Preventive Maintenance Work Order Template
One record for a scheduled visit, written so it tells you whether the schedule itself is right.
- Date due against date performed, and the days early or late
- As found and as left, both against the specification
- Every deficiency carries its corrective work order number
- An interval recommendation: keep, shorten or lengthen
Preventive Maintenance Work Order
The schedule, the task list and the verdict
| # | Work performed | Done | Hrs | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Visual inspection for damage, leaks and corrosion | |||
| 2 | Check and record operating readings | |||
| 3 | Test safety devices and interlocks |
The document you will get. Download for the full, editable file.
Who this preventive maintenance work order is for
Four people read this document, and they disagree about which column matters.
Maintenance planner
You are deciding what the schedule should say. Days early or late, planned against actual hours, and the interval recommendation are the three entries that let you correct a plan instead of defending it.
Maintenance technician
You are filling it in with the panel open. The task list with as found and as left is the part that takes the time, and the part that makes the visit worth more than a signature.
Reliability engineer
You are looking for drift. As-found readings across visits are the only data that tells you whether an asset is degrading or whether the interval was always wrong.
Maintenance manager
You are defending the PM budget. Cost per PM, hours over plan and the deficiencies caught before they became breakdowns are what make the case for the programme.
Which field matters the most in your sector
The document is the same shape everywhere. What changes is which field carries the weight, and it is usually the one your auditor or your reliability lead asks about first. If you run one of these, the sector page goes further than the template does.
- Data centres
Days early or late. A PM performed outside its window on critical plant is a finding, regardless of how well it was performed.
Data centre maintenance software - Healthcare
Safety device testing and as-left values. Interlocks proved working, with the number, is what an inspection asks for.
Healthcare maintenance software - Commercial real estate
The interval recommendation. Across a large asset base, intervals set once and never reviewed are the largest avoidable cost in the plan.
Portfolio maintenance software - Education
Frequency against term dates. Whether a quarterly falls in a holiday window decides whether it happens properly or in a corridor full of people.
Campus maintenance software - Retail and malls
Deficiencies and corrective jobs. Refrigeration and door plant found degrading during a PM is far cheaper than the same fault during trade.
Retail maintenance software - Corporate facilities
Planned against actual hours. When one team covers many buildings, a PM that always overruns its plan is a resourcing problem hiding as a maintenance one.
Corporate facilities software
What a preventive maintenance work order should include
A preventive maintenance work order is the record of one scheduled visit against a PM task list. It records the date due against the date performed with the days early or late, the readings as found and as left, every deficiency with its corrective work order number, and a recommendation on whether the interval itself was right.
A. Fields specific to a preventive maintenance work order
| Field | What goes in it | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|---|
| PM schedule reference | Which schedule this visit belongs to | Ties the visit back to the plan. Without it a completed PM is just a job, and the schedule has no way of knowing it happened. |
| Date due, date performed, days early or late | All three, not just the date you attended | Compliance is the gap, not the visit. A programme where every PM happened but ran three weeks late is a different programme from one that ran to plan, and only the third field shows it. |
| Trigger | Calendar, running hours, cycles, condition or regulatory | Says what the interval is actually based on. A calendar PM on an asset that should be triggered on hours is the most common reason a schedule stops matching reality. |
| Meter reading at this PM and at the last | Two readings, not one | Turns a calendar interval into a measured one. The difference tells you how hard the asset ran between visits, which is what decides whether the frequency is right. |
| Task list with as found and as left | Every task ticked, with the state before and the state after | The centre of the document. As left alone proves you were there. As found is the only column that tells you what the interval let happen. |
| Readings against specification | Measurement, unit, specification, as found, as left and a pass column | Makes drift visible as numbers rather than impressions. An out-of-tolerance reading that was corrected is still an out-of-tolerance reading, and the trend needs it recorded. |
| Deficiencies with a corrective work order number | Each deficiency, its severity, whether it can wait, the corrective job raised and a target date | The column that turns a finding into work. A deficiency listed without a job number is a note that will be read once. |
| Consumables with next due | Item, part number, quantity, cost and when it is next due | Makes the next visit plannable and the PM cost real. Filters and belts consumed on a schedule are the bulk of what a PM programme actually costs. |
| Interval recommendation | Keep, shorten or lengthen, and the reason | The feedback loop. It is the only field on the form whose purpose is to change the plan rather than record the past, and it is the one most often left blank. |
If you cut the form down, keep as found. It is the column that costs the most effort and returns the most: without it you cannot tell a well-maintained asset from an over-serviced one, you cannot see degradation before it becomes a failure, and you have no evidence at all for changing an interval. As-left readings alone prove attendance and nothing more.
B. What it looks like filled in
The readings block from a single quarterly visit. Four of the five were outside specification when the technician arrived and inside it when they left, which is exactly the argument for recording both columns.
| Measurement | Unit | Specification | As found | As left | Pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bearing temperature | °C | < 70 | 78 | 62 | Y |
| Belt tension deflection | mm | 10 to 14 | 19 | 12 | Y |
| Motor current, phase A | A | < 14.0 | 13.2 | 13.1 | Y |
| Vibration, drive end | mm/s | < 4.5 | 6.1 | 3.8 | Y |
| Filter differential pressure | Pa | < 250 | 310 | 95 | Y |
Work order PM-2026-0904, air handling unit AHU-04, criticality B, quarterly on a calendar trigger. Due 24/09/2026, performed 01/10/2026, so seven days late. One deficiency: coupling guard cracked, classed as a safety item that cannot wait, raised as CWO-2026-1191 with a target date. Interval recommendation: shorten to two-monthly. Read the pass column alone and this is a clean visit. Read the as-found column and it is an asset that was running hot, slack, shaking and blocked, which is a schedule problem rather than a maintenance one.
Word to edit the task list and specifications, Excel to total the readings, hours and cost against plan, PDF for the clipboard. Free, and yours to rebrand.
How do you fill in a preventive maintenance work order?
Fill it in as the visit happens, and take the readings before you adjust anything. Six steps, and the last one is the only one whose job is to change the future.
Confirm which schedule this is, and how late it is
Work order number, the PM schedule reference, the date due, the date performed and the difference between them. The gap is the compliance figure, and writing it down is what stops a late programme looking like an on-time one.
Identify the asset and take the meter reading
Asset ID and description, location, make, model, serial number and criticality. Then the reading now and the reading at the last PM, so you know how hard it ran in between.
Work the task list, recording as found and as left
Every task ticked and initialled, with the state you found it in and the state you left it in. As found takes the extra moment, and it is the only column that tells you what the interval allowed to happen.
Measure against specification, and record both numbers
Each measurement with its unit and its specification, the value as found, the value as left, and the pass answer. A reading corrected back into tolerance is still a reading that was out of it.
Raise a corrective work order for every deficiency
Each deficiency with its severity, whether it can wait, the corrective work order number and a target date. A deficiency without a number is a deficiency that will be found again at the next PM.
Close the visit, then answer the interval question
Tasks not done and why, asset returned to service, isolation removed and tested, records updated, next PM due. Then say whether the interval should be kept, shortened or lengthened, and why. Leaving it blank is what keeps a wrong schedule running for years.
Preventive maintenance work order vs a PM schedule
These are two different documents and it is worth being clear which one you are holding. This template is the first of them.
| Aspect | Preventive maintenance work order | A PM schedule |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The record of one PM visit that has happened | The plan of PM visits that are due |
| Time span | One visit, on one asset | A year, or the whole asset base |
| What it answers | Was this PM done in full and on time, and what did it find | What is due, when, on what trigger, and by whom |
| The load-bearing fields | As found and as left, deficiencies, corrective job numbers | Frequency, trigger, next due date, assigned resource |
| Who reads it | The technician and the supervisor, this week | The planner and the budget holder, this quarter |
| How they connect | A completed work order sets the next due date | The schedule is only as accurate as the dates the work orders return |
If what you actually need is the planner, this is not it, and it is better to say so. This template records one visit thoroughly. The interval recommendation at the end of it is the bridge between the two: it is the field where a visit is allowed to argue with the plan, and a plan that never receives that feedback is one that was set once and has been wrong ever since.
When the template starts to feel limiting
A form handles one visit well. It handles a programme badly, and always in the same four ways.
Task lists drift out of version
Somebody revises the task list for a plant type, prints it, and two versions are in use on the same site. Nothing on either sheet tells you which visit followed which.
Triggers cannot fire themselves
A PM due every five hundred running hours needs the readings compared automatically. On paper nobody compares them, so an hours-based trigger quietly becomes whenever somebody remembers.
As-found history is not searchable
One reading on one sheet is a number. Bearing temperature as found across eight visits is a trend, and it is the trend that predicts the failure. In a folder it is an afternoon of paging.
You cannot tell whether the interval is right
The question is whether the deficiency rate justifies the frequency, across every asset of that type. That answer exists only across hundreds of visits, and a folder cannot compute it.
What running this in Facilio looks like
The template is the paper version of this record. The fields are the same ones; the difference is that the interval stops being a note somebody wrote and becomes something the schedule actually responds to.
Work Completion Validator
A PM cannot close with tasks unaccounted for
On paper a PM is complete when somebody signs it. Work Completion Validator checks the completion record against what the schedule required, so a visit closed with tasks unticked, readings missing or the as-found column blank is caught while the technician is still on site.
Ops Performance Intelligence
Triggers and due dates run on their own
Calendar, running hours, cycles and condition triggers all compare themselves and warn before they are due, and days early or late becomes a compliance figure per asset rather than something nobody has added up.
Audit Report Intelligence
As-found readings become retrievable evidence
Every measurement, its specification and both values are held against the asset, so the trend behind a failure, or the proof that safety devices were tested and passed, is a query rather than a search through a year of sheets.
Contractor Work Tracker
Deficiencies become jobs that get followed
A deficiency raised at a PM carries its corrective work order, its severity and its target date, whether the work goes to your own team or to a vendor, so a finding is closed out rather than rediscovered at the next visit.
Permission-aware by default. Atom AI inherits RBAC from your Facilio config, so if a user cannot see it in Facilio they cannot see it via Atom AI.
Frequently asked questions
What is a preventive maintenance work order?
A preventive maintenance work order is the record of one scheduled maintenance visit against a defined task list. It captures the schedule reference, the date due against the date performed, the trigger and frequency, the asset and its criticality, the meter readings at this PM and the last, the task list with as-found and as-left states, the readings against specification, the deficiencies found with the corrective jobs raised, the labour and cost, and a recommendation on the interval.
It is a work order rather than a schedule: it records one visit that has happened, not the plan of visits that are due.
What should a preventive maintenance work order include?
At minimum: a unique work order number, the PM schedule reference, the date due, the date performed and the days early or late, the trigger and frequency, the planned duration and who it is assigned to, the asset ID, location, make, model, serial number and criticality, the meter reading at this PM and at the last, whether isolation or a permit was required, the full task list with as found and as left, the readings against specification, the consumables replaced with next due dates, the deficiencies with severity and corrective work order numbers, the labour, the planned against actual hours, the interval recommendation, and closure with the next PM due.
Why record as found as well as as left?
Because as left tells you the asset is fine now, which it will be, since you have just worked on it. As found is the only column that tells you what condition the interval allowed the asset to reach.
It is also the only evidence for changing a frequency. Four readings out of tolerance on arrival is an argument for a shorter interval; four readings already within tolerance is an argument for a longer one.
What does days early or late actually measure?
PM compliance, which is not the same as PM completion. A programme where every scheduled visit happened but each ran a month late looks identical to a well-run programme if you only record the date you attended.
It also protects the technician. A PM performed late because the asset could not be released is a planning fact worth having on the record rather than a personal one.
What do I do with a deficiency I find during a PM?
Raise a corrective work order for it and put that number on the PM record, with the severity and whether it can wait. That single column is what separates a PM programme that finds problems from one that merely notes them.
A deficiency listed with no job number is read once, by the person who wrote it, and then found again at the next visit.
What is the difference between a preventive maintenance work order and a PM schedule?
The work order records one visit that has happened. The schedule is the plan of visits that are due, with frequencies, triggers and next-due dates across the asset base.
They are connected by two fields. A completed work order sets the next due date, and the interval recommendation is where a visit is allowed to tell the plan it was wrong.
Can I edit and rebrand this template?
Yes. It is free to use, edit, rename and put your own logo on, internally or for clients. No attribution required.
The Word version is the one to edit if you want to change the task list, the specifications or the frequencies; the Excel version is the one to use if you want the readings, consumables, labour and hours against plan to total themselves.
In one paragraph
A preventive maintenance work order records one scheduled visit and closes with a verdict on the schedule that produced it. Start with the schedule reference and the gap between the date due and the date performed, because that gap is your compliance figure. Identify the asset, take the meter reading now and at the last PM, then work the task list recording what you found as well as what you left. Measure against specification and keep both numbers, even where you corrected the fault. Raise a corrective work order for every deficiency and write its number down. Then answer the last question honestly: keep the interval, shorten it, or lengthen it, and say why.
The template is the floor, not the ceiling
Take the template; it will carry one scheduled visit from due to signed off. When one form per visit stops being enough, a connected CMMS runs the programme: triggers that compare their own readings, as-found trends you can query across an asset type, corrective jobs that close out rather than recur, and a compliance figure the work orders calculate themselves.
