Transferring a warranty is how you actually honor a transferable coverage tier's sales pitch — "the warranty follows the vehicle" — once a customer sells their car. It's a real action on the warranty's detail page in the app: a Transfer button and dialog that marks the certificate Transferred and records the new owner's name against it, so the buyer has something to point to if they ever look the certificate up themselves.
Before you can transfer a warranty
Not every warranty is eligible. Whether a given warranty can be transferred is decided once, at registration, by the coverage tier picked for it in the "Coverage tier" field (it defaults to "No tier (optional)" if you skip it). That tier's Transferable yes/no setting gets copied — snapshotted — onto the warranty's own record at that moment, and it's that snapshot, not the tier's current setting, that governs whether the transfer is allowed forever after.
That has two practical consequences worth knowing before you promise a customer "your coverage transfers with the car":
- If no tier was picked at registration, or the tier picked wasn't set to Transferable at the time, the transfer is blocked outright.
- Changing a tier's Transferable setting later — or even deleting and recreating it — doesn't reach back and fix a warranty that was already registered against it. Only warranties registered *after* the tier was made transferable pick it up.
See How to create a warranty tier for setting up a tier with Transferable turned on.
Transferring a warranty
1. Open the warranty's detail page (from the Warranties list, or from the customer or appointment record it's linked to). 2. While the warranty's status is still Active, click Transfer among the action buttons at the top of the page. 3. In the "Transfer warranty" dialog, enter the new owner's name and confirm with Transfer warranty. 4. If the warranty's snapshotted tier isn't transferable, the app rejects the change and shows the error "This warranty's coverage tier is non-transferable and cannot be marked TRANSFERRED" — nothing on the record changes. 5. If it goes through, the dialog closes, the status badge flips to Transferred, and the record now shows the new owner's name and the transfer date under "Status notes."
What changes once it's transferred
- The certificate's public verification page — the same page and QR code you gave the original customer — now shows the transferred-to name and date alongside the vehicle and coverage details, so a buyer who has the certificate number can confirm for themselves that coverage really did follow the car.
- If the tier carries a maintenance/inspection cadence, those reminders keep going out on schedule after the transfer — a Transferred warranty is treated the same as an Active one for maintenance-due tracking, not dropped from the list.
- The Certificate PDF, "Copy verify link," and "Email certificate" actions all stay available on the record afterward.
Things to know
- Only OWNER, ADMIN, or MANAGER can transfer a warranty — the same role floor as filing a claim or voiding one, enforced on the server. A technician or front-desk/service-writer login is rejected even if they reach the page.
- Transferability is locked in at registration, not editable afterward. It's a snapshot of the tier's setting at that moment — you can't make an already-registered warranty transferable by editing the tier or switching it to a different one later.
- Only a name is captured. The transfer dialog has one field — new owner name. There's no field for the new owner's phone or email, and no supporting document/bill-of-sale upload.
- The Transfer button only shows on an Active warranty. Once a warranty is Claimed, Voided, Expired, or already Transferred, none of the status-change buttons (File Claim / Transfer / Void) are shown — there's no button to undo or re-run a transfer from the record itself.
Frequently asked questions
Q: What actually happens when I transfer a warranty?
A: Its status changes to Transferred, and the new owner's name plus the transfer date get saved to the record — visible on the warranty's detail page and on its public verification page.
Q: Why won't the app let me transfer this warranty?
A: The coverage tier snapshotted onto that warranty at registration wasn't set to Transferable — either the tier itself wasn't marked transferable, or no tier was picked at all when it was registered. The app blocks the change with an error rather than allowing it silently.
Q: I just switched the tier to Transferable — why is this older warranty still blocked?
A: Transferability is captured as a snapshot the moment a warranty is registered, not read live from the tier. Editing the tier's setting today doesn't reach back and change warranties that were already registered against it — only newly-registered ones pick up the change.
Q: Who's allowed to transfer a warranty?
A: Staff with the OWNER, ADMIN, or MANAGER role. It's the same permission floor used for filing a claim or voiding a warranty, and it's enforced on the server.
Q: Can I record the buyer's phone number or a bill of sale with the transfer?
A: Not today — the transfer dialog only captures the new owner's name. There's no field for contact info or a document upload.
Q: Does the new owner need to do anything to prove they have coverage?
A: No — they can look up the certificate number on the public verification page at any time, which shows the transferred-to name and date once the transfer is recorded.