Getting vendors and contractors into one record
Outside contractors do a big share of the work in many operations, but their work often lives in email. Here is how to bring it into the open.
SilinX Editorial Team
Contractors fix the elevators, service the chillers, inspect the fire systems and handle the jobs your team cannot. Yet their work usually lives in quotes, emails and invoices. When something fails again, nobody can quickly see who worked on it last or what they did.
Treat vendor jobs like any other work order
Every vendor visit should start as a work order on the asset, just like internal work. That way the history stays complete no matter who did the job.
Make it easy for the vendor
Vendors will not log in to yet another system for every client. Send them the job through a simple secure link where they can see what is needed and record what they did. The less friction, the more complete your records.
Compare quotes fairly
For bigger jobs, ask several vendors at once with the same scope. Line up price, start date and warranty side by side before you choose. It saves money and makes the decision easy to explain.
Review vendor performance
Once vendor work is in the system, you can see spend by vendor, asset and site, and which repairs held up. Use that at contract renewal time to keep the good partners and replace the weak ones.
- Every vendor visit starts as a work order on the asset.
- Use simple job links so vendors actually update the record.
- Compare quotes with the same scope side by side.
- Review spend and repeat failures by vendor.