Recurring service
Also known as: recurring contract, scheduled service, maintenance plan
Work that repeats on a schedule — weekly, monthly, quarterly — for the same customer at the same site.
Recurring service is field work that repeats on a defined cadence for the same customer. Examples: weekly lawn care, monthly pool maintenance, quarterly pest treatment, biannual HVAC tune-ups, annual fire-extinguisher inspections. The work order template is roughly the same each visit, the customer is locked in, and the revenue is predictable.
For a service business, recurring revenue is the difference between waking up to a calendar full of work and starting every Monday at zero. FSM platforms model recurring service as a series generator — the contract defines cadence, scope, and price, and the system creates individual work orders on the right days. Good systems also handle the edge cases: customer cancellations, holiday skips, weather makeups, and per-visit price overrides.
Related terms
Service-level agreement
A contractual promise about how fast you'll respond, how often you'll visit, or how quickly you'll resolve issues.
Work order
The structured record of a job to be performed — what's needed, when, where, by whom, and at what price.
Field service management
Software for coordinating work that happens at customer sites — scheduling, dispatch, quotes, invoicing, and crew tracking.