Work Order Management Blog Archives | BlueFolder

How to Build a Better Work Order Process Flow

BlueFolder — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 15:52:00 +0000

Inefficient work order processes and the lack of essential tools such as work order management software can lead to delays in your workflow, higher costs, lack of accountability, and a backlog of to-do lists.

The key to assess your current work order management systems is to identify gaps in your workflows. This allows you to update ineffective methods and restructure the process to help ensure seamless operations from start to finish.

In this article, we’ll examine how to establish a fully functioning work order system that helps your organization better manage and run your work order process flow.

What is a Work Order and Work Order Process?

Work orders are documented requests for repair, installation, or maintenance work for completion. These forms are useful across several industries where continuous equipment maintenance and other service jobs are a vital part of their customer relationships.

The following industries are examples of industries that use work orders to track their service requests:

Heat, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC)
Manufacturing machinery & equipment service
Industrial equipment service
Commercial food equipment service
Medical equipment service
Commercial security system installation and service
Fire detection and suppression system installation and service
Facilities maintenance

These types of companies often leverage work orders to track projects, tasks, expenses, working hours, the status of assignments, staff deployed, and other operational aspects.

Work orders can either be written or printed on paper or submitted as digital documents. A work order may be categorized based on:

The type of problem. Planned work orders are used to schedule preventive maintenance work. Unplanned work orders are for addressing unexpected maintenance activities such as equipment breakdowns.
Who initiated the work request. This can either be internal or external work orders.
How the work order was scheduled. Manual work orders are scheduled by hand and usually on paper. Using work order tracking software, you can set up automatic work orders to automate your work order scheduling based on data from your equipment’s installed condition monitoring sensors or your calendar.

A work order process is a system designed to ensure accountability and timely delivery in each step required to complete work requests, from the initiation to the invoicing stage.

Establishing an efficient work order process flow helps your organization stay on top of your work orders, reduce risks, streamline your workflows, and keep your team updated from beginning to end.

What are the Steps of a Work Order Process and How Can You Optimize Your Process?

While work order processes can vary depending on the complexity of the work, learning the standard process helps you see it in practice, how it fits into your workflow management, and how you can improve it.

Initiation

A work order starts with a work request that contains a description of the work needing to be done, the customer information, contact person, location of the job, billing information, priority levels, deadlines, and account manager.

More specific details and attachments should also be included in the work order, such as images of any equipment to be installed or serviced, serial numbers, and detailed descriptions to avoid potential servicing errors.

Establish a consistent, uniform process for creating work orders within your company. Ensure work orders are generated for every job — whether it’s a single 30-minute parts replacement or a multi-site, weeks-long project — and put all the requests in one place.

For a quicker accomplishment of work orders, leverage templates with the necessary data fields. That way, your staff can simply fill in the same set of details every time. Doing these guarantees that your entire work is documented for all stakeholders to easily track and access, removing backtracking phone calls, meetings, and emails that eat up your time and productivity. Mapping out a formal, consistent request creation system also establishes order, helping your staff understand the workflow and service details needed to complete the job.

Companies often use traditional methods to record work orders, but these have serious flaws that can ruin your efficiency, business earnings, service quality, customer relations, and other things. For example, paper files tend to get misplaced easily. Details you write on whiteboards can be accidentally erased and cannot be archived for long (this is disadvantageous when you need to look up past transactions).

Digitize your documentation of work orders to be sure you do not lose and fail to meet the service requests. Use tools such as customer portal service software that allows your customers to submit work requests, view reports, check the status and see equipment or asset service history more efficiently at any time.

Planning

When creating, approving, and giving priority status to the work order, ask yourself these questions when choosing the right persons for the request:

How many people are needed to finish the job?
Where is the field location?
Which technician is in the closest proximity?
What skills and expertise are required for the task?
Which among the field staff is available for the scheduled work?

If you do not have any available field technicians, or the service request needs capacities that are beyond what you can presently offer, consider hiring trusted external contractors.

Dispatch and Scheduling

Once you’ve chosen the right technicians, use the dispatch and scheduling features in your field management software to assign the work order. Monitoring assignments on a centralized schedule or dispatch board helps you keep track of equipment maintenance, service appointments, and overall visibility over your technicians’ schedules. It will also help you avoid double-booking and manage customer expectations better.

Share all the necessary work order information with your service techs and give them access to helpful resources, such as:

Detailed job and customer descriptions, including job site location
Compliance and service codes
Required equipment or parts at the service site
Information relevant to the asset’s or service request’s history: diagrams, videos showing equipment damage and repairs applied, purchase orders, notes by previous technicians, etc.
Essential details, such as real-time personnel and vehicle locations, inventory data, and others.

Providing these resources hastens this stage of your workflow and improves your service implementation.

Fulfillment and Execution

The execution stage is when the Field Service Engineer (FSE) or technician fulfills the task outlined in the work order. FSEs should know what the job entails, the required parts or equipment, and the reference materials to use in case they need it to complete the job efficiently and successfully.

Monitor and record how long it takes to complete every task, keeping your team in the loop at all times and cutting down forgotten minutes. Ensure communication lines among your back-office personnel, managers, and field techs are open throughout the entire process to effectively implement quality assurance.

FSEs should also log everything while working on jobs, including job-related expenses, labor hours, and materials, so it’s easy for your account/service managers to provide real-time cost estimates with your customers. They should even note if a certain device has precarious or sensitive conditions and needs more careful handling, and other details unique to it or the service request that the next delegated FSEs must know.

This helps you correctly handle your next work orders for specific customers, gives insight to improving your support services and processes, improves your technician’s first-time fix rates, and keeps your customer satisfaction high.

Review or Verification

The review stage is where your non-tech personnel checks and compiles the billable charges and verifies all the information’s accuracy before issuing an invoice.

Accomplish your work order charges review as the job nears completion, so managers or team leaders have enough time to reconcile the data, check for errors, and ensure the total numbers’ accuracy. Some projects with many moving parts can be difficult to calculate and verify. Use a work order management platform with accounting software integrations to review and validate your billable activities more efficiently.

Billing & Invoicing

Once the FSE completes a work order, it enters the closeout phase and will be ready for invoicing. As long as the closed work order has gone through the proper checks and balances throughout its life-cycle, issuing an invoice will be quick and easy.

Attach a duplicate of the work order to your customer’s billing statement. File your copy of the invoice to the customer’s folder in your contact database, so you can trace your transactions history efficiently when needed. You should also confirm with your customer if they’d like to keep the same billing address (whether email or otherwise) and mode of invoice delivery (electronically or printed).

Conclusion

Improve your work order process flow by understanding each stage of the process and how work orders move through them and identifying gaps that prevent workflow efficiency. Schedule a demo of the BlueFolder platform and get a live demonstration of the work order management software and tools which will match your unique business needs, streamline your workflows, remove unnecessary tasks that hinder efficiency, and help you produce better and faster results.

The post How to Build a Better Work Order Process Flow appeared first on BlueFolder.

Everything You Need to Know About Work Order Management

BlueFolder — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 18:01:58 +0000

It’s been a long time since you asked, “What is a work order?” Maybe back in your first few days in the field services industry, you needed an introduction to the formal documents that define maintenance tasks and capture important details about each job. Today, it’s second nature to you. But take some time and ask yourself again, “What is a work order?” Look beyond the surface details and think about what it means for your business.

What is a work order?

For a customer, the work order is their formal request for services. It’s the start of your interaction and the main vehicle for communicating the requirements of the job. Customers don’t want to spend tons of time submitting work orders, and they don’t want to wait until office hours to make the request. They want an easy process they can access at any time, and they want to know that once that request is submitted, your team is gearing into action.

Technicians are out in the field, racing from job to job. They rely on work orders to provide all the information they need for a successful service call. It may include the location, time, and work description as well as supplies needed, part numbers, access instructions and more. Technicians don’t have desktop computers, of course. They need work orders that are easy to find, easy to read, and reliably contain the most recent information.

As the record of every job, the work order drives your business. It’s the channel for jobs coming in from customers; it’s the instructions for executing the work; and it’s the basis for sending invoices. These forms are essential to your success, which is why you need a robust, efficient, and reliable work order software for managing them.

If your work orders still look like this, it might be time to implement work order processing software and bring your work order management process into the 21st century.

What is the process of a work order?

A work order process is a system designed to ensure accountability and timely delivery in each step required to complete work requests, from the initiation to the invoicing stage. In order to optimize work order process efficiency or to identify and resolve work order concerns, it is necessary to understand each step of the work order process.

The stages of a work order process typically include the following:

1. Initiation

2. Planning

When creating, approving, and giving priority status to the work order, ask yourself these questions when choosing the right persons for the request:

How many people are needed to finish the job?
Where is the field location?
Which technician is in the closest proximity?
What skills and expertise are required for the task?
Which among the field staff is available for the scheduled work?

If you do not have any available field technicians, or the service request needs capacities that are beyond what you can presently offer, consider hiring trusted external contractors.

3. Dispatch and Scheduling

Once you’ve chosen the right technicians, use the dispatch and scheduling features in your field service management software to assign the work order. Monitoring assignments on a centralized schedule or dispatch board helps you keep track of equipment maintenance, service appointments, and overall visibility over your technicians’ schedules. It will also help you avoid double-booking and manage customer expectations better.

4. Fulfillment and Execution

5. Review or Verification

The review stage is where your non-tech personnel checks and compiles the billable charges and verifies all the information’s accuracy before issuing an invoice.

6. Billing and Invoicing

Here’s a helpful infographic that illustrates the work order process.

What is work order management?

Work order management is a system of defining, assigning, tracking, and billing jobs and/or service contracts.

1. Defining the work

Work orders may be one-time jobs, recurring jobs, or involve managing service contracts. Service contracts usually include blocks of hours, pre-paid amounts, or warranties, and they often specify expiration dates. With BlueFolder, business owners can quickly view the full lifecycle and history of work orders as well as the details of associated service contracts. The software also offers customers access to a customer portal, allowing them to see the details of their contract or open work orders. This type of transparency is a huge competitive advantage for businesses using work order tracking software because customer loyalty increases when all parties are on the same page.

2. Assigning the work

With BlueFolder, it’s easy for scheduling personnel to divvy up assignments to the right technicians and communicate all pertinent work order details. When technicians know which work order should be associated with labor hours, material costs, and other expenses, business owners don’t have to worry about costs appearing at the end of a billing cycle that were never accounted for. That means more revenue and better profit margins.

3. Tracking the work

Tracking work over the life of a job or service contract can be tricky with manual methods, particularly when multiple technicians are involved. For Craig Hickman, vice president of sales at ProBleu, relying on BlueFolder improved tracking accuracy and yielded a 60% upswing in billings. Before, work orders would be serviced and closed without being recorded, meaning clients got free work. Because BlueFolder accurately tracks contracts and provides an important audit trail, companies can ensure they’re billing clients the correct amount. As Hickman put it: “I wish I would have started with BlueFolder earlier. I missed out on a year of savings.”

4. Billing the work

With manual contracts, it’s easier for billable charges to slip through the cracks, costing your company valuable revenue. BlueFolder keeps contract details updated and makes them visible to both service businesses and their clients, ensuring that neither party gets an unexpected surprise at the end of a billing cycle. As an added bonus, customers pay invoices faster when the bills are easy to understand.

What are the benefits of a work order management system?

Field services management (FSM) software ensures that your critical work orders are handled quickly, easily, and correctly. Handling work orders through an FSM software reduces errors, frees labor hours, serves customers faster, and speeds payments. The application can also be customized to follow your preferred workflow and procedures.

Streamline work order submission and approval.

Since the work order is your main channel for new business, you want it to be as easy as possible for customers to submit requests. With an FSM system, you can offer online forms that customers can fill out anytime from anywhere. Technicians or salespeople can even submit orders from the field if needed.

Once an order’s in the system, your managers can follow up, add important details, approve, assign, and schedule the work in one place. Even complex jobs are easier to manage. One work order, for example, may have several technicians and several scheduled assignments depending on what needs to be done. Instead of keeping track via paper or spreadsheets, you handle complex work orders in an FSM software with a few clicks.

Less manual labor means fewer errors, less lag time between work order submission and work completion, and lower costs. You can even update multiple records at once and create recurring work orders automatically.

Keep the team updated.

With an FSM system, everyone on your team sees the work details and status. A dedicated portal offers status information to customers, so they don’t have to call or email for information. When techs are working on a job, they have access to the most recent work order, so they won’t miss a late change. Also, as they complete the work, they can add notes, status changes, and photos to the record through a simple mobile interface. You and your customers never wait for updates.

Integrate with other systems.

When you have a different system for scheduling, billing, and work order management, it’s important that those applications can share information. Otherwise, you’re back to copying and pasting, making multiple data entries, or manually exporting data from one system and importing to another.

However, a modern FSM software will integrate with common business applications, such as QuickBooks® and Microsoft Outlook. Once your work order is in the FSM system, you never have to copy it to your billing system or calendars. You save time, avoid typo mistakes, and lower costs.

Keep good records.

If you’re currently using spreadsheets or paper, it’s very difficult to compile the information for analysis of activities and trends over time. And it’s especially hard to search for specific information.

An FSM system changes the equation, keeping all information in one place and offering the ability to search quickly for details. With the reports and dashboards that FSM softwares offer, you can easily look back over a quarter or a year of work to identify high-value customers, best performing technicians, and profitability.

You may not have asked yourself “What is a work order?” in a very long time. But if you’re planning to grow your business this year, it’s time to appreciate how important they are and adopt an intelligent system to manage them.

Your field service technicians and maintenance crews are always on the go. Give them a mobile work order management solution like BlueFolder to make their service calls go smoother (and faster – with fewer mistakes).

How do you manage work orders?

Field services companies have a range of strategies for processing and managing work orders. Some folks are still printing paper, passing documents through email, and copying details into the billing system. Some companies have added spreadsheets to help track and organize work order assignment and status. Business processes often grow organically as your company expands. But the more work you earn, the more tedious, labor-intensive, and error-prone, traditional management techniques become. You need a smarter, more efficient way to handle these essential business drivers.

BlueFolder makes work order management simple and effective.

BlueFolder’s FSM software was designed with the user in mind. We know that your FSM system is only effective if it’s easy for technicians, customers, and administrators to use, so we’ve made every interaction simple but powerful.

BlueFolder offers smart work order management that minimizes labor and speeds processing, so customers get work done faster and you get paid sooner. Here are just a few work order management features BlueFolder offers:

Create orders from anywhere via email or webform.
Customize workflows for your specific needs.
Create custom work order status values, automate status changes, and set defaults.
Capture a customer’s signature directly into work orders to record acceptance.
Quickly integrate with Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, QuickBooks®, FreshBooks, Xero, and more.
Easily record labor, materials, and expenses.
Attach files and links to any work order.
Make bulk edits and updates to multiple orders at once.

See for yourself how BlueFolder streamlines your work order management and boosts your team’s productivity.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Work Order Management appeared first on BlueFolder.

Assigning Work Order Categories in Your System

BlueFolder — Tue, 31 May 2022 15:00:41 +0000

Field service businesses run on work orders. Everyone uses some kind of work order to kick-off each job, track status, and trigger invoices. But many companies leave out a crucial detail from this process – the work order category. It may not seem obvious that categories are important to work order management. But in fact, categories help your team prepare for and complete jobs properly. They also help you improve business processes and grow profits.

Common Work Order Categories for Field Service Companies

When field service companies categorize work orders, they tend to use a handful of traditional labels. These have developed over decades of business experience, but every company is different. You may decide to use some of these but add custom categories as well.

Common work order categories and their meanings:

Inspection: equipment needs to be audited or examined for condition. These service orders are usually carried out on a predetermined schedule. Technicians will make note of any problems they find during an inspection and create a corrective maintenance order as a follow-up.

Preventive Maintenance: technicians conduct basic equipment care to keep it running well. They may replace parts, make adjustments, clean areas, or add lubrication in order to avoid unexpected failure. Most companies schedule preventive maintenance at regular intervals for critical or expensive machinery.

Corrective Maintenance: during inspections or preventive maintenance, technicians may uncover problems that need more work. If so, they generate a corrective maintenance order to replace parts, address safety concerns, or troubleshoot performance problems.

Reactive Maintenance: technicians are called out to fix equipment that has broken down. These work orders will have varying levels of urgency based on how badly the failed machines impact business operations. Some companies may consider breaking reactive maintenance categories into sub-categories based on priority.

Emergency: technicians have to respond in short order to fix critical equipment that has failed. Usually, a customer’s business is severely hampered, and they need repairs immediately. Many companies commit to handling emergency orders within an hour.

Other Categories: depending on your business and types of customers, you might add other common categories, such as Electrical, Safety, Special Project, Upgrade, Installation, Damage, or Meter Reading. It’s also a good idea to have a General label for work that doesn’t fall neatly into predetermined groups.

Work Order Categories Help Ensure Technicians Have What They Need

A well-designed set of categories will ensure your team adds all the important information to a work order, so technicians have what they need for each job. For example, inspection requests might link to factory specifications and list diagnostic tools needed to access sensor readouts. Preventive maintenance orders can display the task checklists and repair history. And corrective maintenance orders can link to the previous technician’s observations and relevant manuals.

Work orders customized by categories can also help technicians follow up properly. After inspections and preventive maintenance, they need to record their observations and note any follow-on work required. For emergency calls, they should explain why the equipment failed and how to prevent the problem going forward. Work orders customized for each category type will provide reminders and make it easy for technicians to input important details.

Reporting Based on Work Order Categories Helps Improve Business Processes

Reports that show you how many jobs you’ve completed in each work order category over the last quarter or year will help you understand the percentage of your business each job type represents. And based on that information, you can determine where you want to take the company and how to get there. If you do mostly emergency work, for example, you might decide to embrace that and market your expertise and responsiveness to new customers. Or you might want to decrease your percentage of emergency work and build a recurring revenue stream by encouraging customers with a high frequency of emergency calls to sign up for preventive maintenance contracts.

It’s also useful to review completed records in the same category and assess the results. For instance, determine how often preventive maintenance finds problems that generate corrective work. Or compare the number of hours logged for each job type versus the estimate and use that data to make better estimates in the future.

Assessing the typical outcomes of all the jobs in a category can lead you to insights about how to improve processes, increase profits, or serve customers better. Here are some ways you could use the data to drive better results:

When technicians find a problem during preventive maintenance, how often do customers approve corrective work? Could you improve the frequency by following up with the customer or turning estimates around faster?

How often are reactive repairs needed within a month of an inspection or preventive maintenance? If that number is higher than you’d like, what might be the cause? Were important details missed in the inspection? Should checklists be revised to improve outcomes?
How fast were emergency jobs completed? If they’re not meeting your company goals, what’s causing the delay? Are technicians having a hard time getting parts? Or is it difficult to schedule the right expert for emergencies? It might be time to revise inventory management or cross-Btrain technicians.

Use BlueFolder to Get the Best Value from Work Order Categories

While assigning work order categories is good practice for all field service businesses, it’s even more powerful when combined with an intuitive, flexible FSM application like BlueFolder.

Clear and simple interface allows you to create any set of categories or work order fields that make sense for your business.
Powerful reporting lets you view all jobs from a high level or drill down by category, customer, technician, or any other important field to get the data you need to grow and thrive.
Customizable smart lists help your team meet company goals by letting technicians know if they’re behind on response times or need to complete follow-up notes.

BlueFolder does more for your company than an average FSM software because it’s easy for every employee and contractor to use. That means you have detailed, comprehensive records for each job and multifunctional reporting that serves up profit-boosting insights.

Kick off a free trial and today and see what BlueFolder in action can do for you.

The post Assigning Work Order Categories in Your System appeared first on BlueFolder.

Five Things to Look For in a Work Order App

BlueFolder — Thu, 19 May 2022 16:16:23 +0000

When your field service business is humming along, you’ll rarely see techs in the office – they’re out completing jobs. But they still need to access work order information and update status as they go. A mobile work order app can make this process convenient and efficient. A work order app presents all the information for service tasks on a mobile phone or tablet. Employees access instructions, customer history, and equipment details on their devices. When done, they enter notes and status directly into the system for immediate update.

But not all work order apps are equal. It’s important to find one that meets the needs of your business and your techs. To find the right solution for you, look for these 5 essential features:

1 – A Dashboard Offers a High-Level View

Mobile apps with a dashboard help technicians plan their days, stick with a schedule, and prioritize work. A good dashboard organizes tasks by status and urgency so users can make a quick assessment about how to manage their time. They can drill down into any task for relevant information, such as attachments, notes, instructions, driving directions, and other job-related details. They should also be able to view or link to a calendar for appointments.

2 – On-Site Work Order Updates Increase Productivity and Consistency

An effective mobile work order app should help users make updates on site. With simple editing features, techs can change the work order status as soon as they’re done. Plus, they can add labor hours and expenses immediately.

Without on-site work order updates, you have to call techs for progress reports or wait until they’re in the office. The more time that lapses between job completion and work order updates, the more likely someone will forget an expense or misremember the hours spent on a job, which could lead to billing mistakes and lost profits.

When techs make updates promptly with a work order app, management and customers follow status in real time. And accounting can kick off the billing cycle as soon as a job is done, which speeds cash flow.

3 – Attaching Photos and Videos Enhances the Work Record and Drives Additional Business

Work orders and associated notes are important documents for your business. The more information they capture about each job, the better story they tell for your customers, internal audits, and business planning. Photos and videos often tell the story better than any notes or status tags can.

Even before mobile apps were available, techs would often take photos or videos of their work for customer review. Pictures are also useful for recording the condition of equipment or identifying other issues that may lead to follow-on proposals for additional work.

A good mobile app makes it easy to take and attach a photo or video with just a few clicks and set it for public or private view, depending on whether customers need to see it. With easy uploading, techs are more likely to snap pics, adding important details to work records that you and customers will appreciate.

4 – Signature Capture Speeds Cash Flow

There’s no better time and place to get customer approval than on site just as a job is completed. A good mobile app with signature capture enables on-location digital approvals; customers can “write” their signatures directly into the app. Your team no longer has to spend time trading emails for customer approval and waiting days or weeks until you can start the billing cycle.

5 – Work Order Apps Optimized for Mobile Usability Have the Best ROI

Mobile apps need to pack a lot of functionality into a small screen. There’s no keyboard for easy typing, and web forms designed for computers don’t always translate well to mobile. Any good work order app should be optimized for mobile usability. If it isn’t, techs will find it a pain to use and revert back to paper or spreadsheets; your business won’t realize the benefits of your investment.

For the best usability, the app should use a simple, clean design displaying only relevant information to the task. You shouldn’t see any space wasted on useless details or graphics. Because mobile apps are used in many environments, they should be easy to read in bright daylight or dim areas, and you should see a clear contrast between text and background colors.

The flow of interaction should follow a logical progression with relevant menu options on each screen and an easy way to back track. Commonly used tasks should be optimized so techs can finish them in just a few clicks. Tasks that involve uploads or downloads, such as attaching photos, should show status icons so users can tell if the action is in progress or completed. And if there’s an error, the app should help users get back on track with informative error messages.

Finding the Right Work Order App Makes a Difference

It may take a little time to find an app that checks all the boxes, but the effort is worth it. Well-designed solutions pay off better in the end. If the interface is easy to navigate, for example, techs will learn it faster and use it more. When your team is using the app regularly, your process is more consistent, you keep customers and managers updated in real time, and the billing process starts earlier, easing cash flow.

Customers love the results from a good work order app. They get status updates faster, view photos of the finished work, and receive timely, accurate invoices. The transparency builds trust and helps grow your business.

These days, almost everyone carries a cell phone wherever they go. Why not take advantage of the devices to help your business run smoother and drive margin? Choosing the right work order app will get you there.

BlueFolder’s Work Order Mobile App Fits the Bill

BlueFolder understands that a field service management (FSM) system provides the most value when technicians, management, accountants, and customers can all use it effortlessly. So we’ve designed an FSM software that’s incredibly easy to use. And our mobile app is no different.

Technicians in the field benefit from a simple and efficient interface, the ability to upload photos and videos, and signature capture. Your team can update work order status, labor hours, expenses, and notes with a few clicks. The BlueFolder work order app puts the power of FSM in your techs’ hands, boosting business efficiency and maximizing billable hours.

Want to see what a well-designed mobile app can do for your business? Take it for a test drive today.

The post Five Things to Look For in a Work Order App appeared first on BlueFolder.

8 Best Practices in Managing Your Maintenance Work Orders

BlueFolder — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 16:00:06 +0000

For facility maintenance and field service businesses, maintenance work represents a reliable revenue stream. However, managing a constant influx of requests, keeping up with technicians in the field, and tracking equipment can overwhelm your staff, especially as business grows. Incorporating best practices in managing maintenance work orders will help you control the chaos and get your team operating smoothly.

Put All Necessary Information in the Work Order

Typically, a work order includes at least the requester, task description, assignee, and scheduled date. But if your team needs other information regularly, develop a process to include it in each request. You may want to add job instructions, equipment specs, supplies lists, customer contact details, travel directions, or access codes. If helpful, you could also include requirements which helps schedulers determine the right tech, such as necessary skills or certifications.

Define and Use Meaningful Status Tags

A work request goes through several stages from submission to billing, and it’s easier for your team to know where each is in the process if you assign statuses. Typical status labels include “new request,” “approved,” “work in progress,” and “complete.” But you might need others for special situations, such as “parts on order” or “declined.” These terms serve as shorthand, so managers quickly know what’s been done and what’s left for each job.

Status terms have to be meaningful and consistent to work properly. Specify the terms your company will use and stick with them. Also, help employees get in the habit of updating status regularly.

Define Priority Standards for Managing Time Conflicts

Inevitably, you’ll have weeks when maintenance work orders overwhelm your ability to respond immediately to each one. Before that happens, set up a system of priorities which tell your team which requests should be addressed first and which might need to wait.

When determining high, medium, and low priority work, consider the type of equipment involved, the customer relationship, and any contractual obligations such as response times. For example, you may assign high priority for work on machinery that’s essential for your customers to do business. A request could get medium priority if the customer can still operate but productivity suffers. And low priorities would include repairs which don’t impact customer operations significantly.

Assign priorities at work order creation, even if there are no conflicts at the time. Then, if an urgent request comes in, you can easily determine which low priority jobs could be postponed.

Save Records of Past Maintenance Work Orders

A maintenance work order is your record of each job. And together, over time, they reveal patterns, such as how long equipment tends to last, what kind of repairs are needed regularly, and how long it takes to complete different jobs. Using old work orders as a reminder of previous experience and lessons learned, your team can estimate work more accurately, avoid past mistakes, and refine offerings to better serve customers.

Many companies struggle to make use of past records because it takes time and effort to collect, organize, and analyze the information. But the data captured from completed work orders can save money and help grow your business, so it’s worth the effort.

Document Work in the Field

When your technicians are on-site fixing equipment, they should be able to document their activity in the work order and add photos if needed. The documentation serves as proof of maintenance done and enhances the historical record. Often techs find other problems with equipment which aren’t on the original service request. If so, the notes and photos can easily transform into a new work order.

Use a Common Calendar

Managing work orders involves complex logistics. You have to fill technicians’ schedules, minimize down time, ensure they have all the supplies needed, and keep customers informed. It’s easier to plan efficiently, if everyone works from a common calendar.

With one schedule for all techs, managers know where everyone should be at any point. When a new request comes in, the dispatcher schedules the right staff to minimize down time. And if there are last minute changes, you can adjust with minimal disruption.

Streamline Handling for Recurring Work

With some jobs, like preventive maintenance, you’re doing the same service on the same equipment for the same company at regular intervals, so it doesn’t make sense to recreate a work order for each visit. Simplify the process by designing reusable templates or making duplicates of past orders.

And if possible, set alerts for pending preventive work. Many customers forget to schedule maintenance on time, which is lost work for you and may cause equipment failures later. With alerts, you can set up the job up, keeping customers happy and your techs busy.

Use a Field Service Management (FSM) Application

Even the most dedicated field service companies have a hard time following these best practices if they’re still using pen and paper or email and spreadsheets to manage work orders. These manual approaches take time. And when people get busy, they take shortcuts which undermine your efforts at sustaining best practices. A robust FSM automates the manual tasks and offers additional functionality, which helps you stick to best practices and makes them even more effective.

With an FSM, your team will

Easily fill out detailed maintenance work orders.

Simplify work order submission with templates and duplicate requests for recurring work.
Update statuses in the field.
Allow techs to attach photos and make notes about each job.
Store records of previous customer work to support new jobs.
Provide easy access to past work, so you can find old records when you need to.

Connect job requests to relevant equipment manuals, diagrams, and customer access instructions.
Assign priorities to each job so it’s easy to rearrange the schedule if emergency requests come in.

Follow Best Practices the Easy Way with BlueFolder

BlueFolder’s cloud-based FSM application turns work order chaos into focused productivity. Your team will submit, assign, and schedule work orders with a few clicks. Technicians can access relevant documents, instructions, and customer history from the field on any connected device. And it takes just a few minutes to update the work status, enter notes, and add photos, so you can get the invoicing process started.

BlueFolder’s integrations with common billing applications and calendars streamlines your entire operation. And the customer portal gives clients the status and updates they need without having to call and ask you for it. Plus, the application is so easy to use most companies are up and running in a few days.

Many field service companies struggle with work order management, but yours doesn’t have to be one of them.

See what BlueFolder can do for you today.

The post 8 Best Practices in Managing Your Maintenance Work Orders appeared first on BlueFolder.

How to Implement a Preventive Maintenance Program

BlueFolder — Sat, 15 Jan 2022 05:36:45 +0000

Short-term expenses keep many businesses from implementing preventive maintenance plans. But a well-considered and streamlined plan can boost productivity, decrease waste, and help organizations meet their future maintenance needs.

In fact, a report by BOMA (the Building Owners and Managers Association) compared the costs of maintaining and replacing equipment and found that the longer a capital expense can be delayed, the greater its return on investment will be.

A preventive maintenance plan is an FDA requirement for many in the biomedical industry, but simply having one isn’t enough. It needs to be evolving, streamlined, proactive, and automated. Utilizing medical equipment service software can simplify that process.

Preventive maintenance work is done when there aren’t any fires to put out and creates useful information that a company can analyze to gauge when its equipment could fail in the future.

Automating the process saves time and creates accountability. It allows stakeholders to predict the hours people will put in and the parts necessary to keep things running prior to a breakdown, balancing preventive and reactive service. Techs can document what was done, record the overall health of the asset in question, and recommend repairs to keep everything online and functional.

Setting Up a Preventive Maintenance Plan

It isn’t difficult to implement best-practice maintenance planning and scheduling. There are five things to put on your checklist when getting started:

Know the numbers.
A good preventive maintenance plan varies from business to business and industry to industry, but there’s one common thread among them all: numbers. Accurate data is the bedrock of a maintenance program. You have to know the average life span of your equipment, its age, and its failure rates if you’re going to plan properly to maintain and repair it.
Involve key stakeholders.
When plans are created alone, they tend to be followed alone. Everyone impacted by a preventive maintenance plan should be involved in its design and implementation. Draw up a list of tasks or requirements for your preventive maintenance efforts, document which stakeholders will be affected, and get stakeholders into the room to talk through things together.
Establish a system to identify, tag, and track equipment.
An effective preventive maintenance plan also needs to account for key equipment. Warranty information, service dates, and results all need to be recorded together. Invest in a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), like BlueFolder, to take on this project. A good CMMS can improve the reliability of your equipment by as much as 35% to 50%.
Keep track of time.
Maintenance tasks are most disruptive when their timescales are unknown. Some tasks might take only a few minutes, but others can drag on for days or weeks — and the uncertainty can be devastating. Track maintenance as it occurs to avoid negative outcomes, and use the data to anticipate future costs, personnel needs, and downtime.
Keep improving.
Preventive maintenance plans should evolve with your company’s needs. They shouldn’t be set up and forgotten. Hit the pause button and evaluate your maintenance systems and processes. Optimization is a constant process, so make sure you are prepared to be in it long-term.

Having a best-practice maintenance planning and scheduling framework is a key part of running any business or maintenance department. While it might require an initial investment, building and executing an effective maintenance program will cut your costs in the long run and mitigate the negative effects of downtime.

Put the right maintenance systems in place, make sure everybody in your organization understands the processes involved, and dive into the numbers. When you set yourself up to be proactive instead of reactive, you’ll find success.

The post How to Implement a Preventive Maintenance Program appeared first on BlueFolder.

How to Boost Efficiency with a Work Order Management System

BlueFolder — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 23:54:43 +0000

What is Work Order Management Anyways?

Before we talk about how a digital work order system can boost efficiency, it’s important to first understand what a work order actually is. In every industry, the purpose of a maintenance work order system, work ticketing system, or work request process (all three being very similar) is generally the same: to provide visibility into all of the components that make up the work life cycle — labor, materials, comments, scheduling, work tracking, and other important information. This allows teams to see what work has been done, what is currently being prioritized, and what work will need to be done in the future.

The work order lifecycle

Eliminating friction at each stage of the work order lifecycle is crucial to improving efficiency. What are the stages of the work order lifecycle?

A work request is submitted via phone call, email, or using a customer self-service portal.
The work request is approved by a service manager, dispatcher, or admin.
The work is assigned to a technician or team of technicians.
Work is completed, and the work order is closed.
The invoice is submitted to the billing department for payment processing, or customer payment processed instantaneously.

It can be a complex process, but it’s a vitally important one. Organizational success depends on employees knowing what they have to do and when. And customer satisfaction hinges on the timely delivery of services. Yet despite its importance, many businesses, municipalities, hospitals, and other organizations still rely on work order management systems that consist of spreadsheets or paper documents, which are not the most efficient ways to communicate and get things done.

The Traditional vs. Modern Order Management Process

In the modern business environment, speed provides a competitive edge. The cumbersome flow of paper between technicians, managers, owners, and accounting and billing departments cuts into that advantage. Moreover, manually organizing work request forms and transferring paper documents for approval or billing purposes creates additional opportunities for something to get lost or messed up. This puts the organizations that rely on this workflow at a competitive disadvantage.

Similarly, a reliance on spreadsheets presents its own challenges, particularly as it relates to user rights management, billing, and invoicing.

Here’s an example:

A facilities coordinator at a hospital or university is often responsible for a host of tasks. These might include coordinating work orders, managing outside contractors on specific projects, and coordinating budgeting and accounting systems, among others. If this person receives a maintenance request phone call, he has to enter the request into a spreadsheet manually and then call a service technician to make the repair. If a replacement part is needed, the technician is responsible for communicating that information. If the facilities coordinator doesn’t receive it or forgets to update the spreadsheet, important information about the part needed, who ordered it, etc., gets lost. And if the spreadsheet doesn’t have proper user restrictions, valuable information can be accidentally overridden. All of this dramatically decreases the response times of the facilities coordinator and, ultimately, the speed at which work can be completed.

Work order software solves these problems.

Minimizing errors with Work Order Software

A digital work order system is primarily centered on maintenance tracking. It takes all of the components that make up the work life cycle — from scheduling to assignment to completion — and consolidates them into one easy-to-access bucket.

An automated work order system makes it easy to stick to work order management best practices and maximizes employee productivity by eliminating the flow of paper documents or the need to manually update spreadsheets. It speeds up approval, billing and invoicing, and communication with contractors. Perhaps most importantly, it minimizes opportunities for human error.

In the example above, if the facilities coordinator were using a digital work order solution, he could have simply made a maintenance request through a web app rather than having to make a phone call. He could have assigned the work to a technician who could then update the status of the work, all from within the app. If new equipment was needed, the technician could make a note on the digital work order, giving everyone real-time updates on the job’s progress.

Not surprisingly, digitizing the work order management process stands to benefit nearly every organization that provides services to internal teams or externally to customers.

Industries that Benefit from Work Order Management

Practically any business or organization that provides maintenance service of any kind can reap the benefits of digitizing their work management with a work order management software.

Medical Equipment Maintenance, Biopharma and Life Sciences
Work order management software is ideal for companies that service medical equipment, such as X-ray and imaging machines and equipment in dental offices, pharmaceutical labs, hospitals, and medical clinics. When work order management is digitized, it’s easier to comply with patient safety initiatives enacted by the FDA and requirements for preventive maintenance set forth by the ECRI Institute.

Many regulatory agencies audit healthcare service providers to ensure equipment is operating properly. Providers that leverage a digital work order system can easily provide accurate proof of service in a timely manner. As the healthcare regulatory environment continues to evolve and become more complex, these advantages will prove more useful.

Manufacturing
Menzel Elektromotoren, a global industrial motor supplier, recently transitioned to a digital work order system to shorten response times and improve the quality of its operational processes. All of its employees now have access to a unified database containing real-time data on all maintenance work that needs to be done. This level of transparency has made the nearly century-old company more agile and better equipped to compete in the tech-driven manufacturing sector.

For Menzel and other major manufacturers, maximizing equipment uptime is paramount. When equipment is down, production stops and operators become idle or inefficient, all of which results in lost revenue. Work order management software allows for real-time reporting so operators can quickly and accurately report breakdowns to the maintenance department. It gives technicians access to equipment service histories, allowing them to quickly diagnose and repair equipment. Furthermore, it allows finance departments and executives to be proactive rather than reactive, enabling them to forecast equipment replacements and budget accordingly.

Property Management
A digitized facility management work order system is a boon to anyone who manages the maintenance in multiple buildings, whether it’s a hospital, university, or apartment complex. It allows property managers to spend less time servicing requests and more time doing other important tasks.

Work order software solutions often have a user portal that minimizes the need for phone calls or emails to issue maintenance requests and decreases the need for “status check” calls or emails. Instead, staff and subcontractors can simply enter and update requests within the software.

Property managers can instantly see what work has been completed and what is upcoming or past due. Moreover, they can set automatically recurring work orders to automate preventive maintenance requests, which will ultimately extend the lifetime of equipment and ensure minor maintenance is completed, preventing more expensive repairs in the future.

Food Services and Franchise Management
Restaurants are required to keep cooking and food storage equipment in top-performing condition. As in the healthcare industry, laws mandate regularly scheduled equipment maintenance, and restaurants are subject to frequent inspections. With a digitized work order management system, managers and owners can maximize equipment uptime and easily schedule and track requests for fire and security system installations.

Other Industries that Benefit
Managed service providers in the IT and telecom industries and commercial field service providers can use work order software to record and manage incidents and help accurately set customer and technician expectations. Technicians can more easily optimize workflow processes, making them more productive and more effective.

Digital customer service agreements track hours, retainers, and all-inclusive agreements, and equipment tracking functionality updates all relevant stakeholders when troubleshooting is needed or changes to customer infrastructure are required. Plus, integrations with software like QuickBooks®, FreshBooks, Xero, and other back-end administrative and accounting solutions help to improve the billing process.

Work order management software streamlines workflows and promotes efficiency within enterprise-level organizations and service providers in nearly every industry, including:

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
Plumbing
Public utilities
Churches
Schools
Farms and agribusinesses
Research laboratories
Casinos
Public transport

Improving Productivity at Every Stage

With the right software, organizations will gain advantages at every stage of the work order life cycle. For example, here’s a snapshot of how BlueFolder can improve productivity throughout the duration of a job:

Scheduling:Once a customer or internal stakeholder initiates a request for service, you can easily see who is available to handle the request and promptly assign it to the appropriate technician or team. Likewise, you can see any unassigned work. For recurring jobs, requests are transmitted automatically so your team doesn’t have to track repetitive work.
Performance:Technicians in the field can easily record labor, materials, and other expenses associated with a job. Over the course of the project, you’re able to seamlessly manage service contracts and track billable activities against contract balances. Equipment tracking tools allow technicians to quickly share and store before and after photos and user manuals and make updates to equipment service logs. Automated emails alert customers about appointments and job status changes and allow comments to be added to keep everyone on the same page.
Completion:You can digitally capture customer signatures within work orders via a smartphone or tablet to record the acceptance of completed work. Detail logs ensure you know who performed the work and when it was completed. And the information is stored in an easily accessible database for anyone who might need it in the future. Once the work order is closed, it’s exported to accounting for invoicing.

Customize and Optimize for Complete Control

No two organizations are identical. Even though work life cycles are similar, details like approval, billing, and completion verification processes often differ. Fortunately, BlueFolder’s work order management software can be tailored to meet your organization’s unique needs. We support an unlimited number of searchable custom fields so you can track and find all data that’s relevant. You can even customize a work order’s status color and enable or disable features built into the customer portal to suit your preferences.

In the digital age, a growing number of companies are going paperless, and for good reason. Traditional work order management processes leave too much room for error — whether it’s lost or forgotten work orders, requests that aren’t processed properly, or time lost while waiting for work order updates — all of which can translate into lost revenue.

Unfortunately, many organizations have never taken the time to assess their work order management system, oftentimes because they don’t know where to start. If this sounds like you, we recommend that you gather all relevant stakeholders and have them map out an ideal workflow. It can be as simple as completing the statement “It would be great if…”

You won’t get ahead by maintaining the status quo. Once you’ve identified the problems you’re facing, you can begin exploring the digital work order solutions that will help you fix them. Find one that’s adaptable to your specific needs and try it out. You’ll eventually wonder how work ever got done without it.

If you would like to learn more, contact us at BlueFolder. We can answer questions as you consider upgrades to your work order management system, or request a demo of our services today. We’re here to help.

The post How to Boost Efficiency with a Work Order Management System appeared first on BlueFolder.

A Preventative Maintenance Checklist for Commercial Buildings

BlueFolder — Mon, 03 May 2021 16:56:00 +0000

If you own or perform facilities maintenance on a commercial building, you’ll need a commercial building maintenance checklist to help guide your repairs. The last thing you want is for your building to require extensive repairs that could’ve been avoided with preventative maintenance. Take a look at our comprehensive checklist for commercial buildings so you can ensure it stays in tip-top shape.

What Is Preventative Maintenance?

Preventative maintenance is performed proactively on equipment to lessen the likelihood of failure (and reduce any unexpected downtime) and prolong its life. Using preventative maintenance, you can lower your overall maintenance costs, improve the scheduling of preventative maintenance activities, and be more prepared for maintenance work with the right supplies, parts, and labor.

It’s no secret that equipment and assets in a commercial building are susceptible to breaking down and wearing out over time. That’s why you must get proactive to reduce the likelihood of unexpected failures happening.

The Ultimate Checklist

Lighting

Failure to maintain lighting fixtures can destroy energy savings and cause poor light quality. To keep your lighting in good condition, make sure to:

Check the exterior lights to ensure there are no torn cables and make sure all screws and hardware is in place and working properly
Replace gaskets for a watertight seal
Inspect lighting fixtures regularly
Clean lens surfaces and dust lamps to improve lighting
Make sure every lamp has the same color temperature
Safely store used bulbs (because lighting elements could contain lead or mercury) until a certified vendor can remove them
Re-aim adjustable lighting as needed
Replace burned-out lamps
Check any luminaries that have control gear, transformers, or accessories regularly (such as color filters, glare baffles, and spread lenses)

Safety

Conducting safety inspections regularly is essential for any commercial building to ensure the welfare of your propertyand its occupants. Make sure to replace old, faulty wiring and install smoke alarms according to local building codes. Checking these things monthly and replacing batteries every year is recommended. Inspect the fire alarms to check for fire hazards or anything that may be blocking the fire exits to the building. You also want to be sure there’s a fire extinguisher on every floor of the building and they’re regularly checked and recharged according to the manufacturer’s recommendation.

HVAC

To preserve indoor air quality and preserve energy efficiency, you must make sure your HVAC system is up to date. That means inspecting the system at least twice a year with seasonal start-up and run inspections and recharging P-traps or U-bend water traps for condensate drain pans. It’s also important to look for latch or screw updates, missing screw replacements, and gasket repairs that need to be made. You should also:

Clean and replace air filters at regular intervals
Inspect couplings and check for leaks
Lubricate pumps once a year and inspect for unusual noises
Ensure the superheat temperature falls between 10 to 20 degrees indirect pressure systems
Buy coil cleaner (if you can reach the condenser coil) and wipe it off
Inspect the settings for energy efficiency, especially the compressor, refrigerant charge, and thermal expansion valve periodically
Disassemble screens and access panels in cooling towers for inspection, including the sump and spray nozzles, support structure, fill valve, fan blades, tower fill, gearbox, drive coupling, and motor bearings
Clean the starter and cabinet and inspect the wiring
Check motor starter contacts for wear and efficient operation

Electrical

To keep your electrical equipment in working condition, electricians recommend checking outlets, breaker boxes, wires, batteries, switches, and other electrical components at least once per year to ensure there’s no cracking or corrosion. Replace any batteries that need replacing and keep circuit boxes, grilles, and electrical storage free of dust, dirt, and debris. Performing all of this maintenance regularly can extend the life of your equipment.

Plumbing

Maintaining your plumbing systems requires following these guidelines:

Check and replace refrigerant and oils
Inspect couplings to detect any leaks
Check fixtures in public restrooms and look for potential leaks
Check boilers and water heaters
Check contacts for wear and regularly run system tests
Look at sump and sewage pumps at least once annually
Lubricate water booster and circulation pump systems

Fire Safety

You should also perform regular preventative maintenance on the building’s fire safety system so that you can ensure it’ll work when it needs to. Check sprinkler heads, the central control panel, and pull stations. You’ll also want to check your standpipes and the pump supplying them. Make sure your pressure relief valves are properly calibrated. For instance, are you only getting 10 gallons of water when you should be getting 200 gallons per minute?

Bathrooms and Kitchens

Keeping the bathrooms and kitchens in great shape means getting inspections to discover damaged tiles, malfunctioning soap and paper towel dispensers, cracked or missing grout, and faulty hardware. If the company occupying the building handles food, get a general contractor to touch up the grout and caulk and inspect them every year before your inspection.

Interior

For optimum fire safety, doors and windows should be checked every year. Keeping the building as clean as possible can help ensure minimal wear and tear. Consider investing in a cleaning service that can do the floors, windows, bathrooms, and more.

Schedule carpet cleanings once every four to six months to remove allergens and to keep the place looking as professional-looking as possible. Clean the walls regularly and repaint them as necessary to enhance the building’s overall appearance. Hire a pest control expert to inspect the place routinely to prevent infestations before they occur or address them as soon as they do.

Exterior

Ensure the exterior of the property, including the roof, stays in good condition throughout the year. You can do that by performing a little preventative maintenance on it, just like you would the rest of the home. Exterior maintenance includes:

Inspecting the roof at least twice per year (and after any serious storms)
Clean the roof drains of debris
Clean surfaces in parking garages twice per year (coating replacement every 10 years)
Clean out the gutters
Examine the sheet metal, copings, and previously repaired sections when walking the perimeter
Check for wrinkles or tearing on roof-to-wall connections and flashings
Conduct a moisture survey to find leaks

Considering Asset Management and Equipment Tracking Software

Preventative maintenance on commercial buildings is crucial if you want to avoid expensive repairs before they occur and keep your building in great shape throughout the years. Use this checklist to ensure you’re always one step ahead of things so you can always address any issues immediately. Or take things a step further and get asset management and equipment tracking software through BlueFolder that can help you schedule preventative maintenance and track service histories, warranties, and serial numbers.

The post A Preventative Maintenance Checklist for Commercial Buildings appeared first on BlueFolder.

4 Tips For Efficient Service Contract Management Using Work Order Software

BlueFolder — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 03:34:52 +0000

Many businesses that dispatch technicians into the field often struggle with the same issues. They’re buried in paperwork orders and worried their business is leaving money on the table. If this sounds like your business, it might be time to implement work order processing software and bring your work order management process into the 21st century.

What is service contract management?

Service contract management is a system of managing work orders and service contracts to help companies keep track of client and vendor accounts. Service contract management software can revolutionize your business by changing the way you view, assign, track, and bill work orders.

BlueFolder’s software offers a variety of features that can help you get organized and see the big picture on vendors and contracts.

What are the 4 components of efficient service contract management?

Here are the 4 steps of the service contract management process and how they can improve your business:

1. Defining the work

Contracts usually include blocks of hours, pre-paid amounts, or warranties, and they often specify expiration dates. With BlueFolder, business owners can quickly view active contracts, pending contracts, and those that have expired or will expire in the next 30 days. The software also offers customers access to a customer portal, allowing them to see the details of their contract. This type of transparency is a huge competitive advantage for businesses using work order processing software because customer loyalty increases when all parties are on the same page.

2. Assigning the work

With BlueFolder, it’s easy for scheduling personnel to divvy up assignments to the right technicians and communicate all pertinent contract details. When technicians know which contract should be associated with labor hours, material costs, and other expenses, business owners don’t have to worry about costs appearing at the end of a billing cycle that were never accounted for. That means more revenue and better profit margins.

3. Tracking the work

Tracking work over the life of a contract can be tricky with manual methods, particularly when multiple technicians are involved. For Craig Hickman, vice president of sales at ProBleu, relying on BlueFolder improved tracking accuracy and yielded a 60% upswing in billings. Before, work orders would be serviced and closed without being recorded, meaning clients got free work. Because BlueFolder accurately tracks contracts and provides an important audit trail, companies can ensure they’re billing clients the correct amount. As Hickman put it: “I wish I would have started with BlueFolder earlier. I missed out on a year of savings.”

4. Billing the work

What is contractor management software?

Contractor management software is an application that is specifically designed to replace tedious, labor-intensive, and error-prone, traditional management techniques with a smarter, more efficient way to manage and track service contracts.

BlueFolder’s software offers a variety of features that can help you get organized and see the big picture on vendors and contracts. Our overview page provides a dashboard where you can see all your work orders, the personnel on each assignment, the profitability of each, and even key documents and photos related to a specific work order.

BlueFolder can also highlight contracts that are about to expire, giving sales personnel an opportunity to reach out to clients and obtain renewals from them. “From a revenue standpoint, having a good understanding of customers under contract and those about to expire is a revenue producer,” said Michael McHugh, senior vice president at HydroWorx, a BlueFolder customer.

If you’re still managing your service contracts manually, you’re doing yourself (and your business) a disservice. Make lost revenue and complicated contract management processes a thing of the past. Reach out to BlueFolder to schedule a demonstration, and you’ll see how our work order processing software will quickly become an integral part of your business.

The post 4 Tips For Efficient Service Contract Management Using Work Order Software appeared first on BlueFolder.

Three Strategies to Improve Work Order Management

BlueFolder — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 09:28:52 +0000

You’re probably familiar with the quote that goes something like, “if you want different results than you’re currently getting, you’ll have to do things differently than you currently are to get those results.” The same mantra applies to how your organization currently manages work processes.

Continuous improvement is something every business leader wants, which is why many turn to automation to save time, increase profitability, and enhance customer satisfaction. Companies that handle work orders can certainly see the benefits of streamlining operations. Understanding how to fill out a work order by including all pertinent information should be part of any workflow.

Companies considering changes to their work order management systems need to ensure that it will be accurate, and improve efficiency and customer satisfaction. It should include what a technician will need to complete the job. For instance, a comprehensive work order request should detail the problem and any other relevant information that might help the service provider begin troubleshooting the problem quickly.

Those taking customer calls should collect all relevant information to cut down on the need for questions between dispatchers, technicians, and customers. And providing accurate invoices to customers as soon as possible will help the company get paid sooner. The less friction between the stages of the work order process, the better the user experience for everyone involved.

Improving Work Order Efficiency

If your company is on a mission to sharpen your work order management, here are three strategies for your staff to implement.

Strategy 1: Provide detailed notes for technicians.

After a work order is created, the service provider will get to work on the request. Clear communication with the customer is vital to ensure the service provider’s team has all the information needed to do the job correctly. This lets the technician know what needs to be repaired, a detailed location of the assignment, and the contact person when the technician arrives on site.

It’s also critical that the technician knows which parts and tools are needed so he or she can get the job done quickly. Additionally, all customer concerns can be relayed to the technician. Once all the information has been collected, the dispatcher can send it on to the technician.

Strategy 2: Incorporate on-the-job status updates.

In many instances, technicians log labor and comments on work orders. BlueFolder ensures these notes are logged electronically with time and user stamps. Time information allows everyone to see the status of each job. Is a technician en route or onsite? One glance at the work order will tell the full story. Having this type of real-time data also assists managers in compiling averages.

For example, if it should have taken only 30 minutes to drive to a job but it actually took the driver an hour according to the work order log, the manager can start asking questions and dig deeper to discover the cause of the delay. An automated work order system allows managers and dispatchers the information to analyze and identify problems and find resolutions quickly.

Strategy 3: Set up quick, transparent billing processes.

Work order problems can play a role in preventing companies from receiving payment in a timely fashion. Billing can take days or weeks in systems that require human intervention. But invoices generated quickly by an automated system provide complete transparency and can ensure prompt billing.

Awaiting payments is a problem that many businesses face. According to figures from an Intuit study, 61% of global businesses report cash flow problems. Any good work order software will allow work orders to be processed the day the work was completed, which could help companies achieve a stronger, more reliable cash flow cadence.

Charting a course to better work order management is vital to keep business moving along efficiently. If you think an automated work order solution is what your company needs, schedule a demo today and give BlueFolder a try. See how BlueFolder can help resolve your cash flow problems with easy QuickBooks® Online integration.

The post Three Strategies to Improve Work Order Management appeared first on BlueFolder.