Work with partners: hand over records and follow along
How to connect your company to a partner in stipt, hand records over to an installer and follow status, appointments and extra work live from your own CRM.
In this guide
- What is a partner connection in stipt?
- How do you connect your company to a partner?
- What does my partner see of my records?
- How do you hand a record over to a partner?
- How do you follow progress at your partner?
- Can you act automatically on a status change at your partner?
- How do products and extra work work between partners?
- Who invoices whom when you work through a partner?
- Frequently asked questions
Short answer
In stipt, two companies that both use stipt work together around the same customer through a partner connection. You connect with a partner code, hand a record over to your partner, and from then on the record lives with the partner while you follow along live in a read‑only view. You see their status and everything they share, such as appointments, quotes and files, and you approve extra work together in one shared product list.
By the makers of stiptUpdated October 5, 20268 min read
What is a partner connection in stipt?
A partner connection links two companies that both use stipt and work for the same end customer. The typical example: a sales company sells solar panels and hands the job over to an installation company, which carries out the survey and the installation.
The idea is simple: you create the record in the partner's system, and after that you only watch along. No copies are synced back and forth. The record lives with one company, in its record type and status flow, and the other has a read‑only view.
Both companies quote the same number: the view carries exactly the same stipt ID as the record at the partner. The first four digits show you the number does not come from your own workspace. That makes calls and emails about a job a lot easier.
How do you connect your company to a partner?
You find partners under Settings > Partners, in the Team group. It is not a module from the Module center: it is always there, but only admins can open it. Every company has a fixed partner code there, for example ST‑4K7F‑29QM. Share it with your partner; they enter it under Connect with a partner and send a request that way.
The other side accepts or declines. The connection only becomes active once accepted; until then nothing is shared. The connection is symmetric: both companies have the same settings and can both share record types and create records.
For each active connection, Configure opens the settings, split over four tabs: Records, Products, Calendars and Sending. Either side can disconnect at any time. Existing views then stay at their last known state; nothing is deleted.
What does my partner see of my records?
You decide, per connection and per record type. On the Records tab you choose which record types the partner may create at your company, which fields they fill in when creating (each with a Required toggle), which fields they see afterwards and which modules, such as appointments, quotes, forms, files or location.
Status and progress are always visible, because that is what the connection is for. Tasks and the inbox can never be shared. Internal notes and automated messages each have their own switch, off by default. If you turn on notes, only new notes are shared, not existing ones.
Anything you do not tick stays private. If you work with several partners, each partner has its own settings.
How do you hand a record over to a partner?
First you place the partner's record type under one of your own record types. From then on it appears in the sub‑record picker at that spot, under At a partner. When creating, you fill in the fields the partner asks for. The parent record needs a primary contact; that person goes along to the partner as the customer.
Per placement you choose what is copied once: the location, the files (including PDFs of completed forms), the products and the extra contacts. It is a copy at the moment of creation, not a sync. Agreed quote prices are not included by default; the partner works with their own catalog, unless you turn on Include agreed prices.
The real record is created at the partner, in their own record type and status flow, and their automations run there as usual. Their lead origin is set to your company name automatically. If you do not want to hand over by hand every time, pick one or more statuses under Automatic handover: when your record reaches such a status, stipt creates the record at the partner automatically, once. If a required field is missing, nothing happens and the reason appears on the timeline.
How do you follow progress at your partner?
The handed‑over record appears in your own CRM as a sub‑record, recognisable by the handshake icon and showing the partner's current status in its colour. Open it and you see the normal record page, but fully read‑only: you can expand cards and view files, but not change anything.
You see the partner's literal statuses live, not translated into yours, plus the fields and modules they have shared. The timeline looks just like on your own records, with a block per status (for example “spent 12 days on Survey planned”) and within it the partner's appointments, quotes, forms and files.
The partner can also share a planning agenda with you. You find it in the agenda under Via partners, with a lane per team member of the partner. It only shows appointments of records created through the connection, with time, appointment type and team member. You cannot schedule or drag anything there.
Can you act automatically on a status change at your partner?
Yes. In your own rules you use the Partner changed status trigger. You filter on the status name as the partner calls it, or leave the filter empty to react to every change. The rule acts on your own parent record, for example to create a task or update a field.
Because partner statuses are not mapped onto yours, you group them with views. Under Settings > Views the partner's statuses appear as their own group, which you mix with your own statuses. That way you build a “running” view with your quote statuses plus the partner's Survey planned and Installation planned statuses.
If the customer drops out, the drop‑out panel asks per partner record whether it should drop out too, off by default. The partner record then moves to the drop‑out status in the partner's own flow, with your reason.
How do products and extra work work between partners?
Two companies usually carry the same products under their own name, SKU and price. With the product links on the Products tab you translate between them: for each partner product you pick which of your own products it is. stipt suggests matches on SKU or name, but linking is always a deliberate click. Prices never cross the border: of the partner's products you only see name, SKU and unit.
When a partner works on your record, you share one product list. If the executing company adds extra work, for example through a form with a product picker, it shows up on the other side straight away. Every extra‑work line gets a shared badge, such as Charged to your own company, Charged to the partner or External. That badge decides who has to approve the line. When costs are shared, you split a line across several badges.
If you prefer to handle extra work as a queue, use the Extra work page in the menu. It appears by itself once real extra work is running on a connection. Per customer you see what is waiting on you, what is with the partner and what was rejected, with the product list and the forms alongside. Strike out what is not right; Process approves the rest in one go.
Who invoices whom when you work through a partner?
If you work as a subcontractor for a partner, because they bring in the customers and you do the work, you invoice the partner, not the end customer. You set that on the partner's organisation in your own Contacts: tick Invoice this partner and choose the connection this organisation represents. Records that come in through the connection are then invoiced to that organisation with the Accounting module.
Extra‑work badges do nothing in your bookkeeping by themselves. Per badge you do set whether extra work with that badge counts towards your total and your invoice wizard (Counts), for example yes for extra work the customer pays and no for extra work the partner covers. That choice is yours alone; the partner sets up their own side.
If, as the submitting company, you want to pass the partner's extra work on to your customer, you enter a price on the line. Without a price there is nothing to invoice. A price of zero means free, not excluded: whether a line goes on the invoice is decided by the badge.
Frequently asked questions
Do both companies need to use stipt?
Yes. A partner connection links two stipt workspaces. Both companies keep their own records, settings and customer data, and only share what they open up per connection.
Can my partner see my prices?
Not by default. In the product links you only see each other's name, SKU and unit, and when you hand over a record the partner works with their own catalog. Agreed quote prices only go along if you turn that on per placement.
Can my partner see my tasks, inbox and notes?
Tasks and inbox never. Internal notes only if you turn that on per record type, and then only new notes.
What happens if we disconnect?
Nothing is deleted. Views stay at their last known state, with a notice that the connection has ended. The executing company keeps the product list as it stood at that moment.
Can my partner send email from our address?
Yes, if you allow it. The owner of a verified sender domain can let the partner send automated emails from that address per connection, only for records that came in through the connection. Replies land in your inbox and you can revoke access at any time. For WhatsApp you grant access per approved template.
Who can manage partner connections?
Only admins, under Settings > Partners. Handed‑over records still show up in the CRM like any other sub‑record, with the handshake icon.
Keep reading. More guides on related topics.
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