Client, Site & Vendor Accountability

Overview — Why Relationships Are Graded

Business relationships move more slowly than daily work performance, so the time windows here are longer than the 90-day employee ledger — a 12-month rolling window for clients, sites, and vendors.

Every sub-system uses the same two-ledger structure from the employee accountability system — kept apart on purpose:

Ledger A — Relationship Health Score (positive record). This is a cumulative record of the relationship working well. For a client, it tracks on-time payments, clean seasons, and referrals. For a site, it tracks consistent easy access, accurate scope, and zero hazard surprises. For a vendor, it tracks reliable delivery, accurate pricing, and quality material. Ledger A only grows; it is never decremented. It gives the Owner context when evaluating Ledger B.

Ledger B — Friction / Difficulty / Strike Log (negative record). This is the rolling 12-month window. Events that cost the company time, money, safety, or morale are logged here. Old events drop off so the record reflects current behavior — a client who had a rough stretch a year ago and has been solid since will show that improvement in their current Ledger B score.

Why keep them separate? If good behavior cancelled out bad behavior in one combined number, a long-term client who suddenly becomes abusive toward crew could hide behind their payment history. Keeping them separate means the Owner always sees the full picture: a very high Ledger A with a moderate Ledger B is a different conversation than a flat Ledger A with the same Ledger B score. The Owner uses judgment — not math — to make the final call.

An instant-action category bypasses both ledgers entirely: threatening crew or delivering unsafe material ends the relationship immediately, regardless of history.

The company side of every relationship is documented in the 'What We Owe' section — because this system is only honest if it holds the company to the same standard it holds everyone else.

Drops, pauses, and surcharges are never read from the friction score in isolation. The Owner reads the friction score, Ledger A, the relationship's revenue tier and concentration flag, and whether the cure path has been offered and exhausted — then records the decision and its rationale in the decision log.

Legal & Records Discipline — Read First

This page is a business record. Once it is written down and used to decide who keeps or loses service, it becomes a discoverable document — it can be requested in a lawsuit and read back to the company in court. That is not a reason to avoid writing things down; it is a reason to write them down correctly. A clean, factual record protects the company. A sloppy, opinion-filled one becomes evidence against it.

Facts and dates, never characterizations. Every mark must describe what happened and when — observable events, not judgments about a person. "Invoice #1042 unpaid 31 days as of 06/14" is a fact. "Client is cheap and rude" is a characterization and must never be logged. Strip adjectives about character, personality, ethnicity, accent, or appearance from every entry.

Drops must never correlate with a protected characteristic — even indirectly. A pattern of drops that lands disproportionately on clients of a particular race, religion, national origin, age, disability, sex, or family status is a legal risk regardless of intent. Proxies count too: dropping by neighborhood, ZIP code, or 'the kind of area' can indirectly correlate with a protected class and carries the same exposure. Decisions are made on the documented friction record and the economics — nothing else.

Every threshold action is recorded in the decision log. No client is warned, paused, surcharged, or dropped — and no vendor demoted or removed — without an entry in the decision log (see the Decision Log Standard near the end of this page). The log records the score, both ledgers, the action, and the rationale so decisions are consistent and defensible.

Relationship Economics — Revenue Tier & Concentration

A friction score on its own is only half the picture. Two clients can both sit at a 12-point Ledger B score, but if one pays the company $400 a year and the other pays $40,000, dropping them is not the same decision. Every drop, pause, or surcharge decision is read against the money at stake — the revenue tier and the concentration flag — not the friction score alone.

Revenue / margin tier. Each client and vendor is assigned a tier based on annual revenue and margin. The tier does not excuse friction — an abusive or non-paying client is still dropped regardless of tier — but it sets how hard the company works the cure path before dropping, and it forces the Owner to see the dollars a drop removes.

Concentration flag. Any single client that makes up 20% or more of total revenue is concentration-flagged. Losing a concentration-flagged client is a material event, so a drop decision for one requires a written replacement-revenue plan (how the gap gets filled) before service is terminated for anything short of an instant-drop trigger.

Dollarized friction weighting. The point weights in the friction tables are not arbitrary — each is anchored to a rough real-dollar cost so the threshold ladder is defensible rather than a gut number. The reference below shows the cost basis; the dollar figures are estimates the Owner tunes to the company's actual costs.

Revenue / Margin Tiers

Dollarized Friction Weighting — Cost Basis (estimates, owner-tunable)

Client Accountability — Overview

Every active client relationship has two separate records — kept apart for the same reason the employee system keeps its two ledgers apart: so a long payment history does not erase a pattern of crew abuse, and so a difficult payment stretch does not erase years of being a great partner.

Ledger A — Relationship Health Score. The positive record. Earns points when the client pays on time, causes no callbacks, makes referrals, and keeps their site easy to access. This record only grows — it is never reduced. A client with a high Ledger A score has built genuine goodwill that the Owner factors in when a Ledger B threshold is reached.

Ledger B — Friction Log. The rolling 12-month record. Friction events add to it; anything older than 12 months drops off. The threshold ladder in this section runs off Ledger B. The Owner reads both records before making any threshold decision — but the arithmetic never cancels one against the other.

All friction marks are logged by the Crew Lead at the job site (or by the Owner directly for payment events). All threshold decisions — warnings, pauses, drops — are made by the Owner. Crew Leads document and report; they do not make the final relationship call.

Client Accountability — Friction Events

The table below lists what earns a client a friction mark, the category, the weight added to the rolling score, and any notes. Friction marks are logged per occurrence unless otherwise noted.

Client Friction Events — Rolling 12-Month Score

Client Accountability — Thresholds & Actions

The threshold ladder maps the rolling 12-month friction score to the company's response. All thresholds are set in advance and published here — clients who reach a warning are told about the system and shown the specific issues driving their score. Two adjustments keep the ladder fair across very different kinds of accounts.

Frequency normalization — daily/high-revenue sites are not structurally punished. A weekly-mow client is on the schedule 25+ times a season; a one-time junk-removal client is serviced once. If both were judged on the same raw point total, the high-frequency client would rack up more marks simply by being visited more often. So friction is normalized by service frequency: high-frequency accounts are read on a marks-per-visit rate, and one-time/occasional accounts are read on the raw score (where a single serious event can act on its own). Use the Service Frequency Tiers table to pick which reading applies, then the threshold ladder.

Severity weighting — safety, conduct, and payment dominate. Not all friction is equal. Convenience friction (minor scope creep, a one-off late arrival on the client's side) must never, by itself, push a client past the Watch tier. Reaching Formal Warning or beyond requires at least one payment, conduct/safety, or false-claim mark — the categories that actually threaten the crew or the business. A pile of small convenience marks caps at Watch and is handled with a conversation, not a warning letter.

Snow-only accounts — single-season window. A pure snow contract runs one winter season (roughly November–March) and then the relationship sits idle all summer. A flat 12-month rolling window would carry last winter's marks straight into the next winter even though a full off-season passed. So snow-only clients and sites use a per-season window: convenience/access friction resets at the start of each new snow season, while payment, conduct/safety, and false-claim marks carry over one additional season. Marks are always read against the number of plow/salt visits in the current season, not a calendar year.

Service Frequency Tiers — Which Reading Applies

Client Friction Thresholds — Raw (Occasional/Periodic) & Rate (High-Frequency)

Client Accountability — Relationship Health (Ledger A)

Ledger A is the client's positive record. It grows when the relationship works well — on-time payments, clean seasons, referrals. It never resets and never decreases. The Owner uses Ledger A to read the full picture alongside Ledger B: a high-Ledger-A client who hits a watch-list score on Ledger B is a different conversation than a low-Ledger-A client at the same score.

Ledger A points are assessed by the Owner, not automatically calculated. They are not subtracted from Ledger B — that is what makes the two-ledger structure work. The two records are read side by side, not combined into one number.

A strong Ledger A also informs priority scheduling: long-term, low-friction clients who have consistently been great partners get scheduling priority during peak-demand periods.

Client Relationship Health Events — Ledger A (positive, never resets)

Cure Path & Client Dispute Channel

A client is never dropped by surprise. Before termination for anything short of an instant-drop trigger, the relationship runs through a written cure path — and at any point the client can dispute an individual mark.

The cure path — four steps. 1. Warning. When a client reaches Formal Warning, the Owner contacts them and explains that the account has open issues. 2. Issues identified in writing. The Owner sends a written list of the specific, factual issues driving the score (dates and events, not characterizations) and what resolution looks like. 3. Defined cure period. The client gets a defined window — one billing cycle (about 30 days), or one full visit cycle for high-frequency accounts — to resolve the issues. Anchor/concentration-flagged clients get the cure path worked in full before any drop is considered. 4. Re-evaluation. At the end of the cure period the Owner re-reads the score. Issues genuinely resolved are cleared; if the pattern continues, the account moves to Service Pause or Drop review with the cure attempt documented in the decision log.

Client dispute channel. A client who believes a specific mark is wrong can contest it by contacting the Owner within 30 days of being notified of it. The disputed mark is held (not counted toward a threshold action) until the Owner reviews the documentation behind it. If the mark is not supported by the record, it is removed; if it is supported, it stands and the client is shown the documentation. A mark under dispute never triggers a pause or drop while the review is open.

The cure path and the dispute channel are the operational side of the model cure-period and client dispute/appeal contract clauses in the appendix — the policy and the agreement language are meant to match.

Intake Screening Gate — Catching Bad Fits Before Signing

The cheapest problem client is the one never signed. Most friction is predictable at intake, so new relationships pass through a screening gate before a service agreement is executed.

Pre-engagement site inspection. Before quoting a recurring account, someone walks the property: access points, terrain, hazards (dogs, slopes, debris, unstable ground), scope realism versus what the client described, and neighbor/parking constraints. A site that cannot be serviced safely or as described is re-quoted with the real conditions priced in — or declined.

Deposit and credit terms for new commercial accounts. New commercial accounts start on protective payment terms: a deposit or first-invoice prepayment, or a short net window (net-15) with a basic credit check for larger contracts, until a payment history is established. This is where payment friction is prevented, not punished later.

Probationary first season. A new account's first season runs on tighter thresholds — roughly 60% of the standard numbers — because there is no Ledger A history to give context yet. A serious first-season mark (payment, conduct/safety, false claim) triggers an early Owner review rather than waiting for the full ladder. Once a clean first season is on the books, the account moves to standard thresholds and starts earning Ledger A.

Intake Screening Gate — New-Account Checklist

Site Accountability — Overview

A client may own multiple properties. One bad property does not mean the client is bad — and one bad client does not mean all their properties are dropped. Sites are tracked independently so the owner can:

- Drop one site while keeping the client's other locations. - Flag a site for a difficulty surcharge (difficulty premium) without dropping it. - Require a site pre-inspection before resuming service after a flag.

Sites use the same two-ledger structure as the rest of this system:

Ledger A — Site Reliability Record. The positive record. Grows when the site is consistently easy to access, scope matches what was quoted, and the crew finds no surprises. Never resets or decreases. A site with a high Ledger A record has a long history of being a smooth job.

Ledger B — Difficulty Log. The rolling 12-month record. Difficulty marks add to it; events older than 12 months drop off. The threshold ladder runs off Ledger B. The Owner reads both records before making any surcharge or drop decision — but the two numbers are never combined into one.

Difficulty marks are logged per occurrence, documented with a photo whenever possible. The Crew Lead documents and reports to the owner; the owner decides whether to surcharge, drop, or monitor.

Site Accountability — Site Reliability (Ledger A)

Ledger A is the site's positive record. It grows when the site is consistently easy to work — predictable access, accurate scope, no hazard surprises. A site with a strong Ledger A history gets more context behind a Ledger B difficulty mark: one unexpected hazard at a normally excellent property is different from the same hazard at a site that is already flagged.

Ledger A points are assessed by the Owner at each season close, not automatically calculated. They are never subtracted from Ledger B.

Site Reliability Events — Ledger A (positive, never resets)

Site Accountability — Difficulty Marks

The table below lists what earns a site a difficulty mark, the category, the weight, and any notes. All difficulty marks are documented by the Crew Lead at the time of the event.

Site Difficulty Marks — Rolling 12-Month Score

Site Accountability — Thresholds & Clearing

The table below maps the rolling 12-month site difficulty score to the company's response. Sites can be cleared — score reset — if the underlying issue is genuinely resolved.

The same fairness adjustments as the client ladder apply to sites: high-frequency locations are read on a marks-per-visit rate so a weekly-service property is not punished simply for being visited more often, and snow-only sites use the per-season window (convenience/access marks reset each new snow season; safety marks carry over one additional season). A difficulty surcharge or site drop is never billed or actioned off the raw number alone — it is read against the site's frequency tier and reliability history (Ledger A), and every action is entered in the decision log.

Site Difficulty Thresholds — Rolling 12-Month Window

Vendor Accountability — Overview

Vendors use the same two-ledger structure as clients and sites. Each supply category (fuel, small-engine parts, de-icing materials, landscape supplies, equipment parts) has a primary vendor and a backup vendor — when a vendor accumulates strikes, the backup moves up without losing supply continuity.

Ledger A — Vendor Performance Record. The positive record. Grows when the vendor delivers correctly, on time, and at quoted price — consistently. It is cumulative and never resets. A long-tenured preferred vendor with a strong Ledger A record gets meaningful context behind a first or second strike.

Ledger B — Strike Record. The rolling 12-month window. Strikes add to it; events older than 12 months drop off. The vendor status tiers run off Ledger B. The Owner reads both records before making any demotion or removal decision — but neither number cancels the other.

Strikes are logged by the Owner or by a Crew Lead reporting a delivery issue. The vendor is notified when they reach Watch status so they have the opportunity to correct the problem before demotion or removal.

Vendor Accountability — Performance Record (Ledger A)

Ledger A is the vendor's positive record. It grows when the vendor consistently delivers the right material, on time, at quoted price. It is cumulative and never resets — a vendor who has been reliable for three years has built a genuine track record that the Owner weighs alongside any strikes.

Ledger A points are assessed by the Owner. They are not subtracted from strike counts. A long-tenured Ledger A vendor who accumulates two strikes in a rough 12-month window is read differently than a newer vendor at the same strike count.

Vendor Performance Events — Ledger A (positive, never resets)

Vendor Accountability — Strike Events

The table below lists what earns a vendor a strike, the category, the strike count, and any notes.

Vendor Strike Events — Rolling 12-Month Window

Vendor Accountability — Vendor Tiers

The table below maps the rolling 12-month strike count to vendor status. Demotion shifts the order — preferred becomes backup, backup becomes primary — without necessarily ending the relationship permanently.

Vendor Status Tiers — Rolling 12-Month Window

Vendor Accountability — Preferred Vendor List

For each supply category, the owner maintains a primary vendor, a backup vendor, and a notes field (lead times, account numbers, contact names). The list below is the current reference table — it is a handbook reference, not a live system. CRM integration is planned for a future phase.

Preferred Vendor List — By Supply Category

Logging Calibration & Retaliation Guard

A ledger is only as trustworthy as the people filling it in. If one Crew Lead logs a mark for every small annoyance and another logs almost nothing, the scores stop meaning anything — and a client could be dropped for having a strict lead rather than for real friction. These rules keep logging consistent and honest.

Worked examples — this counts / this doesn't. Every event type has a bright line. When in doubt, log the facts and let the Owner decide; do not log a personal impression.

Corroboration requirement for conduct marks. A conduct mark — verbal aggression, disrespect, threats short of an instant-drop — requires corroboration: a second crew member who witnessed it, or a recording/photo/text. A single person's uncorroborated account of what a client said is documented and reported to the Owner, but does not become a scored conduct mark on its own. (Instant-drop safety triggers are the exception — crew leaves first, documents after.)

Periodic owner review of logging rates. Each quarter the Owner compares marks-per-visit across Crew Leads. A lead who logs far more (or far fewer) marks than the others is reviewed — not to punish, but to recalibrate what is and isn't being logged so the standard stays even across the crew.

Retaliation guard. Any friction mark logged against a client within 14 days after that same client complained about the crew or lead involved gets automatic elevated Owner scrutiny. The mark is held pending Owner review and requires corroboration before it counts. This prevents the ledger from being used to get back at a client who complained.

Logging Calibration — Counts vs. Doesn't Count

What We Owe — Company Accountability to Clients & Vendors

This system is only honest if it holds the company to the same standards it holds its clients and vendors. The same principle that drives the owner accountability section on the Points & Accountability page applies here: accountability flows in all directions.

The company's commitments to every active client and vendor relationship are listed below. These are not aspirational goals — they are the standards that the company holds itself to, the same way it holds clients and vendors to theirs.

This side of the ledger has teeth, not just words. A company miss is logged the same way client friction is — as a factual, dated event, not a vague apology.

Who logs a company miss. The crew self-reports a miss (late arrival, missed scope, property damage) in the end-of-day report; a client- or vendor-reported miss is logged by the Owner when it is raised. Either way it lands in the Company Miss Log for that relationship.

What happens at repeated misses. Isolated misses are corrected and move on. A pattern — 3 logged misses to the same client or vendor in a rolling quarter — triggers a service-recovery step (an apology plus a concrete fix, or a service credit where warranted) and a root-cause note so the same miss does not repeat.

Quarterly owner review. Each quarter the Owner reviews the Company Miss Log across all relationships. The same miss type showing up across many clients points to a process problem to fix on the company side — not a client problem.

Company Commitments — Client Relationships

Company Commitments — Vendor Relationships

Company Miss Log — Enforcement of Our Own Standards

Documentation & Reporting Process

The friction log, site difficulty marks, and vendor strikes are only as good as the documentation behind them. A mark without documentation is not a mark — it is a complaint. Here is what counts as documentation and how a Crew Lead logs an event.

What to document: - What happened — specific event, not a general impression ("client added fence line mid-job without agreement" not "client was difficult"). - When it happened — date and time. - Who was present — crew members on site. - Photo evidence — for site hazards, damage claims, access issues, and material quality failures. - Client or vendor response — what they said or did when the issue was raised on site.

When to tell the owner: - Payment events (unpaid invoices) — the owner tracks these directly through billing. - Conduct events (verbal aggression, threats, harassment) — contact the owner the same day, not at end of week. - Instant-drop triggers (threats, harassment) — call the owner immediately before leaving the site. - All other friction or difficulty marks — include in the end-of-day report; the owner reviews and decides on threshold action.

What happens after logging: The owner reviews all reported events before any threshold action is taken. A Crew Lead documents and reports — the owner decides whether to issue a warning, pause service, adjust the vendor order, or take no action. No client is warned, paused, or dropped, and no vendor is demoted or removed, without the owner's direct decision.

This process mirrors how employee infraction reports work: document the specific event, report it to the appropriate level, review before any consequence is applied.

Decision Log Standard

Every threshold action — a warning, a service pause, a difficulty surcharge, a client or site drop, a vendor demotion or removal — is recorded in a decision log before it takes effect. The log is what makes decisions consistent across time and defensible if they are ever questioned. A drop with no logged rationale is a liability; a drop with a clear, factual log entry is a business decision on the record.

Each entry captures the same fields so any two decisions can be compared side by side. Rationale is written in facts and dates — never characterizations, and never anything referencing a protected characteristic or a neighborhood proxy (see Legal & Records Discipline). The log also records whether the cure path was offered and how the client responded, and the revenue tier and concentration flag that were weighed.

Decision Log — Required Fields Per Action

Model Service-Agreement Clauses (Reference Appendix)

The accountability ladder only has real force if the service agreement gives it a matching hook. A surcharge, a cure requirement, or a drop is far more defensible when the signed agreement already says the company can do it. The template clauses below are drafted from standard, balanced clause structures and map to the mechanics on this page. They deliberately avoid red-flag wording — no unilateral "sole discretion" drops, no arbitrary or uncapped terms — and use plain, mutual language.

Cure-Period Clause (maps to the Cure Path). "If either party believes the other has failed to meet its obligations under this Agreement, that party shall provide written notice describing the specific issue. The receiving party shall have thirty (30) days from the date of notice to cure the issue. If the issue is not cured within that period, the notifying party may terminate this Agreement for cause upon written notice."

Termination-for-Cause Clause. "Either party may terminate this Agreement for cause if the other party materially breaches the Agreement and fails to cure the breach within the cure period described above, or in the event of non-payment, unsafe conditions, or threatening or abusive conduct. Termination for cause is effective upon written notice."

Termination-for-Convenience Clause. "Either party may terminate this Agreement without cause by providing the other party at least thirty (30) days' written notice. The Client remains responsible for payment for all services performed through the effective date of termination."

Difficulty-Premium / Condition-Change Clause (maps to the site surcharge). "Pricing is based on the site conditions and scope described at the time of quoting. If site conditions materially change or differ from those described — including undisclosed hazards, access restrictions, or scope beyond the quote — the Company may adjust pricing to reflect the actual conditions. Any such adjustment will be communicated in writing before it takes effect, and for recurring agreements takes effect at renewal or upon thirty (30) days' written notice."

Client Dispute / Appeal Clause (maps to the dispute channel). "If the Client disputes a charge, a service record, or a proposed pricing adjustment, the Client may submit the dispute in writing within thirty (30) days. The Company will review the dispute and supporting records and respond in writing. No termination or pricing change based on the disputed item will take effect while a good-faith dispute is under review."