Forty doors, a spreadsheet and a report nobody writes
Your business has a maintenance contract with a small chain of offices, a school and a healthcare building. Each site has dozens of doors with closers, locks and exit hardware. The contract says quarterly visits. The schedule is a spreadsheet the owner updates when he remembers. The engineer goes round with a clipboard, writes "all OK" or "closer adjusted" against door numbers, and the notes go in the van.
Weeks later the client's facilities manager asks for the visit report. The office has to type it up from the clipboard, match door numbers to the client's floor plan, and attach whatever photos the engineer took. Remedial work that was found on the visit has not been quoted yet. And one site's visit was missed altogether because it fell in a busy month.
Contracts need door-level records, and most firms have job-level ones
A lockout is one job at one door. A maintenance contract is many doors, visited again and again, where the value is in the history of each door. Job systems built for reactive call-outs do not hold that well.
- There is no asset list of doors per site, only a site address.
- Visit schedules are in a spreadsheet, not linked to the diary.
- Engineers record findings on paper against door numbers they have to guess.
- Remedial work found on a visit is not turned into a quote.
- Reports are typed up in the office, days or weeks later.
What is checked on each door, and how often, is set by your engineers, the client and the manufacturers' guidance. We do not set it. We make the record keeping keep up.
Missed visits and unquoted remedials
A missed planned visit is a breach of what you agreed, even if the client never notices. Reports that arrive late make the contract look like a formality, which is the first step towards the client re-tendering it. Remedial work found and never quoted is income you were entitled to ask for. And typing up clipboard notes is office time the contract price did not allow for.
A contract schedule built door by door
We build a planned maintenance module for your business, linked to your job system and accounts.
- Each site has a door register: door reference, location, door type and the hardware fitted, with photos. We build it on the first visit, or import the client's own list if they have one.
- Each contract sets the visit frequency and the checklist per door type, as you and the client agree.
- Visits are generated ahead of time and appear in the diary, with reminders when a visit is due and not yet booked.
- On site, the engineer works through the door list on their phone, ticks the checklist, adds notes and photos, and flags any door needing remedial work.
- When the engineer finishes, a visit report is generated automatically: every door, its result, photos and flagged items, in a format the client can file.
- Flagged remedials become draft quotes for the office to price and send, linked to the door and the visit.
| Contract task | Clipboard and spreadsheet | Door-level system |
|---|---|---|
| Knowing what is due | Owner checks a spreadsheet | Visits generated and flagged |
| Recording findings | Paper against guessed door numbers | Phone checklist per door |
| Reporting to the client | Typed up days later | Generated at the end of the visit |
| Remedial work | Often forgotten | Draft quote per flagged door |
| History of a door | Not available | Every visit on the door's record |
Contracts that look after themselves
Visits happen when they should, because they are in the diary. Clients get a report the same day, which makes the contract visible and valued. Remedial work is quoted while it is fresh. When the contract comes up for renewal, you can show the full history of every door, which is a stronger position than a folder of invoices.
Could your contracts be run better?
- Planned visits are tracked in a spreadsheet.
- Engineers record findings on paper.
- Visit reports are typed up in the office.
- Remedial work found on visits often goes unquoted.
- You could not show a client the history of a particular door.