Every job typed twice, updates typed three times
Your air conditioning business works for several facilities management companies. Each has its own helpdesk portal. Work orders arrive by portal notification, and the office copies each into your job system. When the engineer arrives, someone updates the portal. When the job is done, someone uploads the report, the F-gas record and a quote for follow-on work, in the format that portal wants. The portal says the job is overdue because nobody updated it; your system says it was finished yesterday.
Each FM company runs its own system
FM companies use helpdesk portals to manage many contractors across many buildings. They are built for the FM company's reporting, not yours. From your side, each portal is another screen to keep current, with its own statuses, required fields and document rules. As you win more FM work, the admin grows faster than the work.
Air conditioning jobs also carry more paperwork than many trades. A breakdown may produce a service report, an F-gas record, a quote for a replacement part and photos of the unit, and each portal wants those attached in its own way.
- Work orders are retyped into your job system.
- Status updates are posted by hand, often late.
- Reports and certificates are uploaded one at a time.
- Quotes for follow-on work follow a different process per portal.
- Portal and job system disagree, and the portal is what the client sees.
What double entry costs
Admin hours that scale with the number of FM clients. Jobs shown as late in portals because updates were not posted, which counts against you in the FM company's contractor reviews. Retyping errors that send engineers to the wrong building. And quotes that sit unsubmitted because the portal process is awkward.
FM companies also score their contractors on portal data: attendance, completion, document compliance. When your portal records lag behind your real work, your score suffers, and the FM company's view of you is built from that score, not from your job system.
The connectors we build
- For each FM portal, we find the best route: API, structured email notifications, file exports, or, where only screens exist, a discussion of what is sensible.
- New work orders are created in your job management system with the portal reference, priority, site and description. Unclear ones go to a person.
- Your job statuses and timestamps are mapped to each portal's, and updates are sent when your job moves.
- Service reports, F-gas records and photos are attached in the portal's required format when the job closes.
- Quotes for follow-on work are prepared in each portal's structure for submission, and their approval status is tracked.
- A daily comparison lists jobs where your system and a portal disagree.
| Task | Done by hand | Done by the connectors |
|---|---|---|
| New work orders | Retyped | Created with the portal reference |
| Status updates | Posted late | Sent as the job moves |
| Documents | Uploaded one by one | Attached on job close |
| Follow-on quotes | Different process each | Prepared per portal |
| Mismatches | Found by the FM company | Daily list |
Whether automation is allowed on a given portal depends on the FM company's terms, which we check with you. Where an API exists, it is the intended route.
FM work without the retyping
Work orders appear in your job system automatically. The portals show your real progress. Documents arrive complete. Follow-on quotes get submitted. The office handles exceptions and relationships, and your standing in the FM companies' contractor reviews reflects the work actually done.
Growing FM work stops meaning growing admin. Adding a new FM client becomes a matter of setting up one more connector, rather than recruiting someone to keep another portal current.
Is this your office?
- You log in to several FM portals every day.
- Work orders are retyped into your job system.
- FM portals show jobs overdue that you completed.
- Documents are uploaded to portals one at a time.
- Follow-on quotes sit unsubmitted.