Help Center

Maintenance jobs

Maintenance is for assets that need service, inspection, repair, or a deliberate hold before they should be rented again. Sending an item to maintenance should change the item’s operational status, show the active maintenance job from item lists, and leave enough history that the next person can tell why the item is unavailable. When a list says an item is in maintenance, the useful link is the maintenance job itself, not just the word “maintenance.”

Type-level maintenance defaults are useful for broad rules, but some types need different cadence rules than the company default. A company might service one class of gear after a number of rental uses, another after a time interval, and another only when a user flags it. The important product rule is that maintenance should be visible in availability and fulfillment decisions before the item gets promised to a customer.

Maintenance assignment is responsibility, not a charge by itself. Assigning a person or labor role says who owns the work. Use Log labor when someone actually spends time so the labor entry can snapshot the resolved internal cost rate, calculate duration times rate, and roll into the maintenance total.

Labor, parts, and cost rollup

Maintenance totals are built from explicit entries: labor, parts or consumables, and other/manual costs. Labor uses the assigned or chosen labor role, the performed-by person, the duration, and the resolved internal cost rate. A user-specific internal cost override wins when present; otherwise Pluck uses the role’s internal cost rate.

Parts entries use quantity times the snapshotted unit cost. Other costs preserve manually entered amounts for work that does not fit labor or consumables. Completion should review the current rollup so the final maintenance cost feels connected to the work notes, labor, and parts that created it.

Assignments to employees

Employee assignment is for company-owned assets that leave normal warehouse control but are not part of a rental order. A laptop, radio, tool kit, or other internal asset may be assigned to a person, then checked back in later. Assignment printouts and item history should make the handoff clear enough that both the company and the employee know what was assigned and when.

Assignments are separate from rental reservations and separate from maintenance. The item is still owned by the company, but its current holder is a person rather than a warehouse shelf. If the item is scanned in inventory operations, Pluck should show the holder state so the user does not accidentally treat the item as available stock.

Usage and hours

Usage tracking is related to maintenance, but it is not the same thing. Some equipment needs hour tracking because hours matter for service intervals, billing notes, warranty records, or practical operations. Generators, power washers, projectors, and similar assets may need a user to record hours at pick, return, or during a maintenance workflow.

When usage hours are enabled for a type, the workflow should ask for the right information at the right moment instead of making every item carry hour fields all the time. Hours can later feed maintenance rules, reports, and operational notes. The user should be able to tell whether a prompt is required, optional, or not relevant for the selected type.