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Set up warranty policies

A warranty policy is what coverage checks against: which pieces it applies to, how long it lasts, what's covered, what a covered customer pays, and what happens when a claim isn't covered. Without at least one active policy, every claim comes back Unknown and needs a manual decision.

Before you begin​

  • You need the Manage repair settings permission to create, edit, archive, or duplicate a policy. Without it you can still open the list and use Test a purchase.
  • Decide roughly what you're offering — a lifetime guarantee, a fixed term, a legal minimum for one region — before you start; it's much faster to adjust a template than to build one from a blank form.

See the list​

Go to Settings → Repairs & Warranty → Warranty Policies. Like any SKU.io list, it has saved views, filters, a column selector, and bulk archive and restore. Its columns: ID, Name, Term, Applies to, Causes (the covered causes), Exclusions, Customer pays, Decide within, SLA, Registrations (a link to that policy's registrations), Status, and Updated. Applies to, Causes, Exclusions, and Customer pays carry a small ⓘ icon in the header; hover it for what the column means. Priority, the tie-breaker you set in the policy's drawer, is hidden by default; turn it on under Columns. On a typical desktop screen every default column fits, and each row's Edit, Duplicate, and Archive icons stay pinned to the right edge of the table. Updated shows the date only, for example Nov 5, 2026 — hover it for the time. A long name, scope, cause, or SLA name is cut to one line ending in …; hover the cell to read it in full. Click an ID, a Name, or the row's Edit icon to open a policy in its editing drawer.

Create a policy​

  1. Go to Settings → Repairs & Warranty → Warranty Policies.
  2. Click Create Policy. (Or start from a template — see below — which pre-fills everything and still opens the same form to adjust.)
  3. In Basics, give the policy a Name. The Internal description is for your team only; What customers see is the plain-language promise shown on the repair portal when a claim matches this policy. Leave Active on so it matches new claims, and set Priority — when two policies would otherwise match equally, the lower number wins.
  4. In How long it lasts, choose Lifetime, Fixed months, or No warranty, and when a piece's coverage starts: shipped (the default), delivered, ordered, or registered. To cover one part of the piece for a different length — "the chain is covered for life but the clasp for 12 months" — click Add component and give that component a label, an optional issue type, and its own term.
  5. In Which purchases it covers, narrow the policy by product, category (its sub-categories count too), brand, sales channel, or customer type, and by a purchase date range. Leave everything blank to cover every piece. The most specific matching policy wins — product beats category beats brand beats channel — then priority, then age.
  6. In What is covered, tick every root cause this policy pays for (manufacturing defect, wear and tear, accidental damage, shipping damage, misuse, no fault found, or unknown — leaving all of them unticked covers nothing). Optionally narrow further with an issue allow-list or deny-list, and exclude whole orders or products by tag (press Enter after each tag — final-sale and promotional orders are the usual case). Set whether proof of purchase is Required, Preferred, or Not required, how many claims a piece gets, how many days must pass between claims, and how many business days you commit to a decision.
  7. In What a covered customer pays, choose who pays for sending the piece in and sending it back — We pay, Customer pays, or a flat fee — and an optional assessment fee. See the fee guardrail below before charging anything on a lifetime or defect-covering policy.
  8. In When a claim is not covered, choose to offer a paid repair, a percentage discount on a new purchase, or decline.
  9. In Resolutions, turnaround & ownership, click the resolutions you'd suggest to the bench, in the order you prefer them — this only suggests, it never forces an outcome. Pick a specific turnaround policy or leave it to match automatically. Turn The warranty moves with the piece when it is resold or gifted on if coverage should survive a resale. Ask customers to send the piece back: on means a covered customer sends the piece in before you repair or replace it; off tells them to keep the piece while you arrange a replacement or credit — pieces that aren't covered always have to come in either way.
  10. If you're accruing a warranty reserve, set Reserve: % of revenue and/or Reserve: amount per piece sold. Filling in both adds them together rather than picking the larger one — a notice appears to say so. The reserve only books when warranty reserve accounting is turned on in the General settings page.
  11. Click Create Policy at the bottom of the drawer. When you edit an existing policy, the same button reads Save Policy.

The fee guardrail​

If the policy is Lifetime, or covers manufacturing defect, and it charges the customer anything — a flat fee on either shipping leg, or an assessment fee above zero — saving it opens Charging customers on a covered claim. It cites the US Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and the $60M 2020 settlement Costa paid over an $11.95 handling fee, and lists exactly what this policy would charge. Only someone with the Manage repair settings permission can click I understand, keep these fees; the alternative is Go back and change the fees. Once confirmed, the dialog doesn't reopen on a later save unless you change one of the charges again. Every built-in template (below) is fee-free, so starting from one never triggers this.

Start from a template​

The Start from a template menu pre-fills the form — you still review and save it like any other policy:

  • Lifetime free repair (store credit if discontinued) — free repairs for life, shipping both ways on you, store credit if a discontinued piece can't be repaired.
  • Lifetime guarantee — manufacturing defects and wear and tear, covered for life, free of charge.
  • 1-year defects — manufacturing defects only, for 12 months from shipment.
  • 2-year EU legal guarantee — the EU conformity guarantee: 24 months from delivery, no proof-of-purchase requirement, and transferable.
  • Limited lifetime with excluded components — lifetime on the product, a shorter term on named components (such as "Wheels: 3 years"), none on consumables.

Test a purchase before you rely on it​

Click Test a purchase to run the same check a live claim would, without saving anything: pick a product (the list shows each finished piece's name with its SKU under it, leaves out repair parts, and the field keeps the name — for example Paperclip Chain Necklace – Gold), a purchase date, an issue, a root cause, a sales channel, and whether the customer has a receipt, then Check coverage. Until you click it, the result area tells you what's missing: "Choose a product to see the result." with no product, "Add the purchase date, or click Check coverage to test without one." with no date, and "Click Check coverage to see the result." once both are set. You get the resulting chip, the matched policy (click its name to open it), the term, when coverage starts and ends, claims used against the limit, the suggested resolution, and the same plain-language reasons a real claim would show. Dates in those reasons follow the Date Format in Settings → General → Date & Time, for example "Purchased 03/14/2025 (date given by the customer)."

After you save: re-evaluate open repairs​

Saving a new or changed policy never changes repairs that are already open — a toast after saving offers a one-click Re-evaluate open repairs action, or you can click the button of the same name on the list at any time. It runs in the background (see Follow background jobs) and re-checks coverage on every open, undecided line using the current policies — a line someone overrode by hand keeps that decision.

Archive, duplicate, and restore a policy​

  • Archive stops a policy matching new claims, but any repair or registration that already used it keeps it. Restore brings an archived policy back into matching, as long as it's still active.
  • Duplicate copies the policy — including its component terms — as an inactive "(copy)", so you can adjust it before it starts matching anything.
  • Both work from a single row's actions or, after ticking several rows, from the bulk action bar. Until a row is ticked, a dashed hint above the table reads "Tick warranty policies to archive or restore several at once."; the first tick turns it into the bulk bar in the same spot, so the rows stay put. If you lack the permission, the bulk Archive and Restore buttons are greyed out with a tooltip saying why.

Edge cases​

  • No policies yet. The list reads "No warranty policies yet" — without one, every claim is "unknown" and needs a manual decision — with a Create your first policy button and shortcuts to the first two templates.
  • An empty covered-causes list. Saving with nothing ticked under covered causes is blocked with "Choose at least one covered cause (an empty list covers nothing)."
  • Confirming without permission. Someone without the Manage repair settings permission can see the fee guardrail dialog but can't confirm it — the button is disabled with a tooltip explaining why.

Next steps​

Video transcript

To set up coverage, go to Settings in the sidebar. Expand the Repairs and Warranty card on that page, then click Warranty Policies. Here you see every policy with its coverage. Click Create Policy to start from a blank form. A drawer opens on the right, beginning with a field for the name. Pick one your whole team will recognize at a glance. Next, choose how long the coverage lasts. Fixed months adds a box for the number of months. Lifetime covers the piece for its whole life. No warranty turns every claim into a paid repair or a decline. Scroll down to What is covered, the list of claim causes. For this policy, tick Accidental damage first, and then Shipping damage. An empty list protects nothing, so always keep at least one cause. Choose who pays shipping each way, and any assessment fee. We pay keeps a covered claim free for the customer. Click Create Policy at the bottom of the drawer to save the policy. It now appears in the list and starts matching new claims. Open repairs keep their current coverage until the next re-evaluation. Instead, you can click Start from a template. Each one pre-fills the form, ready for your adjustments. Every built-in option is fee-free, like the Lifetime guarantee. Close the menu, then click Test a purchase to try a quick coverage check. Click the product field, then search for the customer's piece by its product name. Then pick the right match from the list. Enter the purchase date from the customer's receipt or order. The result area now prompts you to click Check coverage. Next, you see the warranty status, the matching policy, and the reasoning behind the decision. Nothing gets saved during the test.

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