Pay for the work your providers actually did

The problem: work paid for without proof

Organisations rely on businesses and individuals to maintain their air conditioners, printers, generators or lifts, to provide IT support, security, cleaning or building work. Most of the time, the only record of an intervention is a paper slip, a WhatsApp message, or nothing.

The contract says "monthly maintenance of 12 air conditioners, response within 4 hours", but nothing checks that the 12 units were serviced or how long a breakdown waited. At the end of the month the invoice arrives with no statement of interventions, hours and parts to check it against.

Six kinds of contract, one model

• Preventive maintenance: a plan generates each period's interventions, for example 12 air conditioners a month.
• Breakdown repair: a reported failure opens a work order.
• Technical support: tickets often solved remotely, with included hours and extra hours billed.
• Outsourced staff: guards, cleaners or an IT technician placed on site, tracked by the day.
• Project work in stages: cabling, renovation, paid as each stage is received, with a provisional then a final reception.
• Managed service: lift or connectivity availability, with credits when the target is missed.

The chain, from contract to payment

The contract defines what is owed and how fast. Work orders say what has to be done. Each intervention is a visit that produces a report. The requesting department receives the work and signs a completion certificate. Each period closes with a computed statement, and the provider is paid from it.

Refused work goes back to the provider with the service-level clock still running: only work received on a signed completion certificate reaches the statement.

An on-site intervention, step by step

• Arrival: the technician checks in at reception. Their identity is compared with the contract's list of authorised people, a badge is issued and the work order is shown. Someone not authorised is held, not silently admitted.
• Hand-over: the host from the requesting department receives the technician and confirms where the work takes place.
• Work: the technician records tasks, findings, parts used and photos, from the mobile app or at the end.
• Report: before leaving, they record the result (fixed, partly fixed, needs parts, needs another visit, not fixable).
• Departure: check-out closes the visit and records the time on site, person by person. It does not close the work order.
• Reception: the requesting department receives the work, receives it with reservations or refuses it, with a reason. The person who receives it is neither the technician nor the person who entered the report.

Receiving the work: the completion certificate

A service is only finished when it has been received. The requesting department reviews the work and makes one of three decisions: received, received with reservations, or refused. A refusal always has a reason and sends the work back to the provider.

Reception produces a completion certificate (work-done reception report): numbered, signed by the requester and the provider, then frozen as a PDF. It can no longer be changed; a correction creates a new certificate that replaces the previous one.

• Reservations: each defect found is a reservation with an owner and a due date. Lifting it is recorded with evidence, and the certificate shows which ones are still open.
• No decision: if the requester does not decide within the agreed time, they are reminded, then the matter goes to their manager, or tacit reception applies if the contract provides for it.
• Payment: only the quantities and amounts received go into the statement. An open reservation can hold back part of the amount.

Projects: provisional, then final reception

For a project (cabling, renovation, installation), each stage produces a progress statement. At the end, a provisional reception records the hand-over of the works and lists the reservations. It starts the guarantee period, during which reservations are lifted and defects repaired.

The final reception closes the project and releases the retention. It is refused while any reservation is still open. Each reception has its own signed, numbered certificate.

Service levels measured, not declared

Each contract sets its service levels by priority, for example for a critical failure: respond in 1 hour, on site in 4 hours, resolved in 8 hours. VisitSoft measures them from real events: the provider's acknowledgement, the check-in at reception and the reception of the work, using the contract's business-hours calendar.

A preventive intervention not done by its due date stays visible as missed. Remote support is recorded as a session, with its start, end and a report, and it counts towards service levels and hours.

Outsourced staff

Each of a provider's agents placed on site is linked to their company and the contract. Their attendance comes from a badge, a QR code, the app or reception, one session per shift. The tasks they do are attributed to them, absences and late arrivals are reviewed, and a replacement must also be authorised on the contract.

The end-of-period statement

• Preventive work done against the plan, requests opened and resolved.
• Service levels met or missed, by priority.
• Hours used against hours included, time on task against time on site.
• Parts used and days of outsourced staff.
• The computed amount: base fee + extra hours or interventions + billable parts − credits for missed service levels − missed preventive work.
• Every line links to the work orders behind it. The provider confirms or disputes line by line, and a disputed line is held while the rest moves on.
• The confirmed statement becomes a payable. The provider's invoice is matched to it, and any difference blocks payment until it is resolved.

Controls at every step

• Two different people are needed to approve the contract, receive the work, review the statement and pay.
• The provider only sees the work orders, reports and statements of their own contract.
• Every status change, reassignment or pause of the service-level clock is recorded, with the person, the time and the reason.
• Equipment outside the contract's scope needs the contract manager's decision before any work order.

Deciding at renewal time

For each contract and provider: preventive plan compliance, share of interventions on time, first-visit fixes, work refused or received with reservations, time to lift reservations, equipment with repeated failures, cost per asset and per intervention. These figures feed a contract dashboard and a provider scorecard, useful when deciding to renew or end a contract.