Equipment readings, service and cost
Track hours and readings on a machine, know what it is due for, and see what it actually cost a job.
Equipment started as a note of which van somebody has today. This is the rest of it: the hours on the backhoe, when the van’s oil was last changed, what the compactor cost to run last quarter, and the six hours it spent on the Henderson job that the margin figure never saw.
Record readings on a machine
A machine carries readings the same way a customer’s unit does — hour meters, odometers, pressures, anything you track over time.
Take a reading and it is kept against that machine, so what did this read last time is a question with an answer. See Measurements for how readings work.
Know what it is due for
Set what a piece of equipment needs and when — by date or by usage — and the product tells you what is coming up rather than leaving you to notice.
That is the difference between servicing a machine and repairing one.
Inspect it before it goes out
An inspection is a template of lines, each answered pass, fail or not applicable, and a line can be marked critical.
A critical line that fails takes the machine out of service, and the failure raises a defect that carries photos. That consequence is the point: an inspection exists to judge whether a machine is fit to use, so finding a problem has to stop the machine.
An inspection also records one meter reading for the machine as a whole.
See what it costs a job
Record a machine’s usage against a job — hours or days — and it becomes a real cost column on that job’s margin, at the machine’s own cost rate.
Before this, a job that used a machine for six hours showed a margin that quietly pretended the machine was free. Equipment now sits beside labor and materials in the costing — see Job costing and margins — and appears on a job only when one side or the other actually has a figure.
You can also estimate equipment cost on a proposal line, typed as a figure or worked out from a machine’s hours or days at its cost rate.
See what it costs you overall
Reports cover equipment cost and equipment utilization, which together answer whether a machine is earning its keep or sitting in a yard depreciating.
Who has it today
Giving equipment out for the day, and seeing it on the day board, is Who has which van today.
This page describes Equipment Enhancements — Readings, Service, Cost, Inspections and Tools. It is written from that feature’s record and covers what has shipped, never what is planned.