Creating Maintenance Tasks

Overview

Maintenance tasks are how you keep your fleet road-ready without losing track of what needs doing. Every inspection, repair, and preventive service lives in Maintenance, where you can assign it, price it, and make sure the trailer is not rented while it is out of service.

Creating a New Task

1. Navigate to Maintenance in the main sidebar.
2. Click New Task in the top-right corner.
3. Fill in the task form with the fields below.
4. Click Create Task to save.

Once created, the task appears in the Maintenance list with a status of Open and, if the task is active, the trailer is blocked from being booked for the dates the work covers.

Required and Recommended Fields

Title

A short, specific name for the task. Good titles describe the work, not the symptom — for example, "Replace left rear tire" reads better than "Tire issue."

Description

Use the description to capture context: who reported it, what you noticed during the walk-around, part numbers you already know, or notes from the customer. Markdown is supported, so you can paste in checklists or links.

Trailer

Pick the trailer this task applies to. TrailerBase will show you the trailer's recent maintenance history inline so you can avoid duplicating work.

Priority

Choose between Low, Medium, High, and Urgent. Urgent tasks automatically block the trailer for rentals until the task is completed. See the companion article on maintenance priorities for SLA guidance.

Category

Select the category that best fits — Preventive, Repair, Inspection, DOT/Annual, Tire & Wheel, Electrical, Structural, Hydraulic, or Other. Categories drive your cost reports, so pick carefully.

Estimated Cost

Enter your best estimate of parts plus labor. You will record the actual cost when you complete the task, and TrailerBase tracks the variance so you can sharpen future estimates.

Due Date

Set the date by which the work needs to be completed. Tasks within 7 days of their due date show on the Maintenance dashboard as Coming Up, and overdue tasks are highlighted in red.

Assignee

Pick the team member responsible for the work. They receive an email and in-app notification immediately and a reminder the day before the due date.

How Active Tasks Block Trailers

When a task is marked Active (either because it is Urgent or because you manually set it active), TrailerBase automatically blocks the trailer for the full window between today and the due date. That block:

• Prevents new bookings from being accepted for that trailer in the window.
• Shows on the calendar as a gray Maintenance band.
• Is visible to customers on the public trailer page as "Temporarily unavailable."

If the work finishes early, completing the task clears the block immediately and the trailer becomes bookable again.

Tips

• Attach photos. The task detail view supports image uploads — before photos are priceless when documenting damage.
• Use estimated costs consistently. Even rough estimates feed your Maintenance Cost Analytics report and help you spot trailers that are costing more than they earn.
• Create tasks from the trailer page. The + Maintenance button on any trailer detail pre-fills the trailer field for you.