The monthly contract meeting
The facilities management company's contract manager has a spreadsheet showing your attendance times on their HVAC jobs for the month. Their figures differ from yours. Their clock starts when the job was logged on their helpdesk; yours when you received the email. Some of your engineers tapped arrived when they parked, some when they got to the plant room, some at the end. Several jobs have no arrival time at all. The meeting is spent arguing about the data rather than the work.
Times recorded loosely, rules held nowhere
Response time reporting needs two things: reliable timestamps and clear rules. Most HVAC contractors have neither in a form that stands up. Engineers record times inconsistently. Contract terms on priorities, clock start, pauses for access or parts, and what counts as fixed vary by client, and live in contract documents.
FM contracts also differ from each other in detail. One stops the clock when the engineer arrives, another when the system is made safe, another only when it is fixed. One allows a pause for access refused, another does not. Your team carries those rules in their heads, client by client.
- Clock start differs between the client's helpdesk and your system.
- Arrival and completion times are entered manually and late.
- Priorities are assigned inconsistently.
- Pauses for access or parts are not recorded.
- Reports are built by hand in a spreadsheet each month.
What disputed figures cost
Service credits or penalties applied on figures you believe are wrong but cannot disprove. Contract meetings spent on arguments rather than improvements. An impression of unreliability that weighs on renewal. And office time building reports manually.
Engineers feel the pressure too. When the numbers are disputed, the easiest target is the engineer who was supposedly late, even when the delay was a locked plant room or a part on order. Clear records protect them as much as the business.
The response tracking we build
- Jobs from each FM client carry their helpdesk reference and logged time from the source, so the clock start matches theirs.
- Each client's contract rules are set up: priority levels, attend and fix targets, how pauses are treated. Your contract manager confirms them.
- Engineers' apps capture timestamps at each stage (accepted, travelling, arrived, paused with reason, completed), with location used to confirm arrival where engineers agree.
- Pauses for access refused, parts on order or client instruction are recorded with reasons and evidence.
- A monthly report per client is produced from the data: jobs by priority, times against targets, pauses and reasons, and a list of misses with explanations.
- Differences with the client's own figures can be compared line by line using the shared reference.
| Element | Recorded now | Recorded with tracking |
|---|---|---|
| Clock start | When your email arrived | Client's logged time |
| Arrival | Entered later | Captured in the app |
| Pauses | Not recorded | Reason and evidence |
| Contract rules | In the contract PDF | Set per client |
| Monthly report | Built by hand | Produced from data |
Contract meetings about the work
Your figures and the client's start from the same reference and the same clock. Pauses are evidenced. Misses come with reasons already written. The contract meeting moves on to what could improve. And the report takes minutes to produce rather than a day.
The same data also helps internally. You can see which clients, sites or times of day make targets hard to meet, and decide whether to change how you cover them or raise it at the next contract review.
Signs you need this
- FM clients dispute your response times.
- Engineers record arrival times inconsistently.
- Pauses for access or parts are not evidenced.
- Monthly reports are built in a spreadsheet.
- You have accepted service credits you believed were wrong.