Commercial accounts

In FieldRoutes, a commercial account is not a separate kind of record. It is an ordinary customer marked "Commercial Property" instead of "Residential Property". It can also have a unit mode (Single Unit, Multi Unit or Structures) and an optional Sub-Property Type. Around that flag sit commercial-relevant tools: reusable Structure Templates, linked properties, separate payer (Bill To) settings, purchase order (PO) numbers with expiry handling, and residential/commercial switches in notes, portal payments, mobile and reports. The research covers 17 screenshots here: the four New Customer form variants, the Info and Properties tabs, the Structure Template and Sub-Property Type editors, Preset Notes, the PO trigger and report, Customer Search account filters and the Sales Tax report. No commercial customer with units, structures or linked sites was found or created, so the commercial workflow itself is unproven.

In short

• "Commercial" is a classification on the customer, separate from the unit mode. Picking Commercial, Multi Unit or Structures on the New Customer form shows no extra fields before saving: no unit table, no structure tree, no company-only fields. Observed, 371-new-commercial-customer-form, 372-new-multiunit-customer-form, 373-new-structures-customer-form.
• Multi-site customers are built by linking separate Customer Cards. Each linked site keeps its own billing, invoices, subscriptions, documents and balance. A payment to one site does not settle the others. Linking is not a pooled ledger. Documented, Properties manual.
• Purchase orders live on the subscription (PO No. and Expiration). An office option can freeze the subscription when the PO expires, and a report and a trigger rule watch expiring POs. Observed settings, 437-existing-subscription-detail, 220-office-billing-preferences-editor, 080-report-expiring-po, 242-trigger-subscription-po.
• Structure Templates define a reusable building hierarchy (a tree of nodes), but the research never saw one applied to a customer. Observed editor, 351-structure-template-child.
• Many policies split residential from commercial: preset note availability, portal payment caps, the mobile "block completion if balance" gate, mobile price hiding, trigger filters and sales tax reporting. Observed, 193-mobile-preset-note-form, 220-office-billing-preferences-editor.
• Fit is conditional. The assessment rates commercial/multi-property at medium confidence for concepts and low for populated hierarchy, portal and payment execution. A non-US billing need conflicts with the Billing-tab manual. Source: assessment.

Creating a commercial customer (form observed, never saved). The New Customer form always opens on Basic Information as Residential Property + Single Unit. The researcher switched it to Commercial Property, then Multi Unit, then Structures. The visible fields stayed the same in all four states. Person-name fields stay, Company Name is always there, and no commercial-only field appears. Choosing Multi Unit or Structures shows no unit table, structure tree or template picker before saving. The Sub-Property Type selector shows only its placeholder because no types exist. How units or structures are entered after saving is not shown. 370-new-customer-form, 371-new-commercial-customer-form, 372-new-multiunit-customer-form, 373-new-structures-customer-form, customer intake

Building a structure hierarchy (editor observed, never saved). Structure Templates is an empty list with Global and Visibility filters, Search and + Structure Template. The new template has office scope, Hidden/Visible, save/cancel and a tree with one root node named "New Structure". There is no separate name field: you rename the root node in place. The plus icon adds a child node, which gets a trash icon. Expand/collapse lets you move through the tree. The draft was cancelled. Maximum depth, reparenting, inheritance and how a template is applied to a customer were not seen. 349-structure-template-editor, 350-structure-template-node, 351-structure-template-child

Sites that belong together (documented, not tested). Each site of a multi-site customer is its own Customer Card, joined through the Properties tab. Linked sites keep separate billing, invoices, subscriptions and documents. The master portal account can manage and pay child properties; child accounts cannot see the others. Payments stay with one property. Merge is a different, permanent action. In the account only the empty "Link a Property" search was seen, and no link or merge was made. Properties manual, 011-customer-properties. The public commercial product page says linked commercial properties can use consolidated invoices, separate charges per service address, and unit quotas per appointment (public vendor claim, Commercial Pest Control).

Who pays (partly observed). The Billing tab sets Default Bill To for new invoices and subscriptions, and can assign a billing account. Per the manual, responsibility can also be set per subscription or invoice. Retroactive effects and paying through another customer were not tested (006-customer-billing, 453-customer-bill-to-selector). Trigger actions treat a responsible payer differently. The AR Freeze Customers action freezes the responsible customer and the subscriptions of other accounts whose balances that customer pays, using the responsible balance and aging. The Create Invoices action filters at invoice level. No freeze was run (249-trigger-action-freeze, 231-trigger-rule-action-editor).

Units on a subscription (documented, not tested). The Service Type subscription manual describes optional Multi-Unit settings on a subscription: choose units and a quantity or percentage quota (Adding a Service Type Subscription). No unit quota was set in the account.

Purchase order lifecycle (settings observed, outcome untested).

1. A subscription carries a PO No. and its Expiration date (437-existing-subscription-detail).
2. The Subscription PO trigger rule can fire a set number of days before or after the PO expiration date. It filters by multi-unit (include, exclude or only multi-unit properties), service types, service plans, customer and subscription flags, divisions and regions (242-trigger-subscription-po).
3. The Expiring PO Numbers report finds POs that expire in a date range. It filters by subscription status, office and whether a future PO number is on file, and offers Export to CSV and Send Messages. The result area was blank (080-report-expiring-po).
4. If "PO Expiration Auto Freeze" is on, the subscription freezes when its PO expires and future services stop until reactivation (220-office-billing-preferences-editor).

Who may override or reactivate, and what the customer sees, were not tested.

Residential vs commercial policies (settings observed).

• Preset Notes: each note has 12 checkboxes making it available as a Service, Invoice or Office note for Residential, Commercial, Multi-Unit and Structure contexts. All are checked in a new form, and Toggle On/Off sets them in bulk (193-mobile-preset-note-form).
• Customer portal: separate maximum payment limits for residential and commercial properties (220-office-billing-preferences-editor).
• Mobile: "Block Completion if There is Balance" offers No, Yes, Residential Only or Commercial Only (183-mobile-service-default-editor). Access profiles have separate "Hide Commercial Price on Mobile" and "Hide Residential Price on Mobile" permissions (203-access-control-profile-editor).
• Automation: the Subscription Status trigger has a Property Type filter (All Properties, Commercial Only, Residential Only) and a Multi Unit filter (243-trigger-subscription-status).
• Sales tax: the Sales Tax report filters by property type (all, commercial, residential). It explains the Cash Hybrid method: revenue and tax count when cash is applied to an invoice, prepayments count only once invoiced, late payments count when received, and coupon payments are excluded. For accrual or cash accounting it points to Billing by Service Type or Payments by Service Type (095-report-sales-tax).

Finding commercial customers (filters observed). Customer Search > Customer Account filters by Account Type (All / Commercial / Residential), Unit Type (N/A / Single Unit / Multi Unit / Multi Structure), Has Linked Properties and Has Child Billing, along with Company Name (412-customer-account-filters). Search output columns include Customer Units, Appointment Units, Linked Properties, Sub-Property Type and the full Bill To party (429-customer-column-and-grouping-controls). Run Report did not change the output in the research, so these columns were never filled.

Contacts at a commercial site (observed). Additional Contacts on the Info tab can be added new or taken from Business Contacts (004-customer-info). Business Contacts are reusable and never become customers; a Customer Card is needed to schedule and bill (363-business-contacts-clear). Neither kind of contact becomes a payer just by being a contact (domain model).

• Adding a Service Type Subscription (updated 2025-12-16): optional multi-unit settings with unit choice and quantity/percentage quota.
• The Customer Card: Properties Tab (Merge and Link) (updated 2025-12-16): linked sites stay separate; payments per property; master/child portal access; merge is permanent.
• The Customer Card: Billing Tab (published 2026-05-21): US billing addresses only; responsibility at customer, subscription or invoice level.
• Public product page: Commercial Pest Control describes property linking, consolidated invoicing, unit quotas, site conditions and equipment/product associations (vendor claim).