By trade
Same four questions. Very different answers.
Which licence authorizes the work, what the published standard requires, how the quote is built, and what the agreement permits — worked through for the trades a commercial building actually buys.
Fire sprinklers
The company that fails your test is the company that sells you the cure.
Annual and five-year NFPA 25 work, where the inspector who finds the deficiency is also the vendor who quotes the remedy.
Fire alarm monitoring
A disputed invoice at one building can switch off life safety at another.
Monitoring is a multi-year agreement for a service that can be switched off. That combination is what makes the terms matter more than the price.
HVAC
The cheaper bid stopped being cheaper once the exclusions were added back.
Repair-or-replace, refrigerant, and a bid comparison where the headline numbers are not comparable until you normalise them.
Fire extinguishers
A small recurring service with its own licence, its own tag, and its own renewal date.
Low-value, high-frequency, and frequently bundled onto an unrelated account — which is what makes it worth separating.
Asphalt & paving
Paving and striping are two different licences, and almost nobody holds both.
Deferred-maintenance work with no mandated inspection, no code deadline, and a licence split most owners never hear about.
New analysis as it publishes.
Licence scope, code requirements, quote mechanics, and contract terms. Nothing else, and no vendor pitches.