Counting extinguishers on a service sheet
Your office administrator has a stack of extinguisher service sheets from the week. For each, they count units serviced by type, note any replaced units, any discharge tests, tamper seals, signs and brackets fitted, then look up the customer's prices, some of which are special rates agreed years ago. They type the lines into the accounts package. For fire alarm visits, the price may be per visit plus per device over a certain number, plus batteries.
Mistakes happen. A replaced unit is missed, a customer is charged list price instead of their agreed rate, or a visit is invoiced twice. Customers query the invoices, and the administrator goes back to the sheets.
Why fire safety invoicing is fiddly
Pricing in fire safety servicing is granular. Each invoice is built from quantities that only the engineer's record holds, priced against customer-specific rates.
- Quantities are counted from paper sheets or certificates.
- Customer-specific prices are in a spreadsheet or the administrator's memory.
- Parts, replacements and extras are listed inconsistently.
- Some customers are on fixed annual prices, others per unit or per visit.
- Invoices wait for the paperwork to arrive and be processed.
What manual invoicing costs
Hours of admin every week. Missed chargeable items, which means lost income. Wrong prices, which lead to queries and credit notes. Late invoices, which slow cash flow. And customers who start checking every line, which makes every future invoice harder.
Invoices drafted from the visit record
We build invoicing that works from what the engineer recorded, with each customer's pricing applied automatically.
- Each customer has a price arrangement: fixed annual price, per visit, per unit or per device, with their agreed rates for common items and parts.
- The engineer's visit record captures units serviced by type, replacements, parts and extras, picked from lists rather than written.
- When the visit is completed, draft invoice lines are produced by applying the customer's price arrangement to the visit record.
- Items without an agreed price use your standard price list and are flagged, so the office can check before sending.
- Drafts are reviewed in a queue and pushed to your accounts package, such as Xero, Sage or QuickBooks, through its API.
- The invoice can include a summary of the visit and a link to the certificate, which reduces queries.
| Invoice element | Built today from | Built after from |
|---|---|---|
| Units serviced | Counting the sheet | The visit record |
| Replacements and parts | Reading notes | Items picked on site |
| Customer prices | Spreadsheet or memory | Price arrangement on the customer |
| Unpriced items | Guessed | Standard price, flagged |
| Timing | When sheets are processed | When the visit is completed |
An invoicing day afterwards
At the end of each day, the administrator opens the draft invoice queue. Most drafts match expectations and are approved in a batch. A couple have flagged items, such as a sign fitted for a customer with no agreed sign price, and are checked before sending. A fixed-price customer's visit creates no invoice, just a record against their annual agreement. The certificates go out with the invoices, and the queries that used to follow largely stop.
Setting up the price arrangements
The part that takes care is the first one: recording each customer's pricing. Many firms have agreed rates that live in old emails or in the administrator's head, such as a discount on extinguisher servicing for a group of branches, or a fixed visit price that includes the first so many devices. We go through your customer list with the administrator, record each arrangement, and run the first few weeks of drafts alongside the old way so any mismatch is caught before customers see it. Where an old rate cannot be found, it is flagged rather than guessed.
After that, changes are made in one place. When you apply an annual price change, you update the standard list and any customer arrangements it affects, and the next drafts use the new prices from the date you set.
What you get
Invoices that go out soon after the work. Fewer missed items and fewer wrong prices. An administrator who reviews rather than builds. And a clear record linking every invoice line to what was done on site.
Recognise this?
- Invoices are built by counting items on service sheets.
- Customer-specific prices are kept in a spreadsheet.
- Chargeable parts and replacements are sometimes missed.
- Customers query invoice lines regularly.
- Invoices wait days for paperwork to be processed.