Heating engineers, lift companies, electrical contractors, machine manufacturers, fire safety service providers: they all have customers whose equipment is serviced or inspected regularly. The business is predictable and valuable. But it depends on no appointment being forgotten.

In many businesses this lives in an Excel sheet: customer, equipment, last visit, next visit. Once a month someone goes through the list and plans what is due. The reports sit on paper in a binder or as PDFs on a network drive. That works until the list gets too long, the person responsible is off sick, or a customer asks for the report from three years ago.

What belongs together

Maintenance management has four parts that are closely linked:

  • The equipment: what is installed where, with type, serial number, year of manufacture and particulars
  • The contract: which services, how often, on what terms
  • The appointment: when the next service or inspection is due
  • The record: what was done, what was found, who signed

When these four things sit in different lists, information gets lost. The fitter does not know what was found last time. The office does not know whether the contract is still running.

What good management has to do

Equipment with a history

Each piece of equipment has its own page: location, technical data, every previous visit, reports and defects, photos. Whoever goes out sees beforehand what to expect. Whoever calls gets an answer without searching through binders.

Dates from the contract

The next date is calculated from the contract and the last visit, not entered by hand. A contract with an annual service generates the next date every year, together with the period in which it is due. If the contract changes, the dates change with it.

Visible in good time

You see today what is due next month. That leaves time to agree dates with customers, order materials and group visits sensibly. The handover to scheduling is described in scheduling fitters and technicians.

Inspection reports from templates

Many inspections follow fixed requirements, for example the testing of electrical equipment and installations under the German DGUV Regulation 3, or the servicing of heating and ventilation systems to the manufacturer’s specifications. The report should know these points as a template. The inspector ticks them off, enters readings and notes defects. Which inspections are required for your customers and their equipment, and how often, is something to settle with your trade association or the relevant expert. The software reflects these rules; it does not set them.

Recording on site

The report is created on a phone or tablet, with photos, readings and the customer’s signature. Then nobody has to type it up in the office. What mobile capture needs for this is covered in capturing orders on a phone.

Defects and follow-up jobs

If an inspection finds a defect, a quote or follow-up job should come straight out of it. Otherwise the defect sits in the report and nobody deals with it until the customer asks.

Records you can find

Every report is linked to the equipment and can be found again, even years later. Many customers need the records for their own audits or their insurer. If you can supply them at once, you earn trust.

The customer looking in

Some businesses give their customers access to their equipment: which dates are coming up, which reports are available, which defects are open? That saves queries and builds loyalty. What such access needs is described in a customer portal. It depends on equipment, dates and reports being properly maintained.

Billing maintenance contracts

Maintenance contracts are often billed at a flat rate, annually or quarterly, plus materials and extra work on a time basis. Invoices should come from the contract rather than being written from scratch each time. Whether your existing software can do this depends on whether it knows contracts and recurring invoices, or can take the data from maintenance management where possible.

Standard solution or your own

For many trades there are ready-made programs for maintenance management, often together with scheduling and a mobile app. First check whether your job management software knows equipment and contracts. That is the simplest route.

Your own solution pays off when your inspections are particular: your own reports with many readings, equipment made up of many parts each with its own history, customers with their own requirements, or records that have to be delivered in a particular form.

Why it fails

  • The equipment data is incomplete. Before software can help, the equipment has to be recorded properly once. That is work, but it pays off.
  • The Excel sheet stays. If it is kept up in parallel, there are two versions, and at some point neither is right.
  • The reports are too long. If inspectors type more on site than they used to write, they cut corners.
  • Defects get lost. Without a clear path from report to follow-up job, business is left on the table.

Questions before you decide

  • How many pieces of equipment and contracts do you look after, and where are they recorded today?
  • Which inspections and reports are there, and who defines their content?
  • How do you find out today that a date is due?
  • Where are the reports from recent years?
  • What happens today to a defect found during an inspection?

Take a piece of equipment you have looked after for years and gather everything there is on it. The time that takes shows you what good management will save.