How to manage maintenance requests at a small business

Most maintenance problems at a small business are reported the same way: a text to the manager, a comment in passing, a note taped to the machine. Some get fixed fast. Some get forgotten until they're expensive. And nobody can say what repairs cost last quarter.

Here's a simple process that fixes all three.

1. Give people one way to report a problem

Pick one front door and make it easy:

• A short form that asks where the problem is, what's wrong, a category (plumbing, electrical, cleaning, supplies) and a photo.
• A QR code printed in the break room, the kitchen, the back office or on the machine itself. Scanning it opens the form on any phone, with no app or login.

Keep the form short. If it takes more than 30 seconds, people go back to texting.

2. Triage: set the priority yourself

Don't ask the person reporting it how urgent it is. Everything becomes urgent. Read each request and set the priority: Low, Normal, High or Urgent. Urgent means it's unsafe, losing money or stopping work.

3. Schedule the fix

Each request moves through a few steps:

1. Submitted: you've read it and set the priority.
2. Scheduled: a vendor is booked or someone on the team has it.
3. In repair: work is underway.
4. Resolved: it's fixed and confirmed.

Every request has one owner, so "I thought you called the plumber" stops happening.

4. Don't close it without the cost

This is the step most businesses skip, and the one that pays off. Require the cost before a request can be marked resolved. After a few months you'll know which location, which category and which piece of equipment is eating your repair budget.

5. Tell the person who reported it

A quick email when it's scheduled and when it's fixed saves the "any update?" messages and shows staff their reports matter.

6. Put recurring work on a schedule

Filter changes, fire extinguisher checks and grease trap cleaning shouldn't depend on memory. Scheduled tickets create them automatically each month or quarter.

Using the template

The free maintenance request form template sets all of this up: the form with location, category, details and photos; priority and cost for your team; the four steps; and a rule that a request can't reach Resolved without a cost. Print the QR code and you're done.

If the same freezer keeps breaking, track it as equipment with its own QR label and repair log. See equipment and asset tracking, and read how a pet store tracks every machine and repair. Running several stores? See how locations work.