The roof report a property manager can actually use is one page long, and its most valuable section is the one where you write down what you’re not sure about yet. The full template is below, section by section.
A commercial roofer spends ninety minutes on a two-acre roof. They check the drains, walk the seams, look at the flashings around every rooftop unit, and find the ponding that has been sitting on the northeast corner long enough to leave a tide line. Then they go back to the office and send a proposal for a full tear-off.
The property manager reads the first number and stops. Nothing about that document tells them which part is urgent, which part can wait a year, or what to put in a budget request that has to survive a conversation with ownership.
A one-page report does all of that, and it takes a quarter of an hour to write if you have the sections in front of you.
In short
- The roof report is a budgeting document. It gets stapled to a request and read by somebody who has never been on the roof.
- Seven sections, one page, no price and no signature line. Ranges instead of numbers, and a column for what can wait.
- Write down anything you could not confirm from the surface. The item you flag as unconfirmed is what makes the rest of the page credible.
Who reads a roof report, and what they do with it
The property manager reads it once and forwards it. From there it goes to a regional manager, an owner, or an asset manager, and none of those people were on the roof with you. They’re reading a page in a stack of pages, deciding which building gets money this year.
That tells you everything about how the page should be built. It has to be legible to somebody who doesn’t know what a cover board is. It has to separate the item that’s causing damage now from the item that will cause damage in three years. And it has to give a size to each one, because a request with no number attached doesn’t get funded.
The roof report template, section by section
| Section | What goes in it | Why it earns the space |
|---|---|---|
| Header | Building address, roof area in square feet, membrane type and approximate age, the date, and the name of the person who walked it with you | Their name on the page makes the document theirs |
| What we looked at | Four to six lines: drains and scuppers, field seams, perimeter and parapet flashings, penetrations and curbs, rooftop unit curbs, any previous repairs | Proves this is their roof and not a template with an address typed in |
| Active now | Anything currently letting water in or damaging the assembly, with a location specific enough to find | This is the part that gets funded first |
| Watch list | Conditions that will become active within a few years, ranked | Turns one visit into two budget cycles of work |
| Not confirmed | What you could not determine from the surface, and what it would take to determine it | The section that makes the other six believable |
| Ranges | A band for each item in the first two sections, wide enough to be honest | A range fits in a budget cell; a firm price doesn’t |
| What can wait | One or two things that are genuinely fine as they’re | Nobody else writes this, and it’s why they call you back |
No price. No terms. No signature block. The moment a signature line appears, the page stops being a budgeting tool and becomes a proposal, and proposals go into a folder to be compared against other proposals later.
The section most roofers skip, and why the buyer trusts it
Almost nobody writes the not confirmed section. It feels like admitting you didn’t finish the job. What it does is the opposite, and the reason has nothing to do with roofing.
The property manager has read three roof reports this year. Every one of them found roughly the same amount of urgent work, because every one was written by somebody who wanted the job. They have stopped reading those pages closely.
A page that says plainly that you could not determine something from the surface, and what it would take to determine it, is the only page in that stack written by somebody who is reporting instead of selling. That’s what gets the expensive items on it read carefully.
It also protects your range. An item you flagged in writing as unresolved can’t come back later as a change order argument, because you said before anybody signed anything that it was unresolved. The roofer who writes that section is the one the property manager calls about the rest of the roof for the next decade.
Get on the roof first
Abstrakt sets appointments with the property managers, facility managers, and directors of facilities who own the roofing budget, so your estimators spend the day walking roofs instead of chasing names. The walkthrough, the report, and the work are yours.
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How the same finding reads on two different pages
The proposal version
- “Roof has reached end of serviceable life”
- One number at the bottom
- Signature line
- Gets compared against two other numbers
The report version
- “Ponding at the northeast corner, roughly 40 by 60 feet”
- A range on that item alone
- Two items listed as fine
- Gets typed into a budget request
Both pages describe the same roof. One of them can be forwarded to an owner without translation.
Writing it before you leave the parking lot
01
Build the page once
Seven headings, your logo, your cell number. Every roof after that’s filling in blanks, which is the difference between a report that goes out the same day and one that gets written on a Sunday.
02
Say what it’s before you climb
“I’ll leave you a one-page summary with ranges for anything that belongs in a budget. No proposal.” Setting that expectation is what stops them asking for a price at the bottom of the ladder.
03
Photograph by section, not by roof
One photo per line item, named for the line item. Forty photos in a folder called Roof is a folder nobody opens.
04
Ask when the budget is submitted
One question at the truck. Write the date down, send the page inside two days, and call the week after that date passes.
When one page won’t do the job
A roof under an active warranty claim needs the manufacturer involved and a different document entirely. A building being sold needs a due diligence report with a scope somebody else defines. A roof with water in the insulation needs a scan before anybody can honestly price the work, and the report should say exactly that instead of guessing at a number.
Those are the cases where the one-page report is the first step and not the whole job. In every other case, the page is what turns ninety minutes on a roof into a line in next year’s plan with your range attached to it.
See it in your market
Commercial roofing lead generation covers who we call, what a set appointment looks like, and what you keep.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should be in a commercial roof report?
Seven sections on one page: a header with the address, roof area, membrane type and age; what you looked at; what is active now; a ranked watch list; what you could not confirm from the surface; a range for each item; and one or two things that are genuinely fine. No price, no terms, no signature line.
What is the difference between a roof report and a roofing proposal?
A report helps the property manager decide what to put in the budget. A proposal answers a question they have already decided to ask. Send a proposal before the money exists and it either expires or gets used to negotiate somebody else down. The report comes first and the proposal comes after the budget is approved.
Should a roofer put a price in the leave-behind?
Give a range for each item and say what the range excludes. A firm number on a roof nobody has cut into invites comparison shopping against a figure you were estimating anyway. A range tied to a specific condition and location is something a property manager can defend to ownership.
What if the building already has a roofer?
Most do, and a report is still worth leaving. You’re not asking them to replace anybody. You’re handing the property manager a written page with ranges on it, which is a thing their current roofer has probably never given them. When the incumbent misses a date or a number moves, yours is the page already in the budget file.
How long should a commercial roof walkthrough take?
Long enough to check the drains, the field seams, the perimeter and parapet flashings, the penetrations and curbs, and any previous repairs. On a large roof that’s most of a morning. The report itself is quick once the template exists, and it should go out within two days while the property manager is still writing.
Why include things that don’t need work?
Because every other roofer who has walked that building found problems everywhere. A page that says the south field is in good condition and the drains are clear is a page written by somebody who is reporting instead of selling, and the expensive items on it get read differently as a result.
Keep going
- Commercial roofing lead generation
- A commercial roofing cold call script, line by line
- Who actually owns the roofing budget in a commercial building
- What to say when you cold call a facility manager
- When commercial building budgets are actually set
About this article
Jeff Winters is Chief Executive Officer at Abstrakt. Reviewed by Neil Erker, Chief Marketing Officer. Abstrakt sets appointments for commercial roofing contractors and the wider trades, and the patterns here come from that calling.
Jeff Winters is the CEO of Abstrakt Marketing Group, a U.S.-based B2B lead generation and appointment-setting company that books qualified sales meetings for clients across the commercial trades, IT and managed services, manufacturing, and B2B services. He has spent his career building and running outbound sales programs at scale, and he breaks down what actually works in sales and lead generation on Abstrakt's podcast, The Grow Show.
