Homeowner Financing Inside Your Dispatch Workflow: How MatchiFi Works in Dispatch Scout

The tech has done everything right. The old heat pump is dead, the estimate is fair, and the homeowner agrees the whole system needs replacing. Then they see the number, and the afternoon ends with a maybe.

Most shops have a version of that story. The fix is not a cheaper quote. It is a way for the homeowner to spread the cost without your shop turning into a bank. That is what MatchiFi financing inside Dispatch Scout does: a Finance button on the record you already have open, an application the homeowner completes on their own phone, and a status that lands back on the estimate. This post walks through how shops use it, step by step, and what the lender needs from you before the money arrives.

The Job That Stalls at the Kitchen Table

An $11,000 replacement is a sound decision for the homeowner and a hard afternoon for everyone. The three ways shops usually respond all have a cost.

• Quote the repair instead. The customer gets a band-aid, the shop gets a smaller ticket, and both of you are back in the same driveway next summer.
• Carry it in-house. Payment plans on your own paper mean your shop takes the credit risk, chases the balance, and ties up cash you need for trucks and inventory.
• Send them to a financing portal. A partner that lives in a separate system means re-typing the customer, printing a form, and calling the office for a status. The energy drains out of the sale while the tech waits for a login.

Your shop sells the job. Somebody else lends the money. That is the whole idea, and the software should make it feel like one motion.

Why Financing Has to Live Inside the Workflow

Financing that works is financing that starts in the moment. The tech is standing in the kitchen, the estimate is on the tablet, and the homeowner is deciding right now. If offering financing means leaving the app, the moment passes.

So in Dispatch Scout the Finance button sits on the record itself: the estimate, the invoice, the job, and the customer record. Press it, hand the homeowner a link, and the rest of the process reports back to the same place. Nothing is re-keyed. Nobody hunts for a status in a second system. Here is the whole journey in one picture.

Replay

The Six Moments of a Financed Job

1. Press Finance on the estimate. A consent screen shows exactly what will be sent to MatchiFi: the customer's name and email, the service address, the job type, and the estimate total. Check the box and submit. If a last name or a ZIP code is missing, the screen names it before you submit instead of failing in front of the customer.
2. Hand the homeowner a link. The financing screen puts a large QR code front and center, with copy link, send by text, and send by email beside it. The homeowner scans it and fills in the application on their own phone.
3. The lender decides. MatchiFi matches the application to a consumer lender. The lender approves or declines, and loan documents are signed with the lender, usually by email. The progress strip on the estimate moves to Approved, with the date.
4. Install the equipment and capture the proof. Model number, serial number, and a photo of every installed unit, captured on the job's Equipment tab. Techs can do this in the mobile app while they are still next to the unit.
5. Attach the completion certificate. The signed certificate goes on the job from the financing screen. Once both items are in, the checklist reads Ready to close out.
6. The lender funds, you record the payment. The funded amount, the lender, and the funding date come back to the record, and the financing screen points to the invoice so the payment is recorded against the right job.

Every one of those moments writes to the same estimate, job, and customer. That is the difference between financing that is integrated and financing that is merely available.

What You Send, What You Never Touch

The most common question from owners is a good one: what does this put in my CRM? The answer is: the status and the link, and nothing sensitive.

Dispatch Scout sends five fields to MatchiFi: name, email, service address, job type, and the amount when there is one. Staff see that list on the consent screen every time. The homeowner then enters whatever the lender asks for, identity, income, and so on, directly on MatchiFi's application from their own device. Dispatch Scout never asks for a Social Security number or a date of birth, never runs a credit check, and never stores credit data.

What comes back is the application status, Submitted, Approved, Declined, Expired, or Funded, plus the funded amount, the lender, and the funding date. That boundary is deliberate. It keeps your shop out of the lending business, and it is what your techs should say when a customer asks where their information goes.

Reading the Status Without Calling Anyone

The financing screen shows a progress strip: Submitted, Approved, Funded, with the date each one happened. An application that leaves that path shows Declined or Expired instead of the remaining steps.

MatchiFi does not push updates, so Dispatch Scout asks. It checks every application automatically every two hours, and the Check status button on the financing screen checks right now. The bottom of the card tells you how long ago the last check ran, so you always know how fresh the answer is. If you are standing in front of the customer, press the button.

One more guardrail: if there is already an open application for that estimate, invoice, job, or customer, Dispatch Scout says so and offers to reopen it. Re-sending the link is almost always what you want. The homeowner is never handed two competing loan requests because two people pressed Finance.

Closing Out a Financed Job

A lender releases money against proof the work was done, and that proof is the completion certificate. MatchiFi builds it from the equipment you installed. So on any job carrying an approved or funded application, Dispatch Scout requires two things before the job can be completed:

1. Equipment details. Every unit linked to the job as installed needs a model number, a serial number, and a photo. Equipment that was only serviced does not count, and a financed job with no installed equipment recorded fails the check too.
2. The signed completion certificate. Attached to the job from the financing screen as a PDF or a photo, up to 25MB.

Neither one can be cleared by a manager override. Every other completion rule in Dispatch Scout is one your business chose, and a manager who says complete it anyway is entitled to. These two are what the lender requires before it pays. Completing the job anyway does not make the money arrive; it moves the discovery of the problem to a week later, when nobody is on site and the customer considers themselves paid up.

Both rules are account settings under Account Settings, Jobs, Job Completion, on by default, and they only apply to jobs with live financing. Techs completing a financed job in the mobile app see the same two messages and stop in the same place. Equipment details can be captured on mobile. The certificate upload happens in a browser, so that part usually falls to whoever in the office is chasing the funding.

When the Loan Funds

When the lender reports the loan funded, the next status check brings the funded amount, the lender, and the funding date back to the record. The financing screen shows an amber notice, MatchiFi funded this, record the payment, with a button through to the invoice.

Here is the honest part. MatchiFi reports the funded amount and nothing else about the money: no dealer fee, no net deposit. Dispatch Scout will not guess at either one, because a guessed net is a wrong number in your books. So today you record the payment on the invoice yourself, using the net amount your bank actually received, and account for the dealer fee the way your bookkeeper prefers. We are working with MatchiFi on publishing the fee breakdown. When they do, the posting becomes automatic and nothing else about your process changes.

The same applies to the 72 hour Buyers Right To Cancel window the financing screen shows after approval. It is a Dispatch Scout default, labelled as such, and not your state's statutory period. The lender's paperwork governs.

A Short Playbook for Your Techs

• Start from the estimate. The amount follows automatically, and the homeowner can change it on MatchiFi's form. From an invoice, the amount is the balance still owed, so a part-paid invoice never sends someone to borrow more than they need.
• Use the QR code when you are both in the kitchen. It is the fastest route onto their phone. Save text and email for a customer who wants to think about it tonight.
• Check do-not-contact. Customers flagged do not contact are never texted or emailed by the financing screen. The QR code and copy link still work.
• Capture equipment before you leave. Model, serial, and photo on the Equipment tab, while you are standing next to the unit. It is much harder from the truck.
• Press Check status in front of the customer. If they ask where things stand, ask MatchiFi right then rather than reading a two-hour-old answer.
• Send the office the certificate. Whoever has the signed document uploads it from the financing screen in a browser. That is what unlocks close-out.

Turning It On

Financing is switched on for your account by Dispatch Scout. Once it is on, an admin goes to Settings, Integrations, presses Connect to MatchiFi, finishes lender enrollment in MatchiFi, and presses Re-check. When a lender is active, the card turns green and the Finance button appears across the app on web, iOS, and Android. Techs start financing from the estimate on their phone or tablet in the Dispatch Scout app. The one browser-only step is attaching the signed completion certificate from the financing screen.

FAQ

Does Dispatch Scout become the lender?

No. MatchiFi matches the homeowner's application to a consumer lender, and that lender makes the credit decision, issues the loan documents, and funds the loan. Dispatch Scout starts the application and tracks its status.

Does the homeowner enter credit information in Dispatch Scout?

No. Dispatch Scout sends five fields to MatchiFi: name, email, service address, job type, and amount. The homeowner completes the rest on MatchiFi's application on their own phone. No credit data is stored in Dispatch Scout.

How does the office know when an application is funded?

The financing screen shows Submitted, Approved, and Funded with dates. Dispatch Scout checks with MatchiFi every two hours, and a Check status button asks right now. When the loan funds, the funded amount, lender, and date land on the record.

What stops a financed job from closing?

Every installed unit needs a model number, serial number, and photo, and the signed completion certificate must be attached to the job. A manager override does not clear either one.

Does financing cost extra?

Dispatch Scout adds no fee for financing. It is part of the flat $40 per user per month. Rates, terms, and any dealer fee are set by MatchiFi and the lender.

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Dispatch Scout is field service management software built for growing home service businesses. Scheduling, dispatch, estimates, invoicing, payments, and now homeowner financing, on one platform at one flat price. Financing runs alongside the customer portal and billing and revenue tools your team already uses.