Setting up a maintenance contract

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With a maintenance contract you record that a customer receives periodic maintenance, for example an annual service on a boiler. See how that works out at an installation and maintenance company.

How it works

A contract is an agreement in outline: a title, how often it recurs and when the next time is. Individual visits roll out of that contract — the actual appointments in the calendar.

As soon as the next visit date comes into view, 4planning schedules a visit itself. Complete it and the target date moves forward, and it starts again. That way the cycle keeps running without you tracking it.

Managing contracts is only possible as an administrator. Technicians do see their visits in their own schedule.

Creating a contract

  1. Open the customer and go to the Maintenance tab.
  2. Click New maintenance.
  3. Fill in a title, for example "Boiler service".
  4. Optionally choose a linked project. Note: you can't change this later.
  5. Choose the frequency: monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly.
  6. Fill in the desired date of the first visit.
  7. Optionally fill in a description or instructions.
  8. Save.

The contract is set to Active straight away.

Linking equipment

If your environment has the Products feature enabled, you can indicate on the contract which devices it relates to. Under Linked equipment / products you tick which of the customer's devices belong to it.

Isn't the device listed yet? Click New and fill in name, location, brand, model, serial number, installation date and warranty date. The device is then saved with the customer and linked to this contract right away.

If you disable the Products feature later, this section disappears but the links remain.

Where to find your contracts

There is no separate overview page with all maintenance contracts. You find them in three ways:

  • Per customer — open the customer and go to the Maintenance tab. This is the main route.
  • Dashboard — the Maintenance overdue block shows contracts whose visit has passed and for which nothing is scheduled. Five at a time at most.
  • Customers — there's a Last maintenance column there, which you can sort and filter on.

You can also ask Planny which customers haven't had maintenance yet, or what you need to schedule for a particular week.

Further reading

Good to know

  • The frequency is a fixed choice; a custom interval such as "every eight weeks" isn't possible.
  • There's no amount attached to a contract and nothing is invoiced automatically — it's purely scheduling.
  • Your customer can't view or reschedule their own contract or visits online.
  • There's no export of contracts or visits.

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