Quoting, scheduling, field execution, and invoicing — built on top of an audit-ready permanent record. Every PM, load bank result, and transfer test captured as a named, timestamped record an auditor will actually accept.
Built by a generator-service operator — someone who priced the PM contracts, dispatched the trucks, and sat across from the surveyor when the record got pulled — not a horizontal software company that added “generator” to a dropdown. Who builds PowerOps.
By the PowerOps team ·
You sell life-safety and compliance work to hospitals, data centers, and municipalities. Your tools should produce the same accountability you sell. In PowerOps, every gate is an attested click by a named, authenticated person — and every reading flows into an append-only record you can hand an auditor.
Load %, duration, voltage/frequency per phase, exhaust temp, transfer times, observations — captured in the field and written to an immutable record.
Every PM completion and approval is a named, authenticated user at a server timestamp. No cron job, no AI agent, ever signs off for a person.
When the AHJ or an accreditation surveyor asks for the history, you produce it on the spot — not after a week digging through binders.
From the field
Every generator shop has a version of this story. A hospital standby unit, the PM visit before storm season. On paper the unit was perfect — twelve months of monthly exercises, every box ticked in the binder. Then the tech put hands on the iron and found a dead block heater. First cold snap, that engine cranks cold and maybe doesn't start — and every one of those “passing” log sheets is worthless the moment a surveyor asks who actually took the readings, and when. The part was cheap. The lesson wasn't: a binder says the work happened; an attributed, timestamped record proves it. That gap is the reason PowerOps exists.
A job moves through eight stages, from Lead to Paid. Data auto-flows between them — customer, site, equipment, line items, files, and prior-stage notes carry forward so nobody retypes anything. But the record only advances when a named person clicks the specific gate and attests to it. That click is the audit trail.
This is the difference between software that stores values and software that stores accountability. A spreadsheet cell can be changed by anyone with the file open, and the change leaves no trace. A gate in PowerOps can't: the audit row is written in the same transaction as the state change, it names the authenticated user, and it can never be edited or deleted. When an auditor asks “who approved this on March 3rd, and what did they see?” the answer is one human name, a server timestamp, an IP address, and a snapshot of the exact data at the moment of the click.
If you're moving off spreadsheets, the practical mechanics of that switch — what to import first, how to keep your service history — are covered in moving from spreadsheets to generator service software.
The generic platforms list “load bank” as a checkbox. We built the workflow around why each one matters.
Schedule, capture, and document load bank results to the percent and duration the governing standard calls for — with pass/fail criteria, not a free-text note.
Track transfer and re-transfer times, switch-position verification, and the monthly exercise log per unit and per ATS.
Keep emissions tier, fuel quality testing, and runtime hours where an auditor expects them — not on a clipboard in the truck.
Capture the real failure modes — never run unloaded into wet stacking, catch battery sulfation and governor drift before they become a no-start.
This is the depth generic tools miss. A diesel that exercises for years at light load will wet stack — which is why the monthly exercise wants meaningful load (roughly 30% of nameplate, or exhaust temps per the manufacturer) and why the annual load bank exists at all. A transfer test isn't “it clicked over” — it's a measured transfer time, logged per ATS, per event, against the criteria your AHJ enforces. And a fuel sample result belongs on the unit's permanent record, because a polish from two years ago says nothing about what's growing in the tank today. PowerOps captures each of these as structured fields on the unit — not free-text notes on a closed job. The full walkthrough lives in the load bank testing guide and the generator PM checklist.
For standby and emergency power, the testing and maintenance cadences are set by the governing standard — most often NFPA 110 for emergency power supply systems — and by the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ). They vary by facility type: a hospital, a data center, and a municipal water plant are not held to the same bar. Software does not change any of that, and any vendor who tells you their product “makes you compliant” is overselling.
What the standard does expect, broadly, is a routine: exercise the unit on a schedule, test the automatic transfer switch, run a load bank at a meaningful load on a longer interval, and — the part that trips people up — keep a permanent record of it that can be produced on demand. A binder of checkmarks satisfies the letter of “we wrote it down” while failing the spirit of “prove who did this and when.”
PowerOps's job is narrow and honest: let you configure the cadences and checklists your standard and your AHJ require, capture each test as an attributed, timestamped, append-only record, and put the overdue work in front of you before it slips. It systemizes the diligence; it does not decide compliance for you. If you want the requirements themselves in plain English, start with the NFPA 110 testing requirements guide.
Most “field service” tools schedule and invoice fine. The questions that actually separate them for generator work are narrower. Run any vendor — including this one — through these:
Is the generator a first-class record?
Each unit should carry its own identity — make, model, serial, kW, ATS, fuel type, install date — with a full service history that follows the unit across years, not a note buried on a closed job.
Does it produce an attributed, append-only record?
Completed PMs, load banks, and transfer tests should be written by a named, authenticated user at a server timestamp and be impossible to silently edit later. This is the part an auditor cares about.
What works with limited connectivity?
Inspection, checklist, and service-report drafts save locally on the device and can be resumed or submitted after reconnecting; they are never submitted in the background. Only explicitly eligible note and labor operations sync automatically. Photos, signatures, temporal status changes, and final completion stay explicitly connection-required; gate actions never queue.
Does it model the generator-specific work?
Load bank pass/fail, ATS transfer times, EPA tier and fuel records — as structured fields, not free text. A checkbox labeled "load bank" is not the same thing.
Does data auto-flow without re-entry?
Customer, site, equipment, and pricing should be entered once and carry from quote to job to invoice. If your team retypes anything between stages, that is where mistakes and mismatched invoices come from.
Can you control who sees what?
Role-based permissions per section of the business, so a technician’s view is not the office’s view. On a shared spreadsheet, anyone with the file has the whole file.
Want a longer, vendor-neutral version of this? See how to choose generator service software and the ServiceTitan-for-generators breakdown.
| Capability | Generic FSM | PowerOps |
|---|---|---|
| Attributed, append-only permanent record | ||
| Load bank documentation & pass/fail | ||
| ATS transfer-time testing log | ||
| PM contract / recurring-revenue tracking | ||
| Per-unit equipment history across years |
Jobber and ServiceTitan run trucks. TEN4 and FieldServio handle dispatch. None of them produce the compliance record you're actually accountable for. If you're weighing a switch, the FieldServio alternative and ServiceTitan alternative write-ups go deeper.
The NFPA 110-aware PM agreement — scope, tiers, and the line items most contracts get wrong.
Those tools were built for trades like HVAC and plumbing. They schedule, dispatch, and invoice — but they have no concept of a generator permanent record, load bank documentation, or transfer-switch testing. PowerOps is built for generator service: every PM, load bank result, and reading is captured as an attributed, timestamped record an auditor will accept.
It covers the same dispatch and work-order ground, then goes further: it produces the compliance record those tools leave to spreadsheets. If you sell PM to hospitals, data centers, or municipalities, the audit trail is the part that wins and keeps the contract.
When a technician completes a PM or test in the field, the required fields — load %, duration, voltage and frequency per phase, exhaust temp, transfer times, observations — are captured on their phone and written to an append-only record tied to a named, authenticated user and a server timestamp. You can produce the full history on the spot when an AHJ or an accreditation surveyor asks.
Inspection, checklist, and service-report drafts save locally on the device and can be resumed or submitted after reconnecting; they are never submitted in the background. Only explicitly eligible note and labor operations sync automatically. Photo uploads, signatures, temporal status changes, and final job completion require a connection; audited transitions are never queued or replayed.
No. The testing and maintenance cadences are set by the governing standard, such as NFPA 110, and by the authority having jurisdiction, and they vary by facility. PowerOps lets you configure cadences and checklists to match what the standard and the AHJ require, and it captures the work as a permanent record. It systemizes the diligence; it does not decide compliance for you.
You can start a free trial today and import your equipment, sites, and customers. Most generator shops are running real work orders within the first week.
The same platform, framed for the work you actually do.
Mission-critical standby power, monitored and provable.
A survey-ready record of every EPSS test and PM.
Defensible records — and help winning the public contracts.
On-rent, off-rent, and a service history on the same unit.
Turn the install you won into a recurring service agreement.
Run the PM program: due, coming due, and overdue in one view.
Commit the crew to an arrival window without retyping the job.
Every unit a real record, the whole fleet on one screen.
The attributed, append-only record the standard expects.
How to evaluate generator service software — the criteria that matter.
Dispatch, quoting, invoicing, monitoring, and the rest.
Straight answers to the questions buyers and operators actually ask.
The plain-English definition of the category.
Spreadsheets vs. generic FSM vs. purpose-built platforms.
How often a standby generator should be serviced.
The questions people ask most, answered plainly.
A practical, operator-grounded guide.
Start a free 14-day trial, or book a live demo and bring your toughest compliance customer.