Keep two lists. One is the people: name, company, trade, phone, and how you found them. The other is the work: the date, what they did, which thing in the house they touched, and what they told you to watch. Put both somewhere the whole household can reach. A stack of invoices in a drawer, or a thread on one person’s phone, is how the record disappears.

That is the whole method. The rest of this post is how to fill those lists in, and how to keep them from rotting.

Why the invoice pile fails

A house hires the same trades over and over. The plumber who found the upstairs leak. The HVAC company that serviced the furnace last October. The electrician who added the garage circuit. Years later you need one of them again, or a second opinion, or proof the work was done.

What usually survives:

A faded sticker on the furnace
A text thread on the phone of whoever made the call
A PDF in email, under a subject line nobody will search
A business card in a junk drawer

None of those is a history. They are scraps. The day you need “who last flushed the water heater,” you will remember there was a guy, and you will not remember his name.

Sharing a house makes this worse, not easier. One person calls the plumber. Everyone else never hears the company name. Next year a different person googles a new one from scratch.

What to write down for each contractor

Create a record the first time you hire someone, not after you have three of them and cannot tell them apart.

For each person or company, capture:

Name and company. The person who showed up, and the company on the invoice. They are not always the same.
Trade. Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, pest control, roofing. You will search by trade later, not by the name you forgot.
Phone and email. The number that actually answered. Not the national dispatch line if you have a local one.
How you found them. A neighbor, a sticker the previous owner left, a review. That note helps the day you need a second plumber and want to remember why you trusted this one.

You do not need a CRM. You need enough to call them again, and enough to tell the next person in the house who they are.

What to write down for each visit

A contractor record without the work is just an address book. The useful part is the visit.

For every job, write:

The date. The day they were in the house, not the day you paid.
What they did. “Replaced the anode rod” is a history. “Fixed water heater” is not.
Which thing in the home. The water heater, the furnace, the main panel. Attach the visit to the thing, so you can later ask when it was last serviced.
What they told you. Parts that are wearing, a return visit they recommended, a part they ordered. That conversation almost never makes it onto the invoice.
Warranty, if there is one. What is covered, and until when. Put it in the notes. It will not live in your head for ten years.
What it cost, if you want it later for insurance or a second quote. The receipt can stay in a folder. The amount can live in the notes.

Write this the same day. A week later you will remember that someone came, and not much else.

Keep guesses out of the history

The trap is the same one that ruins breaker labels. A vague note written as fact. “I think it was Mike’s Plumbing in 2019” becomes, two owners later, a record nobody should trust.

If you are reconstructing history from stickers and seller comments, write what you are sure of and what you are guessing. The new homeowner checklist covers how to recover what the last owner took with them. This post is the other half: what you write from today forward, so the next person does not have to reconstruct anything.

Put it where the household can see it

A notes app on one phone is how this knowledge concentrates in one head. The person who “handles the house” becomes the only one who can answer who to call, and they are also the person who is out of town when the sump pump fails.

The record has to be reachable by everyone who might need to make the call. That is a household problem, not a filing problem.

Tobi’s maintenance log is built for this. Contractors are their own records: name, company, trade, phone, email, and notes. They sit next to the things you maintain, not mixed into a to-do list.

When work gets done, you mark the task complete and name the contractor who did it, instead of a household member. That visit is appended to the history: the date, who did it, and notes. Nothing is written over. Open that contractor later and you see everything they have done in the home, filtered to them.

A few things that matter in practice:

The history stays attached even if you stop using that contractor. A contractor with history is archived rather than deleted, so past visits still have a name.
Completing a task can send the household an email that names who did the work, so the people who were not home still get the record.
Everyone in the household sees the same contractors and the same history, in real time. One subscription covers the house, and only the owner pays.

Tobi is not a directory, and it does not book anyone. It is the record you keep of the people you already hired.

Common questions

Do I still need the paper invoice?

Keep the invoice if you want it for warranty or insurance. The paper is the proof. The history is the index: who, when, what, and which thing in the house. You should be able to answer those four without digging through a folder.

What if I cannot remember who did the last job?

Write down what you do know: the approximate year, the sticker on the equipment, the seller’s comment. Mark it as incomplete. Then start the real record on the next visit. A clean history from today is worth more than a reconstructed one you are not sure of.

One company, different technicians?

Record the company as the contractor. Put the technician’s name in the visit notes if you want to ask for them next time. The company is who you call. The person is a useful extra.

Should renters do this?

If you hire anyone yourself, yes. If the landlord handles every trade, you may only need the emergency numbers they gave you. The people this helps most are homeowners who call their own plumbers and HVAC techs.

How far back should I go?

As far as the stickers and receipts you already have. Do not stall the current record waiting for a complete past. Year one of writing things down is the part that pays.

The next time someone comes to the house

You will hire another plumber. You will forget the name of the last one, unless it is written down. You will also forget what they already replaced, and you will pay to diagnose it again.

A house that lasts decades needs a service history that lasts that long too. Write the name, write the visit, and put it where the rest of the household can find it.

How to keep track of home contractors