Small-Facility Service Agreements: Flat Fee vs. Per Visit

For example, a two-technician shop offers “full maintenance” for a monthly fee. The owner expects emergency repairs at every building; the shop priced one weekday walkthrough. The dispute starts with the undefined promise.

Choose the price model after listing the sites, assets, tasks, and service capacity. Put the accepted arrangement in the facilities agreement, with schedules the dispatcher and customer can both use.

Establish the starting condition

Complete a facilities inspection report before pricing recurring coverage. Identify addresses, occupied hours, critical operations, access, asset tags, existing vendors, warranties, and known defects.

For each asset, mark whether the provider will maintain it, observe and report only, coordinate a specialist, or exclude it. A monthly visual check is different from servicing a refrigerant circuit, testing a fire alarm, or repairing an elevator. Verify the applicable qualifications, licenses, permits, and manufacturer conditions for the actual work.

Price pre-existing defects separately or state their treatment. New sites, equipment, operating shifts, or critical functions need an agreed capacity and price review.

GSA's operations and maintenance guidance emphasizes preventive maintenance and coordinated operating roles in its federal-building context. For a private small facility, translate the idea into named tasks and responsibilities rather than adopting federal procurement obligations.

Compare three pricing choices

A flat fee suits predictable tasks and assets with an understood condition. Per-visit pricing can suit uncertain demand or an initial diagnostic relationship. A hybrid can preserve scheduled care without pricing every possible failure into the fee.

Cost the actual labor, travel, reporting, supplies, subcontract coordination, on-call staffing, callbacks, overhead, and margin. Test promised response times against geography, absences, and simultaneous calls. Avoid “unlimited” unless the coverage and capacity truly support it.

Present the alternatives in a facilities proposal, with the same scope boundaries in the quote.

Name the task and the clock

Write “change the listed filters, record sizes and condition, and report exceptions” rather than “check HVAC.” The filter-log guide shows how asset-level evidence supports the visit.

For corrective calls, separate request receipt, human acknowledgment, dispatch, arrival, temporary protection, restoration, and permanent completion. Define coverage hours, time zone, territory, priority triggers, update intervals, and escalation.

A two-hour acknowledgment target is not a two-hour arrival promise. State which interruptions pause a target and what update is owed during the pause. Do not sell voicemail intake as staffed emergency coverage. Give occupants the site's emergency-service and utility instructions for immediate hazards.

Control spending and safe access

Name who may request service, provide access, and approve added cost. These can be different people. Set a not-to-exceed approval that identifies scope and amount, plus a stop point before it is exceeded. Narrow any emergency spending authority to defined temporary measures, contact attempts, and a cap.

Use a change order for agreement changes and a facilities work order for each authorized visit. The general service-work-order guide helps carry approval into the field.

Exchange site hazards, shutdown responsibilities, emergency procedures, and access controls before service. For covered work, OSHA 1910.147 requires outside and on-site employers to exchange energy-control information. OSHA 1910.1200 addresses multi-employer chemical-hazard communication. Determine applicability to the task; neither a price cap nor a customer priority waives employer duties.

Report the result and plan the exit

Each ticket should show asset, complaint, timestamps, actual work, labor, parts, readings or photos, authorization, condition left, and open actions. Label temporary relief separately from permanent repair. Invoice against that record and summarize allowance use, overdue tasks, and repeated faults for recurring clients.

Retain approvals and exact versions. ESIGN section 7001 recognizes electronic form while preserving other legal requirements and record-accessibility duties.

Define renewal, price review, cancellation, notice methods, and final coverage. New York GOB 5-903 can affect property service and maintenance renewals, including business recipients; it excludes renewal periods of one month or less. Calendar the actual applicable notice requirements.

At exit, return keys, revoke access, deliver records and open-work status, and reconcile parts and prepaid balances. The owner-training handoff guide supports that transition.