GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Commercial Doors

Fire Station Bay Doors: Organizing Service for Stations and Public Buildings

Fire stations, public works yards, maintenance garages and similar public buildings have big bay doors that matter a lot to the people who use them. A door that won't open in front of a truck is not something a station crew shrugs off. Door companies that serve these buildings need records that are easy to follow, visits that happen on schedule and paperwork the buyer's office can file without chasing anyone.

Where Public Buildings Fit

Auto shops, the busiest single-location bay door clients, are covered in Auto Shop Bay Doors: Serving Shops That Can't Work With a Door Stuck Shut. Fire stations and public buildings share the big bay doors, but the account usually looks very different: several buildings under one buyer, a contact at each building and a central office that pays the bills.

This guide is about the organizing side — how to set these accounts up so they run smoothly. Every agency has its own purchasing rules and requirements, and you will need to follow whatever yours asks for. GarageDoorBossPro is just the system that keeps the stations, doors, visits and bills in order.

One Client, Every Station

In GarageDoorBossPro, a client can have many addresses. A city, district or county that has you servicing several stations becomes one client, with each station as its own address. Each station keeps its own door list, access notes and job history, and each shows as a pin on the map. When the office takes a call from Station 4, it opens the client and picks the Station 4 address.

That one-client setup is covered in more detail in One Client With Many Addresses: How Commercial Door Accounts Are Set Up.

Recording Apparatus Bay Doors

Each station's address keeps a list of its doors and hardware. Apparatus bay doors, often commercial sectional doors or commercial rolling doors, are each recorded as their own item with brand, model #, serial #, size, material, year installed and a bay label. The operator on each door is recorded separately. Other items — safety sensors, keypads, remotes, a gate opener on the back lot — can be added as they come up.

Label the bays the way the station does. Stations often refer to bays by position or by the apparatus parked there. Whatever the crew calls it, put that in the bay field or the door notes, so a tech can ask for “Bay 2, the engine bay” and get pointed to the right door.

Access at a Working Station

Stations are occupied buildings with crews coming and going, and the tech will often be working around equipment that has to be able to leave at any moment. Access notes saved on the address show on the job card every visit:

• “Ring the bell at the side door, check in with the officer on duty.”
• “If the crew gets a call, stop and clear the bay right away.”
• “Contact for scheduling is the station captain, number in notes.”
• “Park on the street, never in front of the bays.”

Those notes protect the job and the relationship. A tech who parks in front of the bays once may not get invited back.

Recurring Visits and Reports

Many public buildings want doors checked on a set cycle. In GarageDoorBossPro, recurring work is set by minimum days between visits, so a station maintenance plan can come due every 90 days, or on whatever cycle the agreement calls for. Due visits show on the Waiting List map, colored due now or overdue past a 7-day grace, and the office can group several stations into one route day.

On each visit, the tech can work the door safety inspection checklist on every door and record readings, a condition and written recommendations. The office can print a Garage Door Safety Inspection report for each station. Together with before-and-after photos on the job, that gives the buyer's office a clear record of what was looked at and what was recommended. For more on the reports, see Inspection Reports for Facility Managers: Showing What Was Checked on Every Door.

Billing a Public Account

Public buyers usually want paperwork that is easy to match to a building. In GarageDoorBossPro, set the client to Monthly and every job at every station lands on one statement each month, with each line labeled with its address. Line items come from your service list and include sales tax where it applies. Tags and custom fields on the client can hold things like a purchase order number or a department name if the buyer asks for them.

If the buyer prefers an invoice per job, that works too. Invoices are created when the tech taps Complete.

Doing It Well

Public building work is about being dependable and easy to deal with. Records that clearly name each station and each bay, maintenance that happens when it should, reports that show what was done and bills that make sense at a glance all add up. For how these accounts fit with the rest of your commercial work, go back to the commercial garage door software page.