How to Manage Termite Inspections, Treatments, and Warranties

Termite work is a different business than general pest control. Where QPC customers churn quarterly on thin margin, termite runs on multi-year warranty contracts (bonds) with significant upfront treatment revenue, mandatory annual re-inspections, and deep regulatory documentation. A mismanaged bond — missed inspection, lost treatment record, ambiguous terms — can turn a $1,500 job into a five-figure damage liability. And in most states, the WDO/WDIR report feeding real estate transactions has a regulatory schema that makes 'good enough' documentation a compliance risk.

This guide walks through six steps to manage termite inspections, treatments, and bonds with discipline.

Most operators who added termite manage it three ways: a paper WDIR photocopied and filed by month; a PDF tablet form emailed and stored on a shared drive; or a generic service ticket with a 'termite' flag. All three break at the same point — when a homeowner 3 years into a bond asks for a certified copy of the original treatment record plus every annual inspection, or when a state audit requests all WDO reports from the last 12 months. Paper gets lost, PDFs get misfiled, generic tickets lack schema fields. The steps below replace that with a structured workflow where every WDO, treatment, bond, and inspection stores against the property record with full audit history.

The WDO (Wood Destroying Organism) or WDIR (Wood Destroying Insect Report) drives most real estate-triggered termite work. Format varies by state. Florida uses FDACS 13645. Georgia uses the Georgia WDO Inspection Report. Texas uses the SPCS Inspection Report. Many states use the NPMA-33 as a baseline.

Every state schema captures roughly the same data: property address and structure description, inspector name and certification number, date, findings by section (subterranean termites, drywood termites, wood-decaying fungi, other wood-destroying insects), evidence of previous treatment, areas not inspected, visible damage, and recommendations. States differ in formatting, signatures, report expiration (typically 30-to-90 days for real estate), and submission.

Build the WDO as a state-specific Doc template with conditional sections — one per state. The inspector fills it on the mobile app with finding dropdowns, photo attachments, and digital signature. The generated PDF matches the state format the real estate agent, buyer, seller, and lender expect.

The property record stores 'wdoIssuedAt' and surfaces an expiration warning if the transaction drifts past the validity window.

Treatment records are the backbone of any termite warranty. If a customer 4 years into a bond reports new activity, the original record establishes what was applied, where, how much, by whom, and when. Missing or ambiguous records are the fastest path to a warranty dispute you cannot defend.

For a liquid termiticide treatment (Termidor, Premise, Altriset, and similar), capture: product name and EPA registration number, active ingredient, concentration at mix, total gallons, method (trench, rod, combination), linear feet treated, sketched perimeter diagram with annotations, re-treat zones with volumes, and applicator name and license. The diagram matters most — warranty claims turn on 'was this area in the treated zone?'

For a bait station system (Sentricon, Advance, Exterra), capture: station count, station locations on a property diagram, bait product, inspection cadence (typically 60-to-90 days), active feeding detection per station, and bait replenishment per visit.

For combination treatments, capture both. In Deelo each treatment type is a visit template, and the property's termite project holds the running history.

The termite bond is a contract. It specifies what is covered (re-treatment only, or re-treatment plus damage repair), term (typically 1, 5, 7, 10, or 15 years), price (annual renewal fee), conditions (annual inspection required, no unreported structural modifications, no soil grade changes at the foundation, moisture issues must be remediated), and what voids it (missed annual inspection, unreported modifications, non-payment).

In Deelo the bond is a Docs template populated from the property record with merge fields for term, start/end dates, coverage type, renewal fee, covered structures, excluded areas (often detached structures, additions after bond start), and the customer signature via ESign at treatment-invoice payment.

The bond links to the underlying treatment record. A year-6 claim on a 10-year bond pulls the bond, the original treatment diagram, and every annual inspection in between — all on the same property record.

Set a renewal workflow. 60 days before the bond anniversary, automation creates a renewal invoice task and books the annual inspection. Autopay customers get charged automatically; non-autopay customers get an invoice with a 30-day window. Non-payment past day 60 triggers a bond-in-jeopardy notification. Lapsed bonds get voided per the written terms — document the voiding in writing and send a copy to the customer.

The most common cause of bond disputes is a missed annual re-inspection. Miss one year, active activity appears in year 3, and the warranty position is weakened because the compliance record has a gap.

Automate the annual inspection on the bond anniversary. 60 days before, a work order drafts and customer outreach (email + text) goes out. The customer books a 2-hour window, the inspection completes, the report attaches to the property record.

The annual inspection uses a shorter form than a real estate WDO: re-inspection of previously treated zones, new evidence of termite or wood-destroying organism activity, structural changes affecting coverage (additions, foundation modifications, moisture issues), bait station check if applicable, and recommendation for continued coverage, re-treatment, or modification. Inspector signs; customer signs to acknowledge findings.

If the customer refuses the annual inspection, document it in writing. 'Refused' with written acknowledgment is defensible; a missed inspection with no record is not.

For bait station programs, 60-to-90-day station inspections are the compliance cadence. The annual WDO-style inspection is additional — once per year on top of station checks.

A warranty claim is where documentation discipline pays off. Workflow: receive the claim, dispatch an inspector within the contractual window (typically 5-to-10 business days), verify the finding, confirm location relative to the treated zone, review treatment and inspection history, and execute re-treatment (re-treatment bonds) or re-treatment plus repair coordination (repair bonds).

In Deelo the claim is a work order linked to the bond. The inspector's mobile app pulls up the original diagram, every prior annual inspection, and the bond terms side-by-side. On-site the inspector documents: date, findings, location relative to treated zone, photos, recommended action, and estimated cost. Re-treatment generates a follow-up work order.

For repair bonds, damage assessment is a sub-workflow. A contractor inspects, estimates cost, and the company self-performs or coordinates. All repair records attach to the property record.

Keep a claim outcome log. Claims paid, bonds voided, re-treatments performed, and denials are all useful risk-management data.

Retention is regulated at the state level and contractually required for the bond life. Most state departments of agriculture require pesticide application records for 2-to-5 years. Bond records need the bond term plus statute of limitations — typically term + 2-to-4 years. A 10-year bond issued in 2024 generates records retrievable until 2036-2038.

Digital retention is easier than paper only if records are structured. In Deelo every termite document — WDO reports, treatment records, bonds, annual inspections, renewal invoices, claims — attaches to the property record with a timestamp and document-type tag.

For audits: a state inspector requests all WDO reports in a date range or all treatment records for a specific active ingredient. Response pulls from the tagged store in under 10 minutes instead of 2 days of shared-drive searching.

For real estate resale, pull every inspection, treatment, and annual re-inspection for the property, package as a single PDF, and deliver.

Deelo's CRM, Projects, Field Service, Docs, ESign, and Automation work together on the termite workflow. The property record holds the termite project with bond term, treatment history, and inspection timeline. Docs generates state WDO/WDIR reports and the bond contract. ESign captures the bond signature at invoice time. Field Service runs inspections and treatments with mobile diagrams, chemical logs, and photos. Automation fires annual inspection reminders 60 days before anniversary and handles renewal billing.

At $19/seat/month a 5-person operation (2 inspectors, 1 treatment tech, 1 office manager, 1 owner) runs the full back office for $95/month. Every WDO, treatment, bond, and annual inspection is retrievable on one property record in under 10 seconds.