Tracking maintenance contracts without missing a single preventive visit

What is a maintenance contract for a service company?

A maintenance contract is an agreement with a customer to maintain an installation or a whole site at fixed intervals: for example a boiler, a heat pump, a refrigeration installation or a water treatment installation, once, twice or four times a year. The contract sets out what is checked, how often, by whom, and what is and is not included in the price.

For the customer, it means peace of mind. For the service company, it means predictable work that you can schedule in quieter periods, and an ongoing relationship with the customer and their installation.

Where it goes wrong with a list in Excel

• The next visit is in a column that nobody reads every week.
• A contract expires without anyone calling the customer about a renewal.
• The technician does not know what was found on the previous visit, or what the contract says.
• At invoicing time, it is not clear what was in the contract and what was extra.
• When the business changes hands or someone is absent, the knowledge is in one person’s head.

What must a maintenance contract set out?

1. What it covers: one installation, with make, type and serial number, or a complete site.
2. The frequency: monthly, quarterly, every six months, yearly, or every fixed number of days.
3. What happens at each visit: a fixed list of checks and tasks, so that every visit goes the same way, whoever carries it out.
4. Conditions and instructions: access, keys, contact person on site, points to watch.
5. The term: start, end and renewal.
6. What is included: the visit itself, hours above a minimum, parts. Once that is set, the invoice after the visit is not up for discussion.
7. The assigned technician, if you work with fixed technicians per customer or per region.

Drawing up a preventive maintenance plan in five steps

1. Map the installations. Per customer and per site: which units, with serial number and date of the last maintenance. Without that list, every plan is a gamble.
2. Set the frequency for each type of installation. Start from the manufacturer’s recommendations and from the rules that apply to that type of installation, and adjust where practice calls for something else.
3. Create a fixed visit template for each type. What you measure, what you replace, what you photograph. An example from water treatment: measure the hardness before and after, check the settings, replace the wear parts, photograph the installation. Whoever comes next time can then compare.
4. Spread the visits. Plan them by region and avoid peaks: if you maintain heating installations, you do not want all your visits in October.
5. Look every week at what is overdue and what is expiring. The list of overdue visits and of contracts that end soon is the most important list of the week.

How it works in Digitalnatie Service Suite

In Service Suite, maintenance contracts have their own screen.

• A contract covers a complete site or a single installation, with a frequency from monthly to yearly, or a number of days of your choice.
• A visit template sets out what happens at each visit. The contract’s conditions and instructions become a task on every visit.
• The contract form shows the next six visit dates in advance.
• Once a day, Service Suite creates a preventive maintenance intervention, carrying the contract’s name, for each active contract whose next visit date has been reached. If the contract has a technician, the intervention is assigned to that technician. You then schedule the visit like any other intervention, and the next visit moves forward by one period.
• Lists show what needs attention: overdue visits, visits within the next 30 days and contracts to renew (ending within 60 days). You can pause, stop or extend a contract.
• For each contract, you decide whether the visit, the hours above the minimum and the parts used are billable or included in the contract. How that then reaches the invoice is explained in from work order to invoice.

The installation itself keeps its maintenance history, its serial number, its warranty and its documents in the customer file. So what happened at a visit stays with the installation, even if another technician goes next time; the office puts what matters in the instructions for that technician.

Frequently asked questions

Is a maintenance visit scheduled automatically?

The visit is created automatically as an intervention on the date of the next visit, with the contract’s technician if one is set. You then fix the time in the schedule, as for any other intervention. See also scheduling technicians.

Can a contract cover a single unit?

Yes. A contract covers one installation or a complete site. So for a customer with several units, you can agree a different frequency for each unit.

Which frequencies are possible?

Monthly, quarterly, every six months, yearly, or a custom number of days.

How do I see which contracts need renewing?

The contracts-to-renew list shows the contracts that end within 60 days. That way you call the customer about an extension before the contract expires.

Can I schedule an extra visit outside the fixed frequency?

Yes, from the contract. If that visit falls on the date of the next contract visit, it counts as that visit and Service Suite does not create a second one.