Twelve pages most contracting businesses are missing.

Closes: no customer reactivation process

Past-customer reactivation sequence

Your cheapest customer is one who already paid you and was happy. Most contractors never contact them again, then buy advertising to find strangers. A reminder date on its own does not fix this: a date tells you to do something, it does not decide who to contact or what to say. This does.

Step 1 — Build the list once

• Everyone you have invoiced, with the date, what the job was, and the address.
• Mark anyone you would not want back. Be honest; a bad customer is not worth reactivating.
• Split the rest into three groups: work that recurs on a cycle, work that ages and eventually needs doing again, and one-off work where the opportunity is a different job or a referral.

Step 2 — Decide the trigger for each group

• Recurring work: the interval you would recommend, set from the date you last attended.
• Ageing work: a date far enough out that the question is genuinely useful rather than pushy. Pick it from the actual life of what you installed, not from a marketing calendar.
• One-off work: a seasonal contact, once or twice a year, before the season rather than during it.
• Write your intervals down. Deadline Reminders will hold the dates for you once you know what they are.

Step 3 — The contact itself

Short, specific to the job you actually did, and useful whether or not they buy. Anything that reads like a mailshot gets treated like one.

Step 4 — Make it happen without you remembering

• Put the contact on a fixed day: one block, once a fortnight, working the list by date.
• Record the outcome against the customer every time, including "not now, try again in a year".
• Add the next reactivation date at the moment you finish a job, not months later.

Free version: you keep the list and work it yourself. Deadline Reminders is live today and will tell you when a date arrives. Contractor Lane Operator will later hold the customer list, the intervals, and the outcomes together so the contact happens without a list you maintain by hand. Operator is not open yet, so nothing above is waiting on it.

Closes: no review or referral system

Review and referral request system

Asking when you remember is not a system. A system means every completed job triggers it, in the same words, at the same moment — which is right after the customer has told you they are pleased, and not a week later when the feeling has faded.

The rule, written down

• Who asks: the person who did the work, not the office. It converts better and it is not close.
• When: at the moment the customer expresses satisfaction, on site, before you leave. That moment is the whole system.
• How: ask verbally on site, then send the link the same day while they still remember agreeing.
• Who does not get asked: anyone where the job did not go well. Fix it first. Never ask for a review to paper over a problem.
• What gets recorded: asked yes or no, and left yes or no, against the job. Otherwise you cannot tell whether the system is running.

The review ask, on site

The referral ask, which is a different ask

A review is public and takes two minutes. A referral asks them to put their own name behind you with someone they know. They are not the same request and they should not be made in the same sentence.

Close the loop

• Respond to every review, good or bad, in your own voice. A short, calm reply to a bad one is read by far more people than the review itself.
• Thank anyone who refers you, immediately and personally, whether or not the referral turned into work.
• Record where each new customer came from at intake, so referrals show up in the source tracker below.

Free version: you write the rule and the crew runs it. The Google Business Profile post builder handles the public side of a finished job, though it asks nobody for a review. Operator will later trigger the ask on every completed job and record whether it happened. Operator is not open yet, so nothing above is waiting on it.

Closes: marketing spend is not tied to booked revenue or profit

Marketing source tracker

Knowing which channel makes the phone ring is not the same as knowing which one produces work that earns. A source can generate the most calls in your business and still be the one losing you money. This ties spend to booked jobs and to revenue, which is the only comparison worth making.

The one habit that makes this possible

Record the source of every single enquiry, at the moment it lands, without exception. If that does not happen, nothing below can be filled in and no software will rescue it later. Ask the question in the same words every time: “How did you come across us?”

Fill this in monthly, one row per source

The arithmetic

• Cost per booked job = spend on that source ÷ jobs booked from it. Not per enquiry. An enquiry you did not win cost you money and earned nothing.
• Revenue per dollar spent = revenue booked from that source ÷ spend on it. A source with a high cost per job can still be your best one if the jobs are large.
• Booking rate = jobs booked ÷ enquiries. A source with a poor booking rate is either sending you the wrong work or is being answered too slowly, and those have different fixes.

Free version: one worksheet a month, filled in by hand, which is enough to change a spending decision. Operator will later tie the source recorded at intake through to the invoice automatically, so this table builds itself. Operator is not open yet, so nothing above is waiting on it.

Closes: capacity decisions are based on instinct

Two-week capacity check

“Can I take another job this week” answered by looking at a calendar and estimating is how you end up with a crew standing around one week and a customer let down the next. One comparison, done the same way each week, replaces the instinct.

Do this every week, same day, for the next two weeks ahead

1. Available hours. For each person who does billable work: the hours they are actually available in that fortnight, after time off, training, and anything already booked out.
2. Subtract what you know is not sellable. Travel you do not charge for, shop time, standby. If you have run the labor burden calculator you already know your own split; use your own figure, not a guess.
3. Committed hours. For each job already booked into that fortnight: the production hours you estimated for it. Not the calendar slot — the hours.
4. Compare. Sellable available hours minus committed hours. That number is your answer, and it is the same answer for everybody who asks you this week.
5. Write down the rule you will follow when the remaining number goes below a level you choose: stop booking, book into the following fortnight, or price differently. Decide it once, in the calm, not on the phone.

Two honest cautions. Committed hours are only as good as your estimates, so if jobs routinely run over, this will tell you that too. And a fortnight is short on purpose: any further out and you are forecasting rather than deciding.

Free version: one comparison, by hand, once a week. The Vault adds the full capacity model, booking rules, and how pricing moves once the schedule is full — see what is in it before deciding whether you need that.

Closes: hiring happens ad hoc, with no documented process

The five-step hiring gate

Most contractors hire by posting something and seeing who answers, which means the decision is made by whoever happens to apply. You do not need a recruiting department to fix that. You need five gates written down, applied to everyone, in the same order.

Write your own five. These are the ones worth having.

1. The screen. The three things that make somebody an automatic no, checked before you spend an hour on them. Write them down; the point is that you apply them when you are busy and tempted.
2. The phone call. Same questions, same order, every candidate. Twenty minutes. You are testing whether the basics hold up and whether they turn up to something they agreed to.
3. The sit-down. What the job actually involves, what a normal week looks like, and what you expect. Ask them to describe a job that went wrong and what they did about it — answers to that separate people faster than anything else you can ask.
4. The practical. Something real and observable, appropriate to the level you are hiring at. Watching someone work for an hour tells you more than three interviews.
5. The checks and the written offer. Whatever references and credential checks you have decided you take, done before an offer, and then an offer in writing stating pay, hours, and start date.

Rules that make the gate worth having

• Nobody skips a step, including the person you are sure about. That candidate is precisely why the process exists.
• Score each stage in writing as you go, not from memory afterwards.
• Ask every candidate the same questions in the same order, so you are comparing candidates rather than conversations.
• Write down what happened for the ones you did not hire. You will hire again.

Free version: write your five gates and use them. The Vault adds the full recruiting workflow, interview question sets with a scoring sheet, and a candidate comparison worksheet — see what is in it.

Closes: no onboarding checklist

New hire onboarding checklist

A new hire's first week currently depends on who happened to be around. Everything below is something that must be true before you can say somebody is genuinely started — list it once and it stops being remembered differently each time.

Before day one

• Written offer accepted, with pay, hours, and start date confirmed.
• All paperwork you have decided you collect, completed and filed — see the personnel file checklist below.
• Any credential you require sighted, recorded, and its expiry date noted (Deadline Reminders will track that date for you).
• Tools, keys, phone, uniform, and personal protective equipment ready on the day, not ordered on the day.
• Accounts and access created: scheduling, email, phone, any system they need.
• Somebody named as their first-week point of contact. Not “the team”.

Day one

• Walk the yard or shop, meet everyone, know where everything lives.
• How the day works: start time, dispatch, breaks, end of day, who to call and when.
• Your safety expectations, handed over in writing and acknowledged.
• How work is recorded: photos, notes, timesheets, materials, whatever you use.
• How they get paid: cycle, timesheet deadline, who to ask.
• The role sheet, handed over and read together — see the next template.

First week

• Ride along or work alongside somebody experienced, not alone.
• Walk through the procedures they will actually use, on a real job.
• End-of-week conversation: what is unclear, what they need, how it is going.

First 90 days

• A check-in at a fixed interval you set, not "when there is a problem".
• A written note each time of what was discussed and what was agreed.
• A clear point at which you decide whether this is working, and they know when that is.

Sign-off

Name, start date, who completed the onboarding, date completed, and a signature from both of you. Without a sign-off, this is a list rather than a checklist.

Free version: one checklist, applied to everyone. The Vault adds role-based onboarding paths and a completion sign-off system; Operator will later track whether each item was actually done. Operator is not open yet, so nothing above is waiting on it.

Closes: no written roles or expectations

One-page role sheet

“Everybody knows what they do” is true right up until two people both think the other one is doing it. This is one page per person. It is not a contract and it is not a performance review — it is the answer to four questions that otherwise come back to you.

Copy this and fill it in per person

Do yours first. Writing down what only you can decide is how you find out which of those things somebody else could be deciding, and that list is the start of the business running without you in it.

Free version: one page per person, written by you. The Vault adds job description templates by position, reporting-line worksheets, written performance standards, and a full decision-authority map — see what is in it.

Closes: worker files are incomplete or inconsistent

Personnel file checklist

The usual state of this is that some people have more on file than others, and nobody could say which. This is a checklist of categories to make a deliberate decision about, per person, so that the answer is the same for everyone.

Categories to make a deliberate decision about, per person

• Identity and contact details, and an emergency contact.
• The offer or engagement terms, as agreed in writing.
• Agreed pay and any change to it, each change dated.
• Whatever paperwork your payroll provider tells you is required before somebody is paid.
• Licences, certifications, and required training this person holds, with expiry dates.
• Anything they have been given and acknowledged: safety expectations, policies, handbooks, the role sheet.
• Equipment, keys, phone, and vehicle issued to them, and returned by them.
• Training completed, with dates.
• Reviews, check-ins, and performance conversations — see the next template.
• Anything you have decided is held separately from the general file. Decide that once, with advice, and apply it to everyone.

Rules that stop it going inconsistent again

• One file per person, in one place, in the same structure for everybody.
• Decide who can open it, and make that decision real rather than nominal.
• Personnel files never live with customer job files — see the records separation checklist below.
• When something is added, date it. An undated document in a personnel file is close to useless.
• Do not decide how long to keep any of it from this page. That is the retention worksheet, and it needs a professional's answer.

Free version: the checklist and one file per person. Operator will later hold the worker record, the expiry dates, and the acknowledgements together rather than in a drawer. Operator is not open yet, so nothing above is waiting on it.

Closes: nothing is documented when performance is addressed

Performance conversation record

You already have these conversations. The gap is that nothing is written down, so six months later there is no record that it happened, what was agreed, or whether anything changed. This is a record of a conversation, nothing more.

One record per conversation

Two habits worth having

• Write it the same day, while you both still recall it accurately.
• Record the good ones too. A file containing only problems is not a record of a person's performance.

Free version: a form you fill in and file. We are not routing this to a product: what you should do about the conduct itself is a professional's question, not a software feature, and we would rather say so.

Closes: subcontractor records are scattered rather than kept as a file

Subcontractor file checklist

What you hold on a sub before they start is the difference between their problem and yours. Scattered across email and texts is the same as not held at all on the day somebody asks for it.

One folder per subcontractor, in the same structure each time

• Legal business name, trading name, address, and contact.
• Their licence or registration, checked against the issuing authority itself and not against a copy they sent you. The official lookup for your state is here.
• The date you checked it, and by whom. A check with no date is not a check.
• Their insurance certificate, and its expiry date. Deadline Reminders will tell you before it lapses.
• The written agreement between you, signed before work starts.
• Their W-9, collected before the first payment goes out. The form is on the IRS site; who you need one from is a question for your bookkeeper or CPA.
• Scope and pricing agreed for each job they do.
• Invoices and payment records.
• Any issue on a job, and what was done about it.

Free version: the checklist, one folder per sub. Operator will later hold the sub record with its expiry dates attached. Operator is not open yet, so nothing above is waiting on it.

Closes: no separation between personnel records and job files

Records separation checklist

This one needs nothing you have to buy and no software. Everything in one pile is a problem you fix in an afternoon and then never think about again.

Five separate top-level places, whether that is folders, drives, or filing cabinets

1. Customer and job records. Estimates, contracts, change orders, photos, permits, invoices, payment records, warranty terms, callbacks. Organised by job.
2. Worker records. One file per person, per the personnel file checklist above. Never inside a job folder, ever.
3. Subcontractor records. One folder per sub, per the checklist above. Separate from both of the above.
4. Financial and tax records. Bank, bookkeeping, tax filings, loans, payroll reports.
5. Safety and incident records. Your written expectations, training records, incident and near-miss reports.

Then decide access, once, per category

• Who can open each of the five. Write it down.
• Make it real: if it is a shared drive, set the permissions; if it is a cabinet, lock the one that needs locking.
• Anything you have been advised to hold separately from the rest of a personnel file gets its own place, and access is set accordingly.
• Review who has access whenever somebody joins or leaves. This is the step everyone skips.

How to do the migration without losing a day

• Create the five empty places first.
• File everything new correctly from today. Do not start with the backlog.
• Work the backlog in one fixed block a week, newest first, because that is what you are most likely to need.
• Stop when the remainder is genuinely dormant. Perfect is not the objective; separate is.

Free, and finished. This is not a paid feature at any tier and we are not going to pretend it is one.

Closes: no record retention rule — partly

Record retention policy worksheet

A rule for how long you keep records is worth having. We are not the ones who can tell you what the periods are, and this worksheet is built so that you can capture a professional's answer rather than substitute ours for it.

One row per record category

Two things worth writing into the policy itself

• Who reviews this, and when. A retention policy written once and never revisited describes a business you no longer run.
• What happens when something is under dispute or a claim: that is a situation where normal destruction stops. Ask your attorney how they want that handled and write down their answer, not ours.

Free, and this is as far as anybody should take it without advice. We route the underlying question outside Contractor Lane on purpose — a place to store records is not a rule for how long to keep them, and no product we sell or plan to sell changes that.