Vendor Contracts

A contract records a service agreement with one of your vendors: its term, its value, the visits it entitles you to, and the equipment it covers. Contracts live under a vendor — open the vendor, then the Contracts tab.

What a contract records

• Reference, title and type (maintenance, service, warranty…)
• Start and end dates, with a renewal notice period
• Total value and currency
• Visit frequency and the next scheduled visit
• Auto-renewal, and how many days' notice to cancel

Equipment covered by the contract

On the contract form, 'Covered assets' lets you list the equipment the agreement applies to. Each covered machine then shows the contract on its own page, under 'Contracts covering this asset' — so the question 'is this pump still under contract?' is answerable from the equipment, not only from the vendor. Coverage is edited on the contract; the asset page shows it read-only.

Contract files

A contract has a Documents tab: the signed agreement, annexes, a certificate of insurance. Give each file an expiry date and FreeMaint warns you before it lapses, rather than after — the same reminder mechanism the rest of the document library uses. A file can also be attached to several records at once, so one insurance certificate can cover a contract and a work permit without being uploaded twice.