A tenant meets you at the unit, but the dispatch does not say whether they can approve replacement hardware. Locksmith property management contracts fail when your technician has to guess who controls entry, spending, keys and payment.
Treat the property manager as an account. Test the account with one controlled work order. Then make every dispatch easy to authorize, complete, check and bill.
Screen the account before promising portfolio coverage
Choose the work before you discuss contract terms. List the locksmith jobs your company can complete with its current people, equipment and trade scope.
Your list might include:
- Emergency entry after an authority check
- Rekeying between occupancies
- Lock, latch and cylinder repair
- Identified hardware replacement
- Key cutting and controlled handover
- Temporary securing after damage
- Planned rekeying across occupied or vacant units
Separate entry, diagnosis, repair, replacement and temporary securing. They need different booking questions, hardware and approval routes.
Map the proposed buildings by postal code. Check travel, parking, building access, service hours and the hardware you are likely to encounter. Do not accept every address in a portfolio when your dispatch capacity only supports part of it.
Count the office work too. Someone must receive the dispatch, contact the site, confirm property access authorisation, send approval requests, track costs and prepare the invoice package. A short field visit can still create a long administrative job.
Use this table to accept, narrow or reject the account:
| Check | Accept when | Narrow or reject when |
|---|---|---|
| Service area | The listed properties fit your working area | The portfolio includes properties you cannot support |
| Job types | The requested work matches your trade scope and equipment | The account expects work outside your scope |
| Service hours | Your roster can cover the requested booking windows | The account requires hours you cannot staff |
| Dispatch capacity | Your office can receive, assign and track each work order | Dispatches will sit unassigned or displace current jobs |
| Approval response | The account names an approver and a working contact route | Technicians are expected to proceed without approval |
| Office handling | Your price can carry the booking, records and billing work | The account rejects the administration needed to control each job |
Ask how the account handles requests, spending approvals and invoices. Walk away from vague work with no named requester, no spending authority and no required invoice reference. Activity is not repeat business if you cannot control or collect it.
Build a vendor packet that survives a provincial boundary
Prepare one core vendor file before approaching commercial locksmith clients. Give the property manager the information they request, not a pile of unrelated records.
Keep these account details ready:
- Legal business name and registered business name
- Dispatch and after-hours contacts
- Accounts-payable contact
- Service area and accepted job types
- Quote and change-order contact
- Business registration details when requested
- Applicable trade credential identifier and expiry when requested
- Insurance proof requested by the account
- Workers’ compensation account or clearance evidence when requested
- Tax invoice details
- Billing fields your office can place on every invoice
Route each government question to the body responsible for it. Ask the Canada Revenue Agency (opens in a new tab) about your business number and GST/HST. Check business-name and registration questions through your provincial or territorial business registry (opens in a new tab).
A portfolio crossing a provincial or territorial boundary needs a location-specific checklist. Create one row for each province or territory and record the business registration, trade-scope and worker-coverage checks. Check the official local or provincial issuing authority for the property about any business licence or building permit question before stating that one is required.
Test the relationship with one controlled work order
Ask for one property, one reported fault and one approval route. Do not promise coverage across the portfolio before you know whether the account can dispatch and close one job properly.
The first work order should name:
- The billing account
- The property and unit
- The reported fault
- The requested result
- The requester
- The site contact
- The person permitting entry
- The person approving added work
- The person receiving keys
- The invoice destination and required references
Use that job to test the whole chain. Can the site contact provide access? Does the approver answer when inspection changes the scope? Can the office match your completion record to the invoice?
Compare estimated and actual labour, hardware, keys, travel and office time after the job. Keep cost tracking at work-order level. Fix any unclear contact, missing key recipient, slow change approval or rejected invoice field before accepting more properties.
Separate locksmith property management contracts from work orders
The standing agreement sets the recurring charging and approval rules for the account. Each work order or accepted quote carries the property, scope and approved amount or approval limit. Read the guide to what a work order does before letting an account agreement stand in for property-specific instructions.
Put these points in the standing account agreement:
- Service area and accepted job types
- Dispatch routes and escalation contacts
- Booking and cancellation handling
- Quote and change-order process
- How the account reports changes to access authority
- Master-key and restricted-key record controls
- Who may access account and key records
- Lost-key escalation and incident handling
- Completion records required by the account
- Invoice destination and payment process
- Contract term and termination process
- Disputed work and invoice handling
- Return or destruction of account records when the agreement ends
- Subcontracting restrictions or approval
Keep named recipients, property details, access instructions and key quantities in the individual work order. The quote prices the approved scope. A change order records approved changed work. The completion record shows what happened, and the invoice bills that work.
Have a Canadian legal adviser review contract clauses before you sign. Ask who can bind the account, who pays each charge, how disputed work is handled and how either party ends the agreement. Do not treat the agreement as blanket authority to enter any unit.
Write an authority matrix before dispatch
The requester, site contact and invoice approver may be different people. Write down the roles before the van moves.
| Decision or handover | Named person or role | Contact route | Record required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Request work | [Name or role] | [Phone or email] | Work order |
| Permit entry | [Name or role] | [Contact route] | Access confirmation |
| Approve changed work | [Name or role] | [Contact route] | Written change order |
| Receive keys | [Name or role] | [Contact route] | Key handover record |
| Receive completion record | [Name or role] | [Contact route] | Closeout package |
| Approve invoice | [Name or department] | [Contact route] | Invoice reference |
Confirm the property access authorisation again on arrival. Match the property, unit, occupant or site contact and work order. Physical access does not prove spending authority. It does not prove that the person may receive controlled keys.
The tenant may permit entry. The superintendent may meet the technician. Only the named property manager may approve hardware or receive controlled keys.
Stop when the caller, occupant, address or work order does not match. Contact the named account representative and record the updated instruction. For emergency entry, use the full lockout customer verification process before opening the property.
Keep access codes, occupant details and sensitive key information out of broad email chains and general dispatch messages. Put them in the restricted property record.
Inspect the opening before choosing the repair
A dispatch that says “rekey” is a reported request, not a finished scope. Inspect the key, cylinder, lock, latch, hinges, door, frame, closer and surrounding hardware.
Record what each part is doing. A lock fault can come from a damaged latch, a sagging door, a misaligned frame or another part of the opening. Replacing the cylinder will not fix a door that cannot latch.
For replacement work, record the door handing, thickness and material. Measure the backset. Note the existing preparation, frame condition, closer interaction, visible fire label and whether the hardware is electrified. Do not alter a labelled opening, egress hardware or electrified locking setup until the scope and any permit or code requirements are confirmed with the responsible government or statutory authority.
State the hardware, keys, testing and handover included in the scope. Write down assumptions about occupancy, access and the condition of the opening. Name excluded door, frame, electrical or finishing work.
If inspection is required before you can choose a repair, quote a diagnostic visit first. Send the repair or replacement options to the named approver after inspection. Do not make the technician negotiate an undefined replacement with the tenant.
Price each work order from cost and markup
Build the price from the job in front of you. Blanket rates can hide travel, office handling and unfamiliar hardware.
Cost these items where they belong to the work order:
- Attendance and diagnosis
- Field labour
- Hardware and keys
- Fasteners and consumables
- Equipment used for the job
- Travel attributable to the dispatch
- Office time for booking, approval and closeout
- Job overhead
Add markup after you have built the cost. The job-pricing method for labour, materials, overhead and markup gives you the order to follow without supplying a rate card.
Markup is what you add to cost to form the selling price. Margin is profit as a share of that selling price. Mixing them can hide losses inside jobs covered by locksmith property management contracts.
Keep repair and replacement as separate options when inspection has not settled the scope. State the property, work-order reference, hardware, key quantity, labour, assumptions, exclusions and approval contact on the quote.
Treat office time consistently. Charge it as a direct cost to the work order or recover it through overhead, never both.
Stop for a change order when the site changes the job
The technician arrives for a rekey. Inspection finds a damaged latch, a misaligned door or frame damage. The approved job has changed.
Stop the work. Record the condition. Explain how it affects the original scope. Send the revised work and price to the person named in the authority matrix. Get written approval before continuing.
The change order should carry the original work-order reference, condition found, changed scope, price change, approver and approval record. Record the approval through the route named in the agreement and work order before continuing.
Worked example: keep changed work separate
Oak Street is the house electrical example from another trade. It shows the same control point. All figures below are sample currency units, not locksmith prices or a Canadian rate card.
Quote Q-1847 for R. Chen at 14 Oak Street was 1,105. It covered a 150mm bathroom exhaust fan ducted through the roof and four LED downlights. The ceiling was lined, and the quote excluded chasing.
Extra cable and chasing were approved on site as a 160 change order. Invoice INV-1847 was therefore 1,265.
Job cost was 850 against the original quote. Profit was 1,105 − 850 = 255. Margin was 255 ÷ 1,105, or about 23%. Markup was 255 ÷ 850, or 30%.
Do not calculate profit using the 1,265 invoice. The costs of the 160 change order are not given. Keep the change record separate until its labour and materials are attached to the job.
Keep restricted locksmith key records
Keys need a custody record, not a note buried in the technician’s messages. Record what was cut, who controlled it and who received it.
Your locksmith key records can include:
- Billing account and property
- Unit or controlled area
- Approved key reference
- Quantity cut
- Technician or custodian
- Named recipient
- Handover method and date
- Returned, damaged, missing or unaccounted-for status
Use the account’s restricted incident route when a key is missing, damaged or not returned. Do not place sensitive key patterns, access codes or occupant details in a general invoice description.
Send a closeout package accounts payable can match
The first completed job is your proof that the account can trust the next dispatch. Send one package that connects the request, approval, work and bill.
Include:
- Work-order or purchase-order reference
- Billing account, property and unit
- Approved quote
- Approved change order, if any
- Completion notes
- Relevant job photos
- Hardware and key handover record
- Completion status and follow-up work
- Invoice with the required references
Show GST/HST treatment on the quote and invoice based on your business position. Take business-number and GST/HST questions to the Canada Revenue Agency rather than copying the tax treatment used by another contractor.
Accounts payable may reject a valid invoice when the work-order number, purchase-order number, property or unit reference is missing. Match the account’s required fields before sending it. If approval is delayed, ask which exact record or reference is missing and attach it to the same job.
Use Yes Foreman to keep each job, quote and invoice connected under your locksmith property management contracts. Once accounts payable accepts the closeout, ask for the next defined work order.