The platform is booked, the permit is not
A quarterly external clean on an office block is due. The building needs a mobile elevating work platform on the car park side and rope access on the courtyard side. You book the platform hire. The client's facilities manager needs the method statement and the operatives' names a week ahead, plus a car park closure agreed with the landlord. Somebody sends the documents late, the car park is not closed, and on the day the platform arrives and cannot be positioned.
Another week, two contracts need the same trained operatives on the same day, and nobody noticed until the Friday before. The hire company charges for the day either way.
Each visit has many moving parts, tracked in different places
Commercial high-level work is planned as a set of dependencies, and small firms usually hold each dependency separately: hire bookings in emails, operative availability in a group chat, client documents in folders, and contract dates in a spreadsheet.
- Contract visit dates are in a spreadsheet and not linked to the diary.
- Equipment hire is booked by phone or email without a central record.
- Operatives' training and availability are tracked separately.
- Client documents and notice periods are sent when someone remembers.
- Site requirements (car park closures, building access times) are in old emails.
How the work is carried out, and what training and equipment each job needs, are decisions for you, your competent people and your advisers. We do not advise on that. We build the planning around the decisions you make.
Wasted hire days and strained contracts
Hired equipment charged for a day it could not be used is a direct loss. Rescheduled visits push other work around. And facilities managers who receive paperwork late or see visits slip start to question the contract, which is the most valuable work a window cleaning firm has.
One plan per visit with everything it depends on
We build a contract scheduling tool for your commercial work.
- Each contract site has a profile: elevations, the access method you use for each, equipment needed, site rules, notice periods and the documents the client requires.
- Visits are generated from the contract frequency, weeks ahead, and each one lists what it needs: equipment, operatives with the right training records, documents and site arrangements.
- Equipment hire is recorded against the visit, with the hire company's confirmation, so clashes and missing bookings are visible.
- Operatives are allocated from those whose training records you hold as current for that type of work, and double-booking across sites is flagged.
- Reminders go out in time for each dependency: book the hire, send documents to the client, confirm the car park closure, remind operatives.
- After the visit, completion notes and photos are recorded and a visit report goes to the client.
| Dependency | Tracked today | Tracked after |
|---|---|---|
| Visit date | Spreadsheet | Generated from the contract |
| Access equipment | Emails with the hire company | Booking on the visit, clashes flagged |
| Operatives | Group chat | Allocated with training records checked |
| Client documents | Sent when remembered | Reminder at the notice period |
| Site arrangements | Old emails | Site profile and visit checklist |
Visits that happen on the planned day
Everything a visit needs is visible weeks ahead. Hire is booked in time, documents reach the client before their deadline, and operatives are not double-booked. When a visit has to move, you can see every dependency that moves with it. Clients get reports promptly, which keeps the contract looking well run when it comes up for renewal.
The owner also gets a view of the year ahead: which months are heavy with high-level visits, which operatives are in demand, and where hire costs cluster. That is useful when pricing the next tender, because it is based on how the work was actually planned.
Is your commercial work planned like this?
- Equipment hire is booked by email with no central record.
- You have paid for hire on a day the work could not happen.
- Client documents are sometimes sent late.
- Operatives have been double-booked across sites.
- Site requirements are buried in old emails.