New Account Inspection and Agreement Setup

Purpose

Coverage is whatever the agreement names. Every argument a shop loses at month four - "you said you'd handle pests", "nobody told me I had to do anything" - was decided at setup by a document that named nothing. The initial inspection SOP owns the technical half of commissioning an account. This is the commercial half: turning that inspection into a signed scope with a covered-pest list, a written exclusion list, customer obligations stated as conditions, and a guarantee the shop can meet.

The outcome is that any tech opening the account file six months from now can tell what is covered, what is not, and what the customer owes.

Scope

Covers commissioning a new residential or semi-commercial recurring account after the initial inspection: scope definition, exclusions, customer obligations, service specification, guarantee terms, access and occupant data, signature and system setup.

Does not cover: the physical inspection, identification and treatment plan, owned by the initial inspection and treatment plan SOP; the recurring visit, owned by the quarterly residential pest service SOP; wood-destroying insect reports for a real estate transaction; and the callback response once the account is live, owned by the callback and service guarantee response SOP. Nothing here is legal advice; enforceability of any term is a question for your own attorney.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

Step 1 - Confirm the shop can lawfully take this account before scoping it. Check the site type, the pests involved and the work implied against the license categories the shop holds in that state, and against what the route's certified applicators are certified for. Acceptance: every pest on the draft list sits inside a category the shop holds, and any work outside it is named as a referral in writing. Wrong looks like adding termites to a general pest agreement in a state that licenses wood-destroying organism work separately. Stop rule: the account needs a category the shop does not hold, do not scope it in; refer that portion and say so on the agreement. Hazard: none, it is a desk check against the license file.

Step 2 - Name the covered pests as a list, and the exclusions as a list. Write species or named groups, never "general pests" alone; where a group term is used, define its members in the document. Then write what is out: wood-destroying organisms unless a termite addendum is attached, wildlife other than commensal rodents where that needs a separate license, bed bugs, stored product pests inside customer-owned goods, and exclusion work quoted as its own job. Acceptance: both lists present, both enumerated, and no pest discussed at the inspection appears on neither. Wrong looks like a covered list with an open-ended phrase and no exclusions, which a customer reads as everything. Stop rule: the customer will not accept an exclusion the shop needs, escalate to the service manager rather than softening the wording. Hazard: none at this step; it is drafting, and the harm it prevents is commercial.

Step 3 - Write the customer's obligations as conditions with owners and dates. The conducive-conditions list from the inspection carries into the agreement as things the customer must do, each with a target date and each tied to the part of the guarantee it supports. Acceptance: every obligation names the item, the owner, a date and the coverage that depends on it, and the customer initials that section separately. Wrong looks like a recommendations paragraph, which reads as sales copy and gets executed by nobody. Stop rule: the customer declines an item the outcome depends on, the service manager chooses between narrowing the guarantee in writing, pricing the work in as the shop's own scope, or declining the account. Hazard: never write an obligation that puts a customer on a ladder, a roof or into a crawlspace; that work goes to a trade, named on the agreement.

Step 4 - Specify the service, not just the frequency. State the visit interval, the areas covered each visit, the device types and counts placed, what a routine visit includes, and what triggers an additional visit at no separate charge. Acceptance: interval, covered areas, device count and routine visit contents all written, with the number of routine visits in a term year following from the interval. Wrong looks like "monthly service" with no statement of which areas, which is how an interior-only agreement turns into an exterior dispute. Stop rule: the customer wants an interval the pressure cannot support, say so and record the recommended interval alongside the one they bought. Hazard: none added; the physical hazards live in the visit SOPs this points to.

Step 5 - State the guarantee in terms the shop can meet and measure. Say what triggers a covered return visit, how fast the shop responds, what the customer must have done for it to apply, and what ends it. A workable default: activity of a covered pest reported inside the term gets an acknowledgement the same business day and an on-site visit within 2 business days at no separate charge, provided step 3's obligations are current. Tune the window to your route density, but commit to a number in the document. Acceptance: trigger, response window, precondition and expiry all written, and the word "elimination" not used for an outside-pressure pest such as ants, occasional invaders or mosquitoes. Wrong looks like "satisfaction guaranteed", which promises everything and defines nothing. Stop rule: the customer insists on an elimination guarantee for an outside-pressure pest, do not sign it; offer the measurable version or decline. Hazard: none here, though an unrealistic window is what later sends a tech out rushed.

Step 6 - Capture access, occupants and safety data as part of setup, not later. Record keys, codes, alarm procedure, who lets you in, pets by species and where they are kept, children in the home, any occupant with a stated pesticide sensitivity, respiratory condition, pregnancy or immune compromise, plus beehives, ponds and fish tanks. Acceptance: every field completed or marked none, and the customer told how they are notified before a visit and what the re-entry direction will be. Wrong looks like a pet field reading "dog" with no note that the dog is loose in the yard the tech treats. Stop rule: a sensitive occupant is disclosed, do not finalise a product plan on the spot; route it to the service manager before the first application. Hazard: this record is what keeps a tech from opening a gate onto a loose dog and from applying in a room an infant sleeps in, so an incomplete field blocks the first visit.

Step 7 - Sign, deliver and set the account up in one pass. Get the agreement signed, give the customer a copy the same day with the prep sheet, then build the account: schedule, route assignment, covered and excluded lists on the tech's job record, occupant safety data attached. Acceptance: signed copy stored, customer copy delivered, first visit scheduled, scope visible on the tech's record rather than only in the signed file. Wrong looks like a signed agreement in a folder and a tech arriving with no idea what is excluded. Stop rule: no signature, no recurring schedule; a one-off visit may proceed, billed as one. Hazard: none at this step. A signature is useful evidence that the customer was given the scope and prep sheet on a date, which is an operational fact you can bank; what it legally proves or waives is a question for your own attorney.

The record this produces

The signed agreement with its covered list, exclusion list, obligations with dates, service specification, guarantee and cancellation terms. Alongside it in the account file: the inspection findings it rests on, the occupant and access data, the prep sheet as delivered, and step 1's license-category check.

Three people read it later. The tech reads the covered and excluded lists before every visit, which stops an improvised promise at the door. The office reads the obligations list when a callback comes in, because a callback against an uncompleted obligation is a different conversation than one against a covered pest. And the service manager reads the narrowed-guarantee entries as a portfolio: several accounts carrying the same narrowing means the shop keeps selling into a condition it should be quoting to fix.

One setup, filled in

Independent restaurant, one kitchen and one dining room. The initial inspection identified German cockroach at the cook line, commensal mice at the rear door, and no wood-destroying organism activity.

Step 1: the shop holds the state category covering general and commensal rodent work at food-handling establishments. Step 2: covered list names four - German cockroach, commensal mice, ants and flies. Exclusion list names five - wood-destroying organisms, wildlife other than commensal rodents, bed bugs, stored product pests inside customer-owned goods, and structural exclusion work quoted separately.

Step 3 fails. The obligations draft carries three items: nightly clean-down under the cook line, a replaced sweep on the rear door, and a lidded dumpster at the corral. The owner accepts the clean-down, refuses to commit to a date for the sweep, and says the dumpster belongs to the landlord. Stop rule taken: the service manager narrows the guarantee in writing rather than declining. The cockroach guarantee stands, because the clean-down is accepted. The rodent guarantee is suspended at the rear door until the sweep is fitted and verified by a tech, written into that clause and initialled separately. The dumpster is logged as a landlord item with the owner named as the person who will raise it.

Step 4: monthly interval, so 12 routine visits in the term year, covering kitchen, dry store, dining and the rear exterior, with 6 exterior rodent stations and 4 interior monitors. Step 5: covered activity gets a same-business-day acknowledgement and an on-site visit within 2 business days, precondition being the clean-down current. Step 6: no residence, no pets, one manager with keys, no sensitive occupant. Step 7: signed, copy delivered, first visit scheduled, scope pushed to the route.

Six weeks later the mice come back at the rear door. Because step 3's narrowing was written and initialled, that visit is a quoted job with the sweep as its fix rather than an argument about a guarantee, and the tech reading the job record already knows it.

When the account does not fit the form

The prospect is a rental with an absent landlord: identify who signs and who can authorize the obligations, and do not sign a guarantee whose preconditions sit with a non-party. The site is a licensed food facility under a third-party audit: the audit's documentation requirements go into step 4's service specification rather than being discovered at the first audit. And where the prospect is under an active termite warranty from another shop, do not begin work there without written direction, because a treatment applied over someone else's warranty is a dispute you inherit.

References

• Your state lead agency's licensing categories and any state requirement to give the customer product, re-entry or notification information; both gate steps 1 and 6.
• FIFRA, 7 U.S.C. 136j(a)(2), on use inconsistent with the labeling, which is why the covered list cannot include a pest no labeled product controls at that site.
• Your own attorney for contract terms, guarantee wording, automatic renewal and cancellation, which are state law questions rather than trade practice.
• See related: initial inspection and treatment plan; callback and service guarantee response; quarterly residential pest service; wood-destroying insect report inspection.