The invoice that comes back with a question mark
An engineer replaces a landing door roller and a set of door gibs on a lift in an office block. The parts are on the van, the fix is quick, and the lift is back in service before lunch. The office raises an invoice for the parts and an hour of labour. Two weeks later the facilities manager rejects it: their contract is comprehensive, so why are they being charged?
Your office pulls the contract. It is a semi-comprehensive agreement with a list of excluded items, and door gibs might be on it or might count as wear parts, depending on how you read clause nine. The engineer did not know which contract the lift was on. Nobody asked the customer before the work was done. Now there is an argument over a small sum, with a customer you want to keep.
Cover is decided in the contract, but checked nowhere
Lift maintenance contracts vary a lot. Some are basic service only, some include certain parts, some cover almost everything except misuse and vandalism, and customers often have lifts on different levels of cover across their portfolio. The contract is clear on paper, but the information does not reach the people doing the work.
- Engineers see the site and the fault, not the contract level of the lift they are working on.
- Exclusion lists are written differently in each contract, sometimes in the customer's own terms.
- Call-outs outside normal hours may be chargeable on one contract and included on another.
- Misuse and vandalism call-outs are chargeable on many contracts, but the evidence is not captured.
- The office finds out what was done after it is done, when it is too late to ask for approval.
Small disputes, large cost
Each disputed invoice is usually a modest amount, but it takes office time to research, emails to resolve and sometimes a credit note to settle. The bigger cost is in the relationship. A customer who feels overcharged starts checking every invoice, and every future chargeable repair becomes a negotiation.
The opposite problem is just as real. Work that should be chargeable is done free because nobody was sure, and over a year that adds up to a lot of parts and labour given away without anyone deciding to give it.
A cover lookup that works at the point of repair
We build a contract cover layer that sits on each lift record and is visible to engineers and office staff at the moment a repair is being decided.
- Your contract types are set up as cover templates, listing included and excluded categories of parts and call-outs, using your own wording.
- Each lift is linked to its contract and cover template, with any customer-specific exclusions added.
- When an engineer records a repair or picks a part on their phone, the system shows whether that category is included, excluded or unclear for this lift.
- Excluded or unclear work prompts the engineer to get approval, either from the site contact on screen or by triggering a quick approval request to the customer by email or text.
- Misuse and vandalism call-outs have their own fields for photos and a short description, so the evidence is attached to the invoice.
- The office sees a daily list of chargeable jobs with approvals attached, ready to invoice, and a separate list of unclear items for a manager to decide.
| Moment | Today | With the cover lookup |
|---|---|---|
| Engineer chooses a part | No idea of cover level | Sees included, excluded or unclear |
| Work is chargeable | Done, invoiced later | Approval requested first |
| Misuse call-out | Note on the sheet | Photos and description on the job |
| Invoice is queried | Office hunts through the contract | Cover and approval are on the job |
The lookup reflects how your team has interpreted each contract. Where wording is genuinely unclear, it says unclear and passes the decision to a manager rather than guessing.
What changes for engineers, office and customers
Engineers stop being put in the position of guessing. The office invoices chargeable work with the approval already attached, so queries are rare and quick to answer. Customers are asked before they are charged, which is what most of them wanted all along.
Managers also get a clear view of how much work is being done outside contract cover, per customer, which is useful when it comes to discussing whether a customer's cover level still suits their lifts.
Is this a regular argument for you?
- Customers regularly query or reject repair invoices.
- Engineers do not know each lift's cover level.
- Chargeable work is often done before approval is asked for.
- Misuse call-outs are hard to charge because there is no evidence.
- You suspect parts are regularly given away that should be charged.