Warrantora

Self-hosted warranty register: what you sold, when the cover ends, and every claim with the reason for each decision — computed, never stale.

The problem it solves

Warranty is one of the few records a small business is asked to produce under pressure — by a customer who is annoyed, or a supplier who would rather not pay. The answer has to be exact, and it has to still be defensible six months later.

• The register is usually a spreadsheet with an expiry column somebody typed, which stops being true the first time a sale date is corrected
• Claims get decided in email, so the reason a claim was rejected exists only in somebody's memory
• Software that does this properly is priced for brands processing claims at volume; the lowest entry price we read in the category is ReturnGO's "Starting at $147 / month" (read 2026-09-24)

Every feature

• Expiry is computed, never stored. There is no expiry column on an item and no endpoint that accepts one. Cover is worked out from the sale date and the term every time it is asked. Correct a sale date and every date that depends on it corrects itself.
• Month arithmetic that does not drift. 31 August plus six months is 28 February, not 3 March — the customer does not get three extra days because the calendar is awkward. Twelve fixtures cover the short-month, leap-year and year-boundary edges.
• The expiry dashboard. What lapses in 30, 60 and 90 days, and which claims are sitting unassessed — the two questions that actually need answering before the month ends.
• Claims with a reason at every step. Raised, assessed, approved or rejected, resolved. Assess, approve and reject all refuse to save without a written reason — on the form, through the API and through an AI tool alike. A rejection with nothing written on it is the record that cannot be defended later.
• In-warranty is frozen when the claim is raised. A claim raised inside the term stays inside the term however long the assessment takes. Deciding it against today's date would make being slow a way of rejecting claims.
• RMA tracking. Issued, on its way back, received, closed — with a reference number allocated under a real write lock, so two people saving at the same moment cannot take the same one.
• Evidence on the claim. Photographs and documents attached to the claim, byte-sniffed on upload so a file that claims to be a photo has to be one.
• Exports that leave the building. A claims CSV, a register CSV, and a warranty certificate PDF per item — the document a customer actually asks for.
• Your customers' own warranty page. Switch it on and a customer checks their cover with the serial number and the email on the registration, raises a claim with a photo, and follows it on a link of their own, with your decision and the reason. Both have to match, so a guessed serial shows nothing. The decision stays with you.
• Customer emails through your own mail server. Three messages, each off until you tick it: we have your claim; the decision with its reason; and a note before the cover ends.
• Supplier claim-back. Approved in-warranty repairs, replacements and refunds wait under the supplier who made the part. A pack gives you a CSV and a PDF with every fault and decision, and records the supplier's answer and credit-note reference. No amounts, as ever.
• Which products and batches come back. Claims per 100 registered units for each product, model or batch, and the batch that stands out: three claims or more at twice its product's rate.
• Claim photos in your backup. Download every claim photo and PDF in one archive with checksums; restoring it puts back missing files and overwrites nothing.
• Registered at the till. Your till, shop or own code sends each sale to Warrantora's API and every unit sold is registered on the right term, once.
• Your own reports. Pick the register or the claims, the columns, the filters and the sort. See it on screen, download it as CSV, or save it under a name for the whole team. No upgrade needed.
• Updates from inside the app. The Updates page installs a new release with your license key: Ownware's signature is checked, a backup is taken first, and the app puts the previous version back by itself if the update is interrupted or the database step or start-up check of the new version fails. It never checks by itself.
• Backups by themselves. Automatic backups, an optional copy to S3-compatible storage you own, and a weekly check that the latest backup reads back. The Health page names anything that needs attention.
• Claim updates by text. Through your own SMS gateway, for customers who tick "Text me when this claim moves on": a text when the claim arrives, when you approve or reject it, and when you close it. Each links to the claim's own page, where one press stops them.
• Own It 4.0.1 — fixes and an up-to-date manual. For Warrantora, 4.0.1 fixes an installer that had lost its styling, a rollback that a page opened during an update could stop and a command-line update that ended in an error after putting the previous version back. Its manual, FAQ and QUICKSTART now cover everything 4.0 added, including two Nginx rules that keep the data folder private. Your license covers it: press Check for updates on the Updates page, or download it from your order page.
• Own It 4.0.2 — the installer opens on every host. For Warrantora, 4.0.2 fixes a fresh install on an Apache host: the one-page setup at /install/ looped back to itself and never opened, and now it opens. Your license covers it: press Check for updates on the Updates page, or download it from your order page.

Release notes in full

• Own It 4.1: claim updates by text. For Warrantora, 4.1 adds claim updates by text through your own SMS gateway, for customers who ask for them. An Extended license bought from October 4, 2026 covers up to ten client installations, one per client project: hand each one over to the client or host it for them, with the client's logo and colors from the app's branding settings. The API reference now shows how to connect Warrantora to Zapier, Make or n8n, using its own webhooks and API key. Your license covers the update: press Check for updates on the Updates page, or download it from your order page.
• Own It 4.0: it updates and backs itself up. For Warrantora, 4.0 means updates from inside the app: the Updates page checks for a new release with your license key, verifies Ownware's signature, takes a backup and puts the previous version back by itself if the update is interrupted or the database step or start-up check of the new version fails. A new install can start with a sample business and remove it in one click; backups run by themselves, with an optional offsite copy and a weekly check that the latest one reads back; and the Health page says whether the install is looking after itself.
• Own It 3.4: your own reports, no upgrade needed. For Warrantora, 3.4 meant your own reports: the register or the claims, your columns, filters and sort, on screen, as CSV or saved under a name for the whole team. The items import's preview now also counts exactly what the import brings in, and names a serial twice in the file.
• Own It 3.2: customers check their cover and claim for themselves. The 3.2 wave let the people you serve do things for themselves. For Warrantora, that meant a warranty page where a customer checks their cover with the serial number and the email on the registration, raises a claim with a photo and follows it on a link of their own, with customer emails through your own mail server, each off until you tick it. Behind it came supplier claim-back packs, the products and batches that come back most, claim photos in your backup, and units registered straight from the till.
• Own It 3.1: it writes to the people you serve. The 3.1 wave gave the catalog a way to reach the other side of the transaction: counterparty email through your own SMTP server, calendar feeds your own calendar subscribes to, attachments filed where the paperwork belongs, and export presets other people's software imports. Each outbound feature ships switched off and runs on your own credentials; a failed send is recorded, and the action that triggered it stands. Warrantora's outbound paths are a private calendar feed of expiring cover and signed webhooks for registrations and claims; the 3.1 pass also rewrote the honest-limitations list against the shipped code.
• Own It 3.0: works for your AI, not just for you. Seven MCP tools, every one carrying its own read-only annotation. An agent can look up cover, list what is expiring and raise a claim; voiding a registration, deleting anything and editing the warranty terms are deliberately not exposed — the last because it silently re-dates every item on the term.