ElectricalBossPro Blog — Commercial Accounts

Yearly Safety Inspections Across a Portfolio: Every Building on a 365-Day Plan

One inspection is a job. An inspection at every building an owner has, every year, is a program. Owners and property managers with several buildings often like the idea of a yearly electrical walkthrough at each one, but they do not want to keep track of the dates. If you can keep track for them, you have turned a one-off visit into recurring work that comes back every year.

From One Report to Every Building

What goes into a single inspection report is covered in Safety Inspection Reports for Building Owners: Printing the Results After Every Walkthrough. This article is about doing that across a whole portfolio without losing track.

The challenge is not the inspection itself. Your techs know how to do a walkthrough. The challenge is remembering that Building A is due in March, the retail suite in June, and the three rentals in the fall, year after year, while everything else in the business is happening too.

A 365-Day Plan on Each Address

In ElectricalBossPro a yearly safety inspection is a recurring plan with 365 days between visits. Put the plan on each building's address under the owner's client. Each address carries its own plan, so buildings can be on different schedules. One building's inspection might fall in spring and another's in fall, depending on when you first did them.

When an inspection comes due, it lands on the Waiting List map. Pins are colored not due yet, due now, or overdue past a 7-day grace. The office sees which buildings in the portfolio are ready for their yearly walkthrough without opening a calendar.

Grouping Inspections or Spreading Them Out

Some owners like every building inspected in the same month, so they get all the reports at once. Others are happy to have them spread through the year. Both work.

• Grouped: do the first round of inspections in the same few weeks. Each building's 365-day plan will bring them back around the same time next year, and the office can route them together.
• Spread out: let each building come due on its own date. Inspections fill in quieter weeks and do not crowd the schedule.

Either way, the Waiting List shows what is due and the office decides when to send a van.

Routing Inspection Days

Inspections take longer than a relamping stop, so a van might only fit a few buildings in a day. On the dispatch board, the office assigns the due inspections to a van and a day and uses auto-route, Closest First or Furthest First from the shop, to order them. Many shops put inspections on the same van that handles installs and generator work, while another van stays on service calls.

The tech's phone shows each building with its access notes, equipment and the inspection checklist. When the tech completes the visit, that building's plan starts counting toward next year.

Reports for the Whole Portfolio

Each inspection produces its own report. The office can print an Electrical Safety Inspection report for each building and send them to the owner. Over a couple of years, the owner has a history for every building: the condition each year, the recommendations, and what was done about them.

The readings recorded each year sit on the job at that address, so your tech can look back at last year's visit before starting this year's.

Billing the Program

For a portfolio, Monthly billing usually makes the most sense. Each inspection completed that month shows up as a line on the owner's statement, labeled by address. A month with three inspections and a few repairs is still one statement.

If an inspection leads to recommended repairs, the office can quote them and send the estimate for online approval. That keeps the follow-up work flowing from the inspection program. For the estimate side, see Estimates for Tenant Improvements: Quoting Commercial Electrical Work From Your Service List.

Offering the Program

Pitching a yearly inspection program is simple: every building gets a walkthrough each year, the owner gets a report for each one, and you keep track of the dates. Owners can sign up for services and pricing through your sign-up form, and the plan does the rest.

A good time to bring it up is right after a one-time job at one of their buildings. The tech was just there, the owner just paid, and the question “would you like us to look at all your buildings once a year?” is easy to say yes to. Once the first building is on a plan, adding the rest is a few clicks per address.

Recurring Work That Builds Trust

A yearly inspection program keeps you in front of the owner every year and gives you a reason to visit every building. It is one of the best ways to become the electrician for the whole portfolio. For how inspections fit with the other commercial tools, visit the commercial electrical software overview.