Repair Order Form Template
One form for reporting a repair, written so the person reporting it does not need to know your terminology.
- Part one in plain language, part two for triage and approval
- Priority assigned, recorded against what the requester ticked
- Spend limit, the amount over it, and who can approve now
- Rejected or deferred still gets a reason and a date
Repair Order Form
Report it, triage it, authorise it
| # | Urgency line | Tick | Why | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Someone could be hurt, or there is a fire or security risk | |||
| 2 | A room, floor or service cannot be used at all | |||
| 3 | Water, heating, cooling, power or lifts are affected |
The document you will get. Download for the full, editable file.
Who this repair order form is for
Four people touch this document, and only one of them works in maintenance.
Whoever noticed the problem
You do not work in facilities and you should not have to. Part one asks for what is wrong, where, how urgent and how to reach you, in your own words rather than a category you have to guess.
Helpdesk or facilities coordinator
You are triaging a queue. Category, priority, the duplicate check and the target dates are the four entries that turn a pile of reports into a day's work.
Budget holder or approver
You are deciding whether this can proceed. The estimate, the spend limit and the amount over it are the only three numbers you need, and they are on one line.
Technician or contractor
You want to arrive once and fix it. The location detail, the access answers and the photo are what decide whether the first visit is the only visit.
Which field matters the most in your sector
The form is the same shape everywhere. What changes is which field carries the weight, and it is usually the one that decides whether the first visit succeeds. If you run one of these, the sector page goes further than the template does.
- Corporate facilities
The location field. In a large office, second cubicle ground floor gents beats toilets by an entire wasted visit.
Corporate facilities software - Education
The access block. Term time, exams and safeguarding decide when anyone may attend, and a form without those answers gets bounced.
Campus maintenance software - Healthcare
The urgency ladder. Clinical areas need the top line to mean something, which only happens if the other five are used honestly.
Healthcare maintenance software - Commercial real estate
The spend limit test. Across many buildings it is the line that decides whether a small repair moves today or waits for an approval chain.
Portfolio maintenance software - Retail and malls
The duplicate check. The same failure reported by four tenants should become one job, not four.
Retail maintenance software - Religious organisations
Who to ask for on arrival. Where buildings are staffed by volunteers, the named contact is the field that gets a contractor through the door.
Facilities software for religious organisations
What a repair order form should include
A repair order form is the request that starts a repair: what is wrong, where, how urgent, and who to contact. Part one is filled in by whoever noticed the problem, in plain language. Part two is the office record of triage, the spend approval, and either the work order number raised or the reason it was declined.
A. Fields specific to a repair order form
| Field | What goes in it | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|---|
| Who is reporting, and how to reach them | Name, department, phone or extension, email, and the best way to reach them | The field most often skipped and most often needed. A request with no reachable requester cannot be clarified, and cannot be confirmed as fixed. |
| Where, in plain terms | Building, floor, room or nearest landmark, what the item is, and the tag number only if there is a label on it | Written for someone who does not know your asset register. Asking a requester for an asset ID they cannot see is how you get blank fields. |
| The problem in their own words | What they noticed, when they first noticed it, whether it is getting worse, and whether the item can still be used | Their description is evidence even when it is wrong. Getting worse and can it still be used are the two entries that let a coordinator triage without attending. |
| Reported before | Yes or no, with the reference if they have it | Catches the repeat failure that has been patched three times. A recurring fault reported as new is a fault nobody will ever fix properly. |
| Urgency ladder | Six lines from safety risk down to cosmetic, tick one, with the reason on the same row | One tick and one line. The reason is what makes the tick reviewable, and reviewable urgency is the only kind that survives contact with a busy queue. |
| Getting in | Whether you may enter when they are not there, best times, who to ask for, and anything to know before arriving | Four short answers that decide whether the first visit works. Pets, quiet hours and sensitive equipment belong here, not in a phone call on the doorstep. |
| Triage against the request | The priority you assigned, and whether it matched what the requester ticked | The entry that makes triage accountable in both directions. Changing a priority is fine; changing it without recording why is what erodes trust in the form. |
| Spend limit and the amount over it | The limit for this site or role, the estimate, and the difference | Turns approval into arithmetic. If the difference is zero or negative, whoever received the request can approve it now, and small repairs stop queueing for a signature. |
| Rejected or deferred | The reason, what the requester was told, whether they were informed, and a revisit date | A no is a valid outcome and it still needs recording. Requests that vanish without an answer are the ones that come back as complaints. |
| Converted to a work order | The work order number raised, who it went to, the date issued and the agreed target | The join between this form and the job. Without the number, the request and the work that answered it are two unconnected records. |
If you cut the form down, keep the reason beside the urgency tick. Every intake process eventually fills up with requests marked urgent, and the only defence is asking for one line of justification at the point of ticking. It costs the requester five seconds and it is what keeps the top line meaning something.
B. What it looks like filled in
The urgency ladder from a single request. One tick, one reason, and the reason is what a coordinator actually reads.
| Tick the line that matches | Tick | Why, in one line |
|---|---|---|
| Someone could be hurt, or there is a fire or security risk | ||
| A room, floor or service cannot be used at all | ||
| Water, heating, cooling, power or lifts are affected | Ticked | No hot water to the third floor since Monday morning |
| It stops me or my team doing our job | ||
| Annoying, but we can work around it for now | ||
| Cosmetic only, no rush |
Request REQ-2026-0518, third floor washrooms, reported by a department administrator. The requester ticked line three. Triage assigned P2 Urgent and recorded that the priority matched what was ticked, so there is nothing to explain. Estimated cost 86.00 for the mixer tap and labour, against a spend limit of 250.00 for that role: the amount over the limit is zero, so the coordinator who received it approved it on the spot and raised the work order the same morning. No approval chain, because the arithmetic said none was needed.
Word to edit the categories and urgency wording, Excel to calculate the estimate against the spend limit, PDF for the clipboard or the noticeboard. Free, and yours to rebrand.
How do you fill in a repair order form?
This form has two audiences, so it has two halves. Steps one to five are for whoever noticed the problem and assume no knowledge of maintenance. Step six is the office.
Say who you are and how to reach you
Name, department, a phone extension or email, and the best way to get hold of you. If nobody can reach you, nobody can ask the one question that would have saved a visit.
Pin down where, precisely
Building, floor, and the room, area or nearest landmark. Be more specific than feels necessary: second cubicle, ground floor gents beats toilets. Add the tag number only if you can actually see a label.
Describe the problem in your own words
What you noticed and when, whether it is getting worse, and whether the thing can still be used. Do not try to diagnose it. Say whether you have reported it before, and attach a photo if you can.
Tick one urgency line, and say why on the same row
One line, not three. Then one sentence of justification. Ticking the top line to be seen faster is the behaviour that makes the top line worthless for the person who genuinely needs it.
Answer the access questions before you send it
Whether we may enter when you are not there, the best times, who to ask for on arrival, and anything we should know: pets, quiet hours, confidential areas, sensitive equipment.
Office use: triage it, test it against the spend limit, then convert or decline in writing
Category, priority and whether it matched what was ticked, the duplicate check, target response and completion. Estimate the cost, subtract the spend limit, and act on the difference. Then either raise the work order and tell the requester, or record the reason it was declined and tell them that instead.
Repair order form vs a repair work order
These are two different documents and it matters which one you are holding. This template is the first of them.
| Aspect | Repair order form | Repair work order |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A request for work, from whoever noticed | The authorised instruction to carry it out |
| Who fills it in | Anyone on site, in plain language | Maintenance, in trade language |
| When it exists | Before anyone has agreed to do anything | After triage and approval |
| The load-bearing fields | Urgency with a reason, location, access | Asset, parts, labour, downtime, sign-off |
| What it answers | Should we do this, how urgently, and who pays | Was it done, by whom, and at what cost |
| How they connect | One form becomes one work order, or a documented no | The form carries the work order number it raised |
The most useful thing this form does is let you say no properly. A work order can only record work that is happening. A request that is out of scope, unbudgeted, a duplicate, or simply too vague to act on has no work order to live in, and without a form it leaves no record at all. Those are exactly the requests people chase.
When the template starts to feel limiting
A paper form handles one request well. It handles a queue badly, and always in the same four ways.
Spend limits and categories drift
Limits change by role and by site, and category lists get revised. A printed pad carries whatever was true the day it was printed, and nothing on the page says otherwise.
Target response times cannot count themselves
A target response and a target completion written on a sheet in a tray do not escalate when they pass. The one field that protects the requester is the one paper cannot enforce.
The requester cannot see anything
Once the form leaves their hands they have no way to know whether it was triaged, approved, declined or lost. That blindness is what generates the follow-up call, and the call costs more than the repair.
Duplicates are invisible
Four people reporting the same failure produce four forms in four trays. Spotting that they are one job requires somebody to remember, and by the time anyone notices, two technicians have already attended.
What running this in Facilio looks like
The template is the paper version of this request. The fields are the same ones; the difference is that a request stops being a piece of paper in a tray and becomes something with a status the requester can see.
Work Completion Validator
A request cannot close until the requester agrees
On paper, closed means somebody said so. Work Completion Validator holds the job against what was asked for, so a repair closed without the work described, or without the requester confirming it is fixed, is caught rather than filed.
Ops Performance Intelligence
Target response and completion escalate on their own
The priority you assign carries its own response and completion clocks, so a request that is about to breach surfaces before the requester notices, and the ones that keep breaching show up as a pattern rather than a complaint.
Audit Report Intelligence
Declined requests stay on the record
The reason, what the requester was told and the revisit date are held with the request rather than in an inbox, so a decision not to act is as retrievable as a decision to act, which is the pair an auditor asks for.
Contractor Work Tracker
Duplicates and repeat faults surface at intake
New requests are matched against what is already open and against the history for that location, so four reports of one failure become one job, and a fault reported for the third time is flagged as recurring rather than raised as new.
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 repair order form?
A repair order form is the request that starts a repair. Part one is completed by whoever noticed the problem: who they are, where the problem is, what is wrong in their own words, how urgent it is and how to get in. Part two is the office record: triage, the category and priority assigned, the cost estimate, the spend approval, and either the work order raised or the reason the request was declined.
It is a request rather than an instruction. Nothing has been authorised at the point the first half is filled in.
What should a repair order form include?
At minimum: the requester's name, department and contact details, the date and time reported, the building, floor and precise location, what the item is, a description of the problem in the requester's own words, when it was first noticed, whether it is worsening and whether the item is still usable, whether it has been reported before, one ticked urgency line with a reason, the access answers, and the requester's sign-off. Then for the office: who received it, a reference number, the category and assigned priority with a note of whether it matched the request, the duplicate check, target response and completion, the estimate, the spend limit test, the authorisation decision, and either the work order number raised or the reason for rejection.
What is the difference between a repair order form and a work order?
The form is the request. The work order is the authorised instruction to do the work, raised after the request has been triaged and approved.
One form becomes one work order, or it becomes a documented no. Both are valid outcomes, and only the form can hold the second one.
Why ask for a reason next to the urgency tick?
Because an urgency level on its own is a preference, and a queue where everything is marked urgent is a queue with no priorities at all. One line of justification makes the tick reviewable.
It also protects the requester. A coordinator who downgrades a priority has to read the reason first, and has to record why it was changed.
Should a requester have to know the asset number?
No, and the form is written on that assumption. The asset or tag number is asked for only if there is a visible label on the item.
Requiring an identifier the requester cannot see is the fastest way to get incomplete forms, or no forms at all and a phone call instead.
What happens if a request is rejected?
It is recorded rather than dropped. The form asks for the reason, what the requester was told, confirmation that they were told, and a review or revisit date where one applies.
Unanswered requests are the single largest source of repeat contact. Saying no clearly costs less than saying nothing.
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 categories, the urgency wording or the spend limits; the Excel version is the one to use if you want the estimate and the amount over the limit to calculate themselves.
In one paragraph
A repair order form is the front door for repair requests, and it is written for the person walking through it rather than the team behind it. Part one asks who is reporting, exactly where the problem is, what is wrong in their own words, one ticked urgency line with a reason beside it, and how to get in. Part two is the office half: triage the category and priority, record whether that matched what the requester ticked, check for duplicates, estimate the cost and subtract the spend limit. If the difference is zero, approve it now. Then either raise the work order and tell the requester, or record why you declined and tell them that.
The template is the floor, not the ceiling
Take the template; it will carry one request from reported to authorised to fixed. When a pad of forms stops being enough, a connected CMMS runs the intake: response clocks that escalate themselves, duplicates matched as they arrive, and a requester who can see the status without ringing anyone.
