Setting Up a Recurring Service
Recurring services are the backbone of Loma. A recurring service is an ongoing agreement to perform a specific type of work at a customer’s location on a regular schedule. Once you set one up, Loma automatically generates individual jobs according to the schedule you define.
You can set up your first recurring service right away. Loma includes a default service template so you don’t need to configure anything in Settings first. The template fills in starting values for price, duration, and tasks, and you can adjust any of them during setup or create your own templates later in Settings > Services.
Where to create a recurring service
There are a few ways to get started:
- Right after adding a new customer. Loma presents the option immediately after customer creation.
- From the customer’s detail page. Click the Services tab, then click ”+ Add Recurring Service.”
- Empty state shortcut. If the customer doesn’t have any services yet, you’ll see an “Add First Recurring Service” link on the Services tab.
The setup form walks you through four steps: Details, Schedule, Tasks, and Products. Only Details and Schedule are required. Tasks and Products are optional and can be added or changed later.
The setup form
Details
Service Type. Select from the dropdown. This pulls from your service templates (the menu of work your company offers). The template fills in default values for price, duration, tasks, and products, but you can adjust any of those for this specific service. Templates save you time without locking you in.
Location. Choose where the service will be performed. If the customer has multiple locations, pick the right one from the dropdown.
Service Start Date. When the recurring schedule begins. The Service End Date is optional; leave it blank if the service is ongoing. If you’re working under a fixed-term contract, enter the end date here.
Include Initial Service. Toggle this on when the first visit will be different from the regular recurring service. For example, a bathroom that hasn’t had regular care for a long time might need a longer, more expensive deep clean on the first visit before the standard-price service begins to repeat. When enabled, you can set a different price and duration for that first job. The initial service takes the place of the first job in the recurring schedule; every job after it follows the regular service price and duration.
Regular Service Price and Duration. The price per visit and estimated time in minutes. If the template has these values, they’ll be pre-filled, but you can change them.
Special Instructions. Optional. Anything a technician needs to know about this service at this location.
Schedule
Frequency. Choose Weekly, Every Other Week, or Monthly.
Days of Week. Select one or more days. For example, selecting Monday and Thursday with a Weekly frequency means the service happens twice a week.
A preview line at the bottom confirms the schedule in plain language (e.g., “Every other week on Monday”). Review it to make sure it looks right.
Tasks (optional)
Tasks are checklist items that your technicians follow when performing the service. If the service template you selected already includes tasks, they’ll be pre-loaded here. You can add, edit, reorder, or remove tasks for this specific service without affecting the template.
Each task has a name and can include additional details:
- A location within the job site (like “Floors” or “Kitchen”)
- Instructions for the technician
- Whether a photo is required, and if so, photo instructions (e.g., “Wide shot of floor showing current condition”) and a tag of Before Work or After Work
Tasks can be marked as required or optional. Required tasks must be completed before the technician can finish the job.
If you don’t need a task checklist, skip this step.
Products (optional)
If this service involves products that technicians should stock or use on site (cleaning supplies, materials, parts), you can attach them here. Select a product from your catalog, set a default quantity, and choose whether the product is billable.
The Billable toggle controls whether the product cost is passed through to the customer’s invoice. For example, if your service contract includes replacing trash bags, soap, and paper towels as part of the price, toggle Billable off. If a product is an extra charge on top of the service price, leave Billable on.
The default quantity is a suggestion for the technician, not a hard requirement. Technicians can adjust the quantity based on what’s actually used at the job site.
Click “Add Recurring Service” to finish.
After creation
Once the recurring service is created, it appears on the customer’s Services tab showing the service name, location, schedule, price, status (Active), and next job date.
Loma automatically generates six months of Pending jobs based on the schedule you set. Each week, the platform generates another week’s worth of jobs to maintain that six-month window.
Jobs start in a Pending status, which means they have a date but no specific time yet. Thirty days before a job’s date, Loma’s automatic route optimizer calculates the most efficient route for that day and assigns start and end times, at which point the job becomes Scheduled.
Managing a recurring service
You can manage any active recurring service from the customer’s Services tab using the action icons next to the service: edit, pause, or cancel.
Editing
When you edit a service, you can change the schedule, price, duration, tasks, and products. You’ll set an effective date for when the changes take effect. Only future jobs are affected; past and already-completed jobs remain unchanged.
Pausing
Pausing temporarily stops new jobs from being generated. When you pause a service, you set an effective date and all Pending jobs from that date forward are removed. You can enter an optional resume date so the service picks back up automatically, or resume it manually later.
Canceling
Canceling permanently ends the service. Like pausing, it removes all Pending jobs from the effective date forward.
Pending vs Scheduled jobs: Pending jobs are future placeholders that haven’t been committed to a technician’s calendar, so they can be safely removed in bulk. Scheduled jobs already have assigned times and are part of an optimized route, so Loma leaves those for you to handle deliberately. When you pause or cancel a service, only Pending jobs are automatically removed. Scheduled jobs need to be canceled individually.
What about one-time jobs?
If you need to schedule a single job that isn’t part of a recurring schedule, you don’t need to create a recurring service. See the next article for how to schedule a one-time job.