I’ve been using a 12-month rolling vendor scorecard (on-time %, first-pass completion, 30-day callbacks, and estimate-to-invoice variance) and sharing it in quarterly reviews; pairing that with 10-day pay terms for A-tier vendors cut our HVAC spend 18% over 24 months without chasing the lowest bid. It’s been a strong lever for long-term asset value because it rewards preventive work and consistency. Anyone tying payment terms or volume to performance metrics, and which numbers move the needle for you?
We mirror this and added per-trade NTEs plus a “first-pass completion” kicker — vendors who include before/after photos and part numbers get auto-approved and paid in 7 days, which nudged callbacks down 14%. Small caveat: we weight callbacks double in peak season and only score “estimate-to-invoice variance” after three jobs so one outlier doesn’t wreck the grade. If you’re sharing quarterly, a one-page stoplight view (green/yellow/red) gets more traction than a tab dump.
Quick example: we split your “30-day callbacks” into vendor-caused vs “no-access” so we don’t ding good techs — , the false negatives drove me nuts. We also weight HVAC metrics higher June–Aug but keep the 12‑month rolling view, which made the quarterly reviews a lot more honest than a flat average. Small caveat: “estimate-to-invoice variance” is much cleaner if you back out approved change orders first — @OP how are you handling that?