# Plan visits pencil themselves in

Source: https://help.mucka.ai/service-plans/plan-visits-pencil-themselves-in
Category: Service Plans
Last updated: 2026-09-04

> When an included service comes due, Mucka puts it in the diary as a pencil — no date, nobody told — and you agree the day from Arrange access.

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

1. The included service comes into its lead window — the same lead you set on the plan.
2. Mucka creates the job, pencilled, with no date, and links it to the plan.
3. The visit shows on your **[Arrange access](/jobs/arrange-access)** list, which is the
   screen for work that needs a day agreeing with somebody.
4. You send the ask from there. Mucka proposes a day and invites them to say no.
5. When they come back, you book it in properly. The pencil clears and it becomes a real
   appointment in the diary.
6. 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.

<Callout icon="lightbulb">
  **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.
</Callout>

## 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](/jobs/arrange-access)** — the working list, with everyone you need
  to agree a day with.
- **[Jobs](/jobs)** — the pencil sits with your unscheduled work.
- **[Service Reminders](/service-reminders)** — the matching reminder reads **Pencilled
  in**, with a link straight to the visit.