# The warranty credit leak checklist

One page. For the owner or office manager of a US residential and light
commercial HVAC contractor who files manufacturer parts and labor claims under
a dealer agreement.

Free, ungated, and yours whether or not you ever talk to us. Print it, walk it
with the returns bin, and stop when you are satisfied nothing is leaking.

Published by Praxis, Superalignment. Version 1, 7 September 2026.

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## 1. Write down your own windows

These are blank on purpose. Every manufacturer publishes its own dates, they
differ by brand and sometimes by product line, and anyone who fills them in for
you without reading your dealer terms is guessing. Read yours, then write down
where you read it and when.

| Brand you deal | Claim filing window | Part return / RGA window | Registration window | Where you read it | Date read |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 |  |  |  |  |  |
| 2 |  |  |  |  |  |
| 3 |  |  |  |  |  |

Two things to get right while you fill this in:

- **Which date the clock starts on.** Some brands count from the service date,
  some from the invoice date, some from the installation or registration date.
  A three-day gap between service and invoice is enough to move a claim from
  live to dead.
- **The part return window is usually shorter than the claim window.** A claim
  you can still file on a part you already threw away is not a claim.

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## 2. Twelve checks, in order

- [ ] 01. Pull a 180-day job export filtered to warranty-flagged jobs. Write down the row count.
- [ ] 02. Count the rows that carry a serial number. Under four in five is a finding on its own.
- [ ] 03. Count the rows that carry both a service date and an invoice date. You need to know which one your brand counts from.
- [ ] 04. For each brand, work out service or invoice date plus the filing window, then subtract today. Sort by that number.
- [ ] 05. Mark every row where the number is under 14 days. That is this week's work and nothing else is.
- [ ] 06. Mark every row where the number is negative. Do not delete them. That column is the case for changing the routine.
- [ ] 07. Photograph the returns bin. List every part, model and serial written on the box.
- [ ] 08. Match the bin list against the export. Parts in the bin with no matching job are the loudest leak you have.
- [ ] 09. Check that each returned part has an RGA number and a date against it. No RGA usually means no credit.
- [ ] 10. On the five highest-value live rows, check the failure narrative names the complaint, the cause and the correction. A packet with no stated cause is the first thing we would send back for a rewrite.
- [ ] 11. Read the last three distributor statements for credits you were expecting and did not receive.
- [ ] 12. Write down who holds each portal login today, and who holds it the week that person is on vacation.

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## 3. The arithmetic, on your numbers

Take your own average approved parts and labor allowance per claim and divide
$600 by it.

    $600 / $250 per approved claim  = 3 approved claims
    $600 / $600 per approved claim  = 1 approved claim

At $250 a claim, a $600 audit pays for itself at three approved claims. At $600
a claim it pays for itself at one. Those are invented figures for the shape of
the sum, not a projection of your recovery. Nobody can tell you how many of
your jobs are still inside the window until the register is built, and that is
the reason the register comes before any number.

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## What we do not know

- Whether your particular backlog holds live claims at all. Public contractor
  guidance points to filing windows on the order of 60 to 90 days, and part
  return windows as short as 30 days, which means a 180-day lookback can come
  back mostly time-barred.
- What your brands actually pay per part. Allowances vary by brand, by part and
  by dealer agreement, and we do not publish a number we have not read in your
  terms.

## Six columns worth adding to your own tracker

If you build the register yourself, these are the columns that make it useful
rather than decorative:

1. `window_rule_on_file` and where you read it
2. `window_closes` and `days_left`
3. `evidence_score` out of six: serial, model resolves to an OEM model, install date, service date, failed part identified, return or RGA status known
4. `estimated_recoverable` with the estimate method printed next to it
5. `next_action` in three words or fewer
6. `notes` for the reason a row is unresolved

Rows you cannot resolve belong in a named unresolved section with the reason.
They never belong inside the recoverable total.

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Praxis, by Superalignment. The paid Warranty Credit Audit is $600 per audit,
invoiced after a scope review call. This checklist costs nothing and asks for
nothing.