What a managed IT maintenance agreement should cover

A maintenance agreement should make IT support predictable for both sides. Vague agreements lead to disputes over what is covered at exactly the moment something has failed.

A clear scope

List the sites, users and assets covered: computers, servers, network equipment, printers, software and cloud services. Anything not listed should be explicitly excluded or charged separately.

Response and resolution targets

Define priority levels — for example, a site-wide outage versus one user’s printer — with a response target for each, and state the hours they apply. Agree how out-of-hours emergencies are raised and charged.

Preventive maintenance

Support should not only be reactive. Specify what scheduled maintenance happens and how often: health checks, updates, cleaning and replacing ageing hardware before it fails.

Backups — and restore tests

State what is backed up, how often, where copies are stored and how long they are kept. Most importantly, require periodic test restores. An untested backup is an assumption, not a safeguard.

Security responsibilities

• Patching operating systems, applications and network devices.
• Managing antivirus or endpoint protection.
• Creating and removing user accounts when staff join or leave.
• Periodic security checks of the network.

Reporting and documentation

Ask for regular reports on tickets, maintenance completed and risks found, and for up-to-date documentation of your network, passwords vault and asset register. That documentation belongs to you.

Term and exit

Agree notice periods and a handover process so you can change provider without losing access to systems or records.

See how our managed IT and support agreements work.