Facility vendor management glossary
This glossary defines 13 terms facility and procurement teams use when they source, contract, and evaluate trade vendors, from a request for quote (RFQ) and a service level agreement (SLA) to a vendor scorecard and invoice reconciliation. Each definition is one self-contained sentence. It is written by Evalystar, vendor management software for facilities and procurement teams, and notes where Evalystar handles a step, such as the contract coverage check it runs before a job is booked.
Summary
- A request for quote (RFQ) prices one clearly defined job across several vendors, while a request for proposal (RFP) asks vendors how they would do a complex or recurring service.
- A contract coverage check confirms, before a job is booked, whether an active contract or SLA already covers the work, so it is not billed twice.
- A vendor scorecard is built from ratings of completed jobs against fixed criteria, and evidence-based renewal uses that record to decide whether to renew a contract.
- Invoice reconciliation checks a vendor invoice against the contract and the work recorded, and flags mismatches before payment.
- Contract coverage check
A contract coverage check is the step of confirming, before a job is booked, whether the work is already covered by an active service contract or SLA with a specific vendor, so covered work goes to the vendor who owes it instead of being billed again as a one-off.
Evalystar runs this check when a job is described, before any vendor is ranked or contacted. It is a sourcing-time check, not an audit of finished work.
- Direct award
A direct award is sending a job straight to one chosen vendor without collecting competing quotes, usually because the work is small, urgent, or already priced under a contract.
Direct award is fastest, but it is only defensible when the vendor is already under contract for that work or has a documented performance record that justifies skipping a quote.
- Evidence-based renewal
Evidence-based renewal means deciding whether to renew, renegotiate, or replace a vendor contract using the documented record of the vendor's completed jobs, ratings, and incidents for the term, rather than memory or the most recent complaint.
In Evalystar the record builds up job by job, so by the renewal date the scorecard already exists.
- Intervention
An intervention is a single piece of work a vendor performs at a site, such as a repair visit, a cleaning shift, or a preventive maintenance call, and it is the unit that gets rated and recorded.
Rating every intervention, not just the memorable ones, is what turns a vendor relationship into a usable record.
- Invoice reconciliation
Invoice reconciliation in facility services is checking a vendor's invoice against the contract terms and the work actually recorded for the job, and flagging any line that does not match before the invoice is paid.
Evalystar matches invoice lines to the job's planned scope and the work reported, and flags mismatches. It does not raise purchase orders, approve invoices, or make payments; that stays in your accounting system.
- Master service agreement (MSA)
A master service agreement (MSA) is a framework contract that sets the standing terms between a client and a vendor, such as rates, insurance, liability, and payment terms, so individual jobs or work orders can be issued later without renegotiating those terms each time.
- Multi-site operator
A multi-site operator is an organization that runs facilities at more than one location, such as a property manager, a hotel group, a school district, or a senior living chain, and usually works with several vendors per trade across those sites.
The core difficulty for a multi-site operator is comparing the same vendor, or the same trade, across sites that each keep their own notes.
- Not-to-exceed (NTE)
A not-to-exceed (NTE) amount is the maximum a vendor may bill for a job without getting further approval, set when the job is issued so that unexpected scope triggers a conversation instead of a surprise invoice.
- Request for proposal (RFP)
A request for proposal (RFP) asks vendors to propose how they would do a job or a recurring service and at what price, and is used when the scope is complex or the approach itself is part of the decision, such as a multi-year janitorial or HVAC maintenance contract.
- Request for quote (RFQ)
A request for quote (RFQ) asks several vendors to price the same, clearly defined job so the quotes can be compared line for line, and is the usual method for one-off facility repairs and small projects.
Evalystar drafts the quote request and sends it to a shortlist of vendors from your own pool, ranked by contract coverage and past performance. How fast vendors reply is up to them.
- Service level agreement (SLA)
A service level agreement (SLA) is the part of a vendor contract that sets measurable performance targets, such as response time, fix time, or task completion rate, and states what happens when they are missed.
- Vendor incident
A vendor incident is a documented problem caused by or involving a contractor, such as property damage, a safety breach, a no-show, or a complaint, recorded with the date, site, and details so it can be referenced in a dispute or at renewal.
Incidents logged when they happen carry far more weight than ones reconstructed from memory months later.
- Vendor scorecard
A vendor scorecard is a structured record of a vendor's performance over time, built from ratings of completed jobs against fixed criteria such as quality, timeliness, cleanliness, and communication.
In Evalystar every score comes from a person who rated a job; no score is generated for a job nobody rated.