Warranties & Big Purchases

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Purchase sweep runs monthly · 1st, 8am and keeps the Still covered dashboard fresh. Monthly — reads the order confirmations, files each purchase over the line with its receipt, and lists what is running out.
• What is captured lands in the Purchase register record, which lives at Data/Purchase Register in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Still covered dashboard reads from the record and shows, at a glance: every big purchase · cover running out next · inside the window · on the register · where cover stands · spend by category · spent in the last 12 months · the register · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Purchase capture writes to Purchase register · Purchase register shown by Still covered · Still covered kept fresh by Purchase sweep · Purchase sweep run by Acorn · Acorn holds Purchase capture · Acorn holds Claim draft.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Let the first sweep read two years of order confirmations, then answer the one question only you can — how long each thing is covered for. A standing rule is enough: "two years on the appliances unless the receipt says" is applied to every blank row and remembered for the next sweep. A purchase whose term nobody has stated shows as unknown, never as covered; those are the rows to settle first.
• Open Still covered when something breaks, not when the sweep runs. Every big purchase has the receipt's vault path beside the date the cover ends — ask Acorn "where's the washing machine's receipt?" and the answer is a path, not a search back through two years of mail.
• Read Inside the window on the first of the month, after the Purchase sweep has been through. It is soonest first and judged against a sixty-day window, so a thing on that list is a thing to test properly this month while a claim would still be honoured.
• Say a purchase the way you'd say it at the kitchen table — "bought a sofa from Larkspur, five-year guarantee" — and Purchase capture files it; drop a photo of the shop receipt in the same message and it is saved under Receipts/Sofa. That is the correction that keeps the board true between sweeps for the things no email ever mentioned.
• When something fails, tell Acorn what is wrong before you ring anyone. Claim draft reads the receipt, writes the letter from what the receipt and you say, and saves it beside the receipt — with a bracketed gap for the serial number. It cites only what the guarantee itself says and never sends; check it, fill the gaps, and send it yourself.
• Tell Acorn the standing facts once — what counts as a big purchase for you, which retailers to read and which never to, where receipts tend to land — and every sweep works to them. "Anything over $150, and never the office account" is worth saying.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, records and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• What counts as a big purchase — the line the sweep reads above — and a standing warranty rule for the things whose receipts print no term.
• Which retailers or senders to always read, and which never to (an office account, a marketplace you buy gifts on).
• How much warning you want — the window is sixty days unless you say — and whether receipts go into the vault at all or stay where they are with the register just saying where.
• When the monthly sweep runs, or turning it off and keeping the register by hand.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Adding the Kit offers the first sweep right away: connect your email on the same screen, start it with one tap, and watch Acorn read back through two years of order confirmations and receipts over your threshold — appliances, electronics, furniture, bikes, tools — file each purchase with what it cost and where, save the receipt into your vault under Receipts/⟨item⟩/, and record the day the cover ends wherever the receipt printed a term. A term the receipt did not print is left blank rather than guessed. Prefer not to connect email? Tell Acorn about the big things you've bought instead, and the register builds by hand.
2. When that first sweep finishes, Acorn leaves a short note in your 1Presence inbox saying what it filed — how many purchases, from how many retailers — and invites two minutes together: anything that isn't yours (a gift, a return), how long each thing is covered for (a standing rule will do, and it is applied to the blank rows there and then), where the big-purchase line should sit, and the things the mailbox never saw.
3. From then on the sweep runs on the first of each month: it files what arrived since the last run with its receipt, recomputes where every purchase's cover stands, and raises a card only when cover entered its sixty-day window or ran out, when an order might count and it could not tell, or when a receipt could not be saved.
4. Mention a purchase, a warranty term or something you no longer have any time and the register keeps up without waiting for the month; drop a receipt in and it is filed where you can find it; and when something fails, Claim draft writes the letter into your vault for you to send.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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