Job variations
Variations on repairs orders are costly
- A variation is practically always an increase in cost
- A variation causes additional administrative work
- Receiving the variation request
- Authorising the additional works
- Managing the payment approval of the extra cost
- Dealing with tenant queries about delays
- Too many variations leads to additional analysis and reporting
- Variations can lead to aborted calls and second visits (more cost)
- Repairs cost accruals (commitment accounting) is wrong.
- Variations often arise as a result of a repair call to 'investigate' the problem.
Managing Job variations It does not matter what contractual or working relationship you have with your repair organisation, if you are taking the repairs calls and placing demands on your supplier, then you need to be able to manage that relationship accurately and professionally so that you both make the best of it. That way lies reduced cost and increased satisfaction for all parties.
Lets look at the sums. I do not know how many properties you have, so fill in your numbers for yourself.
You |
Example |
 |
||||||
| No. of properties | A | 2,500 | ||||||
| Repairs per property per year | B | 2.2 | ||||||
| %age of repairs with variations | C | % | 21 | |||||
| Average value per variation | D | £ | 24 | |||||
| Annual cost of variations = A*B*C*D/100 | £ | 27,720 | ||||||
Whatever way you look at it, you have a number worth examining. Just imagine. if you could, by spending less than that amount just once, you could eliminate that additional cost for ever - and improve tenant satisfaction too!
Well, now you can with Repair-IT-now. Ask us to guide you through a Business Case analysis, click here right now.
But that is only part of the story.
Abandoned and aborted calls When you place an inaccurate or general call you stand a high likelihood of having the call abandoned. The you have to pay for it twice - and your tenant has to arrange to be present on two days to attend for the repair contractor. That's costly in both financial and relationship terms.
Tenant call backs When a repair call is not resolved first time you will receive a far greater number of calls from tenets asking about progress. From experience, each of this calls takes three times as long as the initial repair call. Tenants are kept 'on hold' while the repairer is contacted. Reduce or eliminate these and you have far more resource to devote to getting the call right in the first place.
Simpler, faster accounting Repair jobs that are placed correctly raise a single, correctly valued, work order. This, in turn, should result in a single, matching, invoice that can be processed automatically (subject to your normal procedures). No pain in your accounts department and your supplier is paid on time keeping the relationship sweet.
Want some of this for your organisation? Ask for a Repair-It-now demonstration today.
