Most commercial security systems in Auckland are installed once and then forgotten until something goes wrong: a camera that’s been pointing at a tree for eighteen months, a recorder that quietly stopped writing in March, a fob belonging to a tenant who moved out two Christmases ago. A service and maintenance agreement is how a property or facilities manager stops finding these things out after the incident. This is what one should actually contain, and what to push back on.
1. A per-site asset register, not a contract schedule
The agreement should start from a list of what’s installed: every camera, recorder, reader, controller, panel and siren, with model, location, install date, and who supports it under what warranty. If the contractor hasn’t walked the sites and written this down, they’re agreeing to maintain something they haven’t seen. The register is also the document your insurer, your IQP and the next facilities manager will ask for. It should be yours to keep, in a format you can open without the contractor.
2. What a scheduled visit actually checks
“Annual service” means nothing on its own. Ask for the checklist. At minimum, each visit on a CCTV, access and alarm portfolio should cover:
- Cameras — lens clean, field of view checked against the view you agreed at install (cameras drift, get knocked, and get blocked by new signage), night image checked.
- Recorders — storage health, retention actually matching what you think it is, time sync (footage with the wrong timestamp is close to useless as evidence), firmware current.
- Doors and readers — every reader, lock, request-to-exit and door contact function-tested, not just the front door.
- Alarm panel — zone walk test, battery, communicator path to monitoring.
- Credentials — fobs and cards reconciled against who currently works at or leases the site. This is the one almost nobody does, and it’s the one that matters most at tenant changeover.
- The cabling underneath — a camera on a bad PoE run drops out intermittently and gets blamed on the camera. A contractor who also owns the cabling can test the run instead of swapping hardware.
3. A written report, same day, that you can forward
Every visit should end with a report emailed to you: what was checked, what was found, what was fixed on the spot, what needs a quote. Dated, per site, with photos where it helps. If the report lives only in the contractor’s system, you don’t have a record; you have a dependency.
4. Tenant changeover handled as a process
On a multi-tenant site, access control is only as good as the last time someone updated it. The agreement should say what happens when a tenant leaves or arrives: you send the change, the contractor updates the access list and the register, and confirms in writing. Between scheduled visits, that’s the single most common request on a portfolio, so it should have a turnaround attached rather than being treated as a chargeable call-out every time.
5. Response times and who you call
“Priority support” needs a number next to it. What’s the response for a door that won’t lock versus a camera that’s offline? Is there a phone number answered by a person, and what are the hours? A sensible agreement distinguishes a security fault (someone comes today) from a maintenance item (goes on the next visit), and tells you which is which before you’re standing at a door at 6 pm.
6. No lock-in on the hardware
Be wary of agreements that only work if you keep buying one brand, or where the contractor holds the only admin credentials to your own recorders and controllers. You should hold or be able to obtain admin access to everything on your sites, and the register should document the system well enough that another licensed contractor could pick it up. Gallagher, Inner Range, Paxton and Hikvision are all serviceable by any competent licensed installer; make sure your agreement doesn’t quietly undo that.
7. The licence and insurance behind it
In New Zealand, installing and servicing security systems for reward requires a PSPLA licence. Ask for the company licence number and check it. Ask for public liability cover and the site-safety prequalifications your buildings require. None of this is exotic; it’s just the stuff that gets skipped when the quote is cheap.
If you are also tendering the install itself, Cabled Right sets out the eight questions to ask any cabling or security vendor before you sign, and how to score three quotes against each other.
What it should cost
It depends on the number of sites, the device count and how often you want someone on the ground, so we don’t publish a rate. What we will say: a plan that’s priced per site after a walk-through is more honest than a flat monthly figure quoted over the phone, because the second one was priced before anyone knew what was there.
Related reading
- Security for property and facilities managers, Auckland — how we run CCTV, access control and alarms across a portfolio.
- CCTV and the Privacy Act 2020 — who can see the footage and what you need to document.
- Three Auckland commercial sites, one method — what the register looks like on real jobs.
- Access control systems for Auckland commercial sites.
Want your portfolio on one register?
Tell us how many sites you look after. We’ll walk them, put what’s installed on one register, and set up a Security Care Plan sized to the portfolio. PSPLA Company Licence 25-132031, 12-month workmanship warranty.