Service agreements for commercial customers: an overview

Overview#

Service agreements are commercial maintenance contracts. Unlike memberships, which cover one home, an agreement can cover many sites and specific pieces of equipment, with planned (PM) visits, recurring billing, a not-to-exceed (NTE) limit for service calls and a response-time commitment. Use memberships for homeowners and service agreements for businesses, property managers and facilities.

Before you start#

Who can do what:

• See agreements (Follow Up › Service Agreements): jobs.read, every office role.

• Create and edit agreements: agreements.write (owners, admins, dispatchers, customer service and accounting).

• Activate, suspend, cancel and renew; run agreement billing: agreements.status (owners, admins and accounting).

• Book, skip and complete PM visits: agreement_visits.status plus jobs.write (owners, admins, dispatchers and customer service).

• Create and edit agreement templates: agreement_templates.write (owners and admins).

Steps#

Find the agreements page#

1. Go to Follow Up › Service Agreements.

2. The tiles show Active agreements (and drafts), Contract value / year, Visits due in 30 days and Ending in 60 days.

3. Filter the Agreements list by status: All, Draft, Active, Suspended, Expired or Canceled.

Start a new agreement#

1. Click New agreement, then search and Choose the customer. Commercial customers are listed first.

2. Optionally Start from a template to fill in the terms.

3. Set the name, start date, term length, billing cadence (Monthly, Quarterly, Every 6 months, Yearly, Per visit or Not billed (included)) and amount, the sites and equipment covered, the planned visits (months or every N months), an optional NTE, a response time in hours, auto-renew and a renewal price increase.

4. Save. The agreement is saved as a Draft. Activating it (accounting or an owner) generates the visit schedule and starts billing.

Book PM visits#

1. The Visits due card lists open visits through the next 30 days, with Overdue badges.

2. Check the visits and click Book selected as jobs.

3. The daily run also books visits automatically ahead of time, based on your branch settings.

Run renewals and billing#

1. Click Run renewals and billing to renew or expire agreements whose term ended, create jobs for visits due soon, and bill due periods. It also runs every day.

Settings that change this#

• Agreement templates (the Templates button on the agreements page): reusable terms.

• Settings › Operations › Branches: branch settings, including how far ahead agreement visits are booked.

• Settings › Accounting › Billing & Collections: collections rules for agreement invoices.

Tips#

• Use memberships for residential customers. They're simpler, include a repair discount and sell in the field with a signature.

• Use agreements when a customer needs a PO, an NTE, a response time, or several sites on one contract.

• Start every agreement from a template so pricing and visit plans stay consistent.

Troubleshooting#

• I can't activate an agreement. → You need agreements.status (owner, admin or accounting). → Ask accounting to activate it.

• "Pick at least one site". → An agreement needs at least one covered location. → Add a location on the customer page first.

• "Give a reason". → Suspending or canceling needs a reason. → Type one and try again.

• No visits appear after saving. → Drafts don't generate visits. → Activate the agreement.

FAQ#

Q: Can a customer have both a membership and an agreement? Yes. They're separate records. Memberships cover a home address; agreements cover commercial sites.

Q: What statuses can an agreement move between? Draft → Active or Canceled. Active → Suspended, Canceled or Expired. Suspended → Active or Canceled. Expired → Active (renewed late).

Q: Does the member repair discount apply to agreements? No. The repair discount comes from memberships only. Agreements use their own pricing, NTE and billing.

Coming from ServiceTitan#

• Same: ServiceTitan's Service Agreements (commercial) map directly: covered locations and equipment, recurring visits, billing schedules and templates.

• Different: TradesWork keeps agreements and memberships as separate objects with separate pages, and runs renewals, visit booking and billing in one daily job you can also run by hand.

• Where it lived: ServiceTitan Follow Up › Service Agreements and Settings › Service Agreement Templates.