The site contact calls it a warehouse. The property also has detached storage, a compactor area and a locked mezzanine. A pest control site survey catches that missing work before it becomes your problem.
Treat the survey as the foundation of the quote. Map the property. Record what you saw. Mark what you could not inspect. Then choose the work and cost it.
Establish the account and its boundaries
Start with the legal site name and service address. Record the billing contact, site contact and the people allowed to approve extra work. They may not be the same person.
Ask who controls each part of the property. Waste may sit across a lease boundary. A tenant may control a food preparation room while the landlord controls the loading dock. Your quote must follow those boundaries.
Walk the property against a floor plan when one exists. Add detached buildings, roof spaces, service corridors, exterior storage, loading areas and shared waste zones. Do not accept the phrase entire property without marking what that means.
Record these account details:
- Legal site name and service address
- Billing address and purchase-order contact
- Site contact and emergency contact
- People authorized to approve a change order
- Included buildings, outdoor areas and lease boundaries
- Operating hours and service access windows
- Customer reporting and document requirements
Ask your provincial or territorial pesticide regulator which business or applicator licences and permits cover the proposed work. Ask your provincial or territorial workplace safety regulator which site-safety duties apply to your crew. Write both answers in the account file before offering that work.
Separate observed evidence from reported activity
Write observed when you see droppings, damage, live activity, dead pests or another physical sign. Tie the observation to a room, wall, doorway, asset or marked point on the plan.
Write reported when a customer describes activity you cannot confirm during the visit. Record who reported it and where they said it happened. Do not turn a report into a confirmed finding.
Write not inspected when a space is locked, unsafe, hidden or blocked. Rodent evidence above a suspended ceiling does not prove what is inside the ceiling void. If the void and electrical room cannot be opened, state that plainly.
Collect records and access details before the walk-through
Ask for useful records before you arrive. You will spend less time hunting for doors and more time inspecting the account.
Request:
- A current floor plan or site plan
- Previous pest reports held by the customer
- Existing monitor or station maps
- Known complaint areas and dates of recent activity
- Food, waste and receiving schedules that affect access
- Site safety rules and required orientation
- Restricted-area contacts and escort arrangements
- Customer reporting forms or portal requirements
Use pest control customer screening questions before booking the visit. Screening tells you whether the lead is worth a walk-through. The survey determines the commercial scope.
Existing stations need their own check. Record the location, visible condition and identifying marks. Ask who owns them. If nobody can confirm ownership or condition, do not assume you can reuse them.
Confirm how you will enter each area
Ask about keys, access cards, escorts, alarm procedures and delivery traffic. Record where your technician can park and where equipment can be unloaded.
Note spaces that can only be entered during shutdowns or with a customer representative present. That access time belongs in the labour calculation. It is not free because the technician is waiting instead of treating.
Ask the site contact to identify hazards before the walk. Stop at any area you cannot enter safely. Mark the area as not inspected and state what access is needed before it can be added to the scope.
Run the pest control site survey in a fixed order
Use the same route on every commercial pest inspection. A fixed route makes missed zones easier to spot and gives the crew a route they can repeat.
Start outside the property
Walk the boundary before entering the building. Mark neighbouring activity that affects the account without promising to control property outside the customer’s authority.
Inspect accessible loading doors, personnel doors, utility penetrations, waste areas, compactors, drains, exterior storage and vegetation against the building. Record visible entry points and conditions that can support pest activity.
Watch the site while it operates. A loading door that stays open during deliveries matters more than a closed door photographed after the truck leaves. Record the condition and the operating task connected to it.
Walk the interior by service zone
Move from public areas into storage, production and service rooms. Follow the floor plan. Give each zone a stable name that the customer and technician will understand.
In each accessible zone, look for:
- Observed pest evidence
- Reported activity not seen during the visit
- Gaps at receiving doors, dock levellers, wall-floor junctions and pipe penetrations
- Pest evidence around drains, staff food areas and washrooms
- Harbourage along racking edges, behind stored goods and around damaged packaging
- Existing devices and their condition
- Cleaning, storage or waste practices affecting service
- Access restrictions and customer-controlled hazards
- Inspection points the technician must revisit and record
Do not write vague notes such as activity in back. Write the building, room, wall or asset. A photo only helps when the crew can find the same place again.
Count the work, not just the rooms
Record the buildings, zones, accessible devices and recurring inspection points. Add the walking route, setup needs and reporting steps.
The detached storage building may contain little evidence but still require travel across the property, access from another contact and a separate inspection route. Those tasks create labour.
Build a pest site risk record the crew can use
Turn each finding into a location, an observation and a decision. Keep the record factual. The survey is not a promise that hidden or inaccessible areas are clear.
Use a site plan where possible. Give photos a reference that matches the plan or zone name. Mark locked rooms and hidden voids instead of leaving blank spaces that look inspected.
A copy-ready service scope survey record can use these fields:
Account name: [legal site name] Service address: [address and postal code] Survey date: [date] Surveyor: [name] Site contact: [name and role] Billing contact: [name and role] Extra-work approver: [name and role] Property boundary: [describe included property] Buildings and exterior zones: [list each zone] Operating hours: [hours affecting access] Access instructions: [keys, cards, escorts and restricted areas] Site hazards: [hazards reported or observed] Zone or marked location: [location] Observation type: [observed, reported or not inspected] Target pest: [identified or reported pest] Finding: [plain description] Affected asset or operation: [stock, equipment, food area or site activity] Urgency: [based on the observed site condition] Photo or plan reference: [reference] Access limit: [limit and required access] Recommended initial action: [action to quote or customer action] Recurring check: [location or condition to inspect again] Review trigger: [condition requiring a scope decision] Proposed decision: [include, exclude, inspect later or quote separately] Customer action: [action, responsible party and required point] Existing devices: [location, type, visible condition and ownership status] Reporting required: [report and recipient] Quote assumptions: [assumptions] Quote exclusions: [exclusions]
Keep this baseline separate from completed service records. The survey describes the property before the contract starts. Treatment and pesticide application records describe work actually completed. Use the pest-control treatment record process after technicians begin servicing the account.
Turn the pest control site survey into a service scope
Choose the work from the findings. Do not copy a generic package onto the property.
Define the included buildings, zones and target pests. State the initial setup work separately from recurring tasks. Initial work may involve mapping, device assessment or correcting the starting condition. Recurring work covers the tasks repeated during service.
For each included zone, state what the technician will inspect, service, record and report. Describe the visit structure from those tasks. Do not promise a frequency simply because another account uses it.
A pest-specific problem may need a separate scope. For example, use a dedicated bed bug quote scope and preparation guide when preparation, access, follow-up and exclusions need tighter control.
Assign customer responsibilities
Separate your work from building repairs, sanitation and tenant management. A conducive condition does not automatically become contractor work.
Name the required action, responsible party and point at which it affects service. For example, the customer may need to provide access, move stored goods, manage waste or arrange a building repair before an area can be serviced.
State what happens when the action remains incomplete. The answer may be a documented access failure, a revised service area or a separate quote. Do not silently absorb the delay.
Set follow-up triggers
Write down what starts another decision. Triggers can include access to a previously locked room, evidence outside the target-pest scope, a new building, damaged customer property that blocks service or a request for additional reporting.
A trigger is not automatic approval. It tells the technician to stop, document the condition and send it back for pricing or specialist review.
Cost the commercial account from the scope
Build the cost before choosing the selling price. Use your own labour costs, supplier costs and operating records. Do not borrow a flat rate from an account with different access and reporting work.
Build labour from planned hours multiplied by your loaded labour cost per hour. Include setup, inspection, treatment, device work, access time, documentation and customer communication in those hours.
Build the remaining cost buckets from the work you counted:
- Materials and devices: required quantity multiplied by current supplier cost
- Equipment: hire cost or the allocated equipment cost from your own records
- Travel: planned travel time, distance, parking and vehicle cost from your own figures
- Disposal: the cost required by the quoted work
- Reporting and administration: planned hours multiplied by the loaded office labour cost
- Overhead: the amount assigned using your business’s costing method
Keep initial setup and recurring service in separate cost buckets. Otherwise, the first visit can hide a loss that appears to be profitable recurring work.
Add the buckets to get the full cost base. Apply markup only after every required cost is included. Markup is added to cost to make the price. Margin is profit as a share of the selling price.
Use the profit margin calculator with your completed cost base and selling price. Keep the buckets boring. Every cost needs somewhere to land.
Write assumptions, exclusions and pest control payment terms
Put survey limits in the quote. Name inaccessible rooms, hidden voids, excluded buildings, non-target pests, building repairs and customer preparation.
State assumptions as facts the price depends on. Examples include access during an agreed window, a customer escort being available or existing devices being confirmed as usable before service starts.
Write the payment section around the account’s purchasing process. State the deposit or first-service billing rule if you use one, the point when each invoice is issued, the due date, accepted payment methods, purchase-order requirements, the billing contact, tax treatment and how approved extra work will be billed. Check business-number and GST/HST questions with the Canada Revenue Agency’s GST/HST registration guidance (opens in a new tab). Have any interest or collection term checked against the law that applies to the account before putting it in the quote.
Add a change-order rule. Work outside the accepted scope needs a written description, price or pricing method, and approval from an authorized person before it proceeds.
Worked example: why exclusions protect the invoice
This is an unrelated electrical example. All figures are sample CAD units, not a rate card.
R. Chen’s job at 14 Oak Street covered a bathroom exhaust fan, 150 mm and ducted through the roof, plus four LED downlights. Quote Q-1847 totalled 1,105. 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 totalled 1,265. The written exclusion showed why the extra work was outside the original quote.
The original job cost was 850, so profit against the 1,105 quote was 255. Margin was 255 divided by 1,105, about 23%, while markup was 255 divided by 850, or 30%. The costs of the 160 change order are not given, so profit cannot be calculated from the 1,265 invoice.
The lesson for a commercial pest account is direct. If a ceiling void, detached building or additional pest is outside the surveyed scope, stop and price the change order before doing the extra work.
Hand the accepted survey to the crew and track the cost
Convert the accepted zones and tasks into the first work order. Include the site map, access instructions, customer contacts, included pests, initial work and unresolved access points.
Flag every not-inspected area. Tell the technician what to do if access becomes available. Do not let the crew treat an unlocked door as approval for work outside the quote.
After service starts, record actual labour, materials, devices, travel and access delays against the quoted scope. This cost tracking shows whether the route, reporting load and customer coordination matched the estimate.
Compare actual inputs with estimated inputs. If the accepted scope changed, use a change order. If the original estimate was wrong, keep the record and use it when the account is repriced. Do not rewrite history to make the job look healthy.
Carry the accepted pest control site survey fields into the quote, work order and job-cost record, then manage the handoff through Yes Foreman jobs.