bill for it on Invoices. See An aircraft's history and invoices.

Bill the owner#

For a job, click Raise invoice on the work order: it bills the job's labor and parts to whoever the job names. For anything else, WebBilling → New invoice, then pick the owner under Customer. The list shows each person's email, so you can see where the invoice will go. Add the labour and parts as line items and click Create invoice. Stripe emails it to the address you recorded, with a link to pay, the same way it emails a guest.

Things that are different about billing an owner:

• It is always an invoice. At a school that uses account balances, a member's charges go on their account. An owner has no account they could see or top up, so their bill is always a Stripe invoice.
• Reminders go to the address you recorded. The daily sweep chases an unpaid shop bill like any other, at most once a week and four times in all, and Send payment reminder on the invoice sends one straight away. An owner who has not signed up is emailed at the address on their record, with the invoice's own payment link, which needs no account. An owner with no email address on file is never reminded: add one, or print the invoice and chase it yourself. See Chase unpaid invoices.
• They are never grounded for an unpaid bill. They do not fly with you.
• Your service fee applies. It goes on every invoice you raise, and the New invoice form shows it as its own line above the total.
• Sales tax, if you charge it, is line by line. Mark the labor lines as Labor and the parts as Parts and goods, and your school's rules tax each one (in most states, the parts and not the labor). An owner who is exempt, for example a nonresident whose certificate you hold, can be marked exempt on their page in People. See Charge sales tax on an invoice.
• Instructors cannot bill an owner, even at a school that lets instructors create invoices. Only people who can see the shop can.

When the owner signs up#

To let an owner see their aircraft for themselves, open their page and click Email how to sign in on Contact (owners and admins). AerScheduler sends a short note from your organization to the address on their record: sign in to AerScheduler, or create an account, with that address, then join your organization with its code. The button shows while they have not signed up, you have an email address for them, and they have something to see: an aircraft they own here, or a job or bill of theirs. Somebody you bill who owns no aircraft here gets a note about their jobs and bills rather than their aircraft, and their page is marked Customer rather than Aircraft owner.

It is not an invitation, and nothing is kept waiting on your side. If you correct their address later, click it again: it always goes to the address on the record at that moment. One owner can be sent it twice an hour. If they turned off the emails about their aircraft, nothing is sent and you are told so; give them the code another way.

If an owner creates an AerScheduler account with the email address you recorded, confirms it, and joins your organization, their record becomes theirs: the aircraft, the invoices and the history move with them, and the Not signed up mark goes away. Nothing to do on your side, and nobody has to approve them, even if your organization approves the people who join with its code.

Signed in, they see their own aircraft, the jobs on them and their bills, and nothing else of yours: not the schedule, your people or your fleet. They can answer what you found, ask for work, update a customer aircraft's times, attach photos, and pay. They never see your shop notes, your costs or your markups. See See your aircraft and approve work. An answer they give shows on the job as a call from them, recorded by AerScheduler.

When yours is the only record at that address, the name on their account does not matter ("Walt" for "Walter Brenner" is fine): you chose the address, and you write to it. When you recorded two or more people at one address (a family inbox, say), the name on their account has to match the name you recorded, exactly (capital letters and extra spaces aside), so one of them cannot take over another's aircraft and invoices. Archived owners at that address count too, and an archived record is never handed over: restore it first.

If the owner used to be one of your organization's people, left, and was recorded as an owner while they were away, joining with the code is a return, not a claim: if your organization approves the people who join, they wait for approval like anybody else. Rejoining brings back their old membership with its flying history, and when the name on their account matches the name you recorded, the aircraft and invoices move onto it. If the record you kept for them holds anything more than aircraft and invoices, the two are left side by side, exactly as before.

What is different about a customer's aircraft#

Aircraft you own but somebody else paid for#

A leaseback is one of yours: it flies, it is booked, and it is billed like the rest of the fleet. Add it with Add aircraft as usual, and add the owner on the Owners panel anyway. That records who owns it without changing anything about how it is scheduled or billed.

When the aeroplane goes home#

Nothing to do. Its history, inspections and invoices stay attached to it, so when the same tail comes back next year, everything you did last time is still there.

Common questions

Will AerScheduler email my customer?

Only about their aircraft, at the address you recorded: when a job on it is booked in, arrives, is ready or its promised date moves, the findings you send them, inspections coming due, the invoices you raise, and the note on how to sign in when you click Email how to sign in. Every one can be turned off from the email itself, and none of it is marketing.

What happens when the owner signs up for an account?

If they sign up with the email address you recorded, confirm it, and join your organization with its code, they are handed your record: the aircraft, the invoices and the history. They then see their own aircraft, jobs and bills, and nothing else of yours. Any name will do when yours is the only record at that address; when you recorded several people at one address, the name on their account has to match the one you recorded, or the records stay separate.

Why is my customer not getting payment reminders?

Check that they have an email address on file. An owner who has not signed up is emailed at the address you recorded, with a link to pay that needs no account: by the daily sweep, at most once a week and four times in all, and whenever you click Send payment reminder on the invoice. An owner with no email address is never reminded, and neither is one who turned those emails off; print the invoice and chase it yourself.

How do I keep a customer's aircraft's Hobbs and tach current?

Record a reading whenever it comes in: Record a reading under Hobbs and tach on the aircraft's Overview. Hour-based due dates are worked out from the last reading, and the card warns you when a customer's aircraft has not been read in over 30 days.

Still stuck on this?

Email support@aerscheduler.com and tell us what you were trying to do. We answer.

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