Every cover plan includes a service. Mucka now raises that visit for you rather than leaving it on a list: when it comes close to being due, it appears in the diary as a pencilled job.
A pencil is a placeholder, not a booking. It carries no date and no engineer, and your customer has been told nothing. That is deliberate — a plan says you owe them a service this year, it does not say which Tuesday.
What actually happens
- The included service comes into its lead window — the same lead you set on the plan.
- Mucka creates the job, pencilled, with no date, and links it to the plan.
- The visit shows on your Arrange access list, which is the screen for work that needs a day agreeing with somebody.
- You send the ask from there. Mucka proposes a day and invites them to say no.
- When they come back, you book it in properly. The pencil clears and it becomes a real appointment in the diary.
- Finishing the job spends their included visit and rolls next year's round.
What the pencil tells you
Open it and the notes say which plan it came off, the date the visit is owed by, and — if there is a clear pattern in their past visits — whether they have usually had you in the morning or the afternoon.
That last one is a suggestion for when you ring them, not a time in the diary. Mucka will never put a slot against a plan visit nobody has agreed to.
Why no date? A dated job eleven months out looks like a real booking to everything that reads the diary — including the AI receptionist. It would start telling live callers you were busy on a morning you were completely free. An undated pencil holds nothing, so the diary stays honest.
Things worth knowing
- Nothing is sent to the customer on its own. The pencil is silent. Booking confirmations and reminders stay switched off on it until you confirm the job.
- It won't nag you to invoice it. They already pay you monthly for that visit, so the pencil is marked as not needing an invoice.
- The "visits owed" warning still works. A pencil does not count as the service having been done, so if the plan year is running out with nothing actually booked, Mucka still tells you.
- Only plan visits do this. A service reminder you set up yourself, or one raised off a gas certificate, still comes to you as a card to approve — that is a customer you are asking for work, not one who has already paid for it.
- Cover has to be live. A plan that is still pending, suspended or cancelled raises no pencil.
Where to find them
- Arrange access — the working list, with everyone you need to agree a day with.
- Jobs — the pencil sits with your unscheduled work.
- Service Reminders — the matching reminder reads Pencilled in, with a link straight to the visit.