Plumbing · Step-by-Step Guide
Maintenance agreements are your most profitable recurring revenue — and the ones most likely to slip through the cracks. Renewal dates buried in a spreadsheet, missed visits never billed, customers who forgot they had a contract. No ReKeying means every agreement visit is dispatched, logged, and billed without manual follow-through.
A plumbing company sells backflow preventer testing agreements to 80 commercial accounts. Each agreement requires annual testing under local code. The scheduling is done manually from a spreadsheet. Three accounts weren't tested on time and received code violation notices.
Missed backflow test deadlines expose commercial customers to fines of $500–$2,000 per violation — and expose the plumbing company to contract cancellations and liability claims.
Follow these steps in order. Each step builds on the previous one.
Most field service businesses offer 2–3 tiers: a basic preventive maintenance agreement, a parts-and-labor coverage plan, and a priority service agreement. Define the scope, pricing, and terms of each tier in writing before selling them.
Every active service contract needs a record: customer, covered equipment, contract tier, start date, end date, renewal terms, and billing schedule. A spreadsheet can work to start, but it must be actively maintained.
The single biggest reason service contracts lapse is that nobody sends a renewal offer in time. Automated reminders at 60 days (proactive offer), 30 days (follow-up), and 7 days (urgency close) recover most renewals before expiration.
When a covered customer calls for service, your dispatcher should immediately see the contract terms: what is covered, what is excluded, priority response time, and when the contract expires.
Service contracts are often equipment-specific, not property-wide. Asset-level contract tracking prevents service calls on uncovered equipment from being billed incorrectly.
Calculate your contract renewal rate quarterly. Below 70% renewal is a problem. Also calculate lapsed revenue: how much annual contract revenue was lost to non-renewals. This number usually surprises owners.
A missed maintenance agreement visit is lost revenue and a broken promise. If 10% of your agreement visits are missed, a $50K/month agreement base leaks $5K/month — $60K/year — in unbilled work.
These mistakes are the most common reasons implementations fail. Avoid them.
A spreadsheet that requires manual review to catch upcoming renewals will always have gaps. Automation — triggered reminders, calendar flags — removes the dependency on someone remembering to look.
Ambiguous contract scope creates disputes at the worst possible moment: after a breakdown. If a customer believes their contract covers all repairs but it only covers preventive maintenance, both parties suffer.
Service contracts are a recurring commitment. If you cannot track which covered customers need their annual maintenance visit, you will miss visits — and customers who don't receive what they paid for will not renew.
Reading the guide is step one. Step two is having a working solution built for your specific workflow. Here's how we do it:
We study exactly where maintenance agreement tracking happens in your plumbing operation — the forms, the handoffs, the pain points.
Not a demo. Not a slide deck. A real, functional prototype that eliminates the pain point and works with your existing tools.
You test the prototype on a real job. If it doesn't fix the problem, you don't pay. No ReKeying, guaranteed.
Tell us about your operation and we'll build you a working solution. No ReKeying. No commitment. No credit card.
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Maintenance Agreement Tracking
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Maintenance Agreement Tracking
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Maintenance Agreement Tracking
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Maintenance Agreement Tracking