The Lift Register: What to Record for Every Lift

Published October 8, 2026 · Last updated October 8, 2026 · 9 min read

lift asset register

The Lift Register: What to Record for Every Lift You Maintain

By Mr. Sumeet Katariya, ElevatorPlus ·

In short: A lift register is one record per lift you maintain, holding the facts that rarely change. Record six groups: identity, specification, statutory position, contract, service set-up and documents. It is not the log book. The log book records each visit; the register says which lift the visit was on. Give every lift an ID you never reuse, name an owner for every field, and test the register by filling ten lifts in one hour.

Key takeaways

The register and the log book are different records. The register holds one row per lift. The log book holds one entry per visit, breakdown or repair.
Every lift needs an ID you never reuse. "Tower B, Lift 2" is the customer's name for it. Your ID survives a change of building name, owner or AMC.
Statutory dates belong in the register, not in a diary. Licence validity differs by state: ten years in Karnataka, three years in Kerala.
Each field needs an owner. The installation team fills the specification, the office fills the contract, and the technician confirms access details on the first visit.
A register you cannot fill in an hour for ten lifts is not a register. It is a set of files in different places.

What this guide covers: Register vs log book · The six field groups · Statutory fields by state · Who owns which field · Outside India · The one-hour test · FAQs

What is a lift register, and how is it different from a log book?

A lift register is your master list of every lift you maintain, with the facts about each one. A log book is the running record of what happened to that lift on each visit. Most lift companies keep the second and assume they have the first.

	Lift register	Log book
One record per	Lift	Visit, breakdown or repair
How often it changes	Rarely: at handover, AMC renewal, licence renewal, major repair	Every visit
Who fills it	Office and installation team	Technician on site
Question it answers	What is this lift, whose is it, and what are we bound to do?	What did we do, when, and who did it?
What breaks without it	You cannot say how many lifts you maintain, by type, by branch or by expiry month	You cannot prove a visit happened

The log book matters for the law and for disputes. We covered it in Elevator Maintenance Records in India: What You Must Keep. The register matters for running the business. It is where pricing, planning, renewals and staffing start.

For the wider list of what your systems need to hold across AMC, service and stores, see Elevator Maintenance Software: What It Has to Do (2026).

What should a lift register record for every lift?

Six groups of fields. Around 30 fields in total. Not every lift will have every field on day one, but every field should have a place to go.

1. Identity

Field	Why it matters
Your lift ID	Unique, permanent, never reused. Every visit, complaint and part links to it
Customer's name for the lift	"Tower B, Lift 2" or "Service lift, rear". What the caller will say on the phone
Building and full address	Where the technician goes
Site contact and phone	Who opens the machine room
Customer (owner, society or builder)	Who you bill and who signs
Branch and service area	Which team owns the lift

2. Specification

Field	Why it matters
Lift type	Passenger, goods, hospital, home, dumbwaiter. Decides checklist and visit time
Original manufacturer	Decides spares and who can supply them
Capacity	In kg and persons, as on the car plate
Stops and floors served	Affects visit time and door count
Machine room or machine room-less	Changes access and rescue procedure
Controller, machine and door operator details	Model and serial number of each, for spares
Year of installation	Drives your modernisation list

3. Statutory position

Field	Why it matters
State and the lift Act that applies	The rules differ by state
Licence number, where the state issues one	Proof the lift may be worked
Licence validity date	Ten years in Karnataka, three in Kerala, set by each state's Act
Last government inspection date	Where your state inspects on a cycle
Next inspection due	The date your customer will ask you about

4. Contract

Field	Why it matters
Contract type	Comprehensive or non-comprehensive AMC, warranty, or chargeable only
Start and end date	Drives the renewal list
Warranty end date, for lifts you installed	The day the AMC should start
Visits per year agreed	What you are bound to deliver
Parts position	What is included and what is chargeable
Billing cycle	Monthly, quarterly, yearly

5. Service set-up

Field	Why it matters
Assigned technician or route	Who goes
Visit day or week	When they go
Access rules	Key holder, permitted hours, society permissions
Known issues	Repeat faults or pending repairs a new technician should know

6. Documents

Field	Why it matters
Handover letter and test report	Proof of condition when you took it on
Licence copy	Proof for the customer and the inspector
AMC contract copy	What was actually signed
Drawings and wiring diagram	Needed on a breakdown at night

For lifts you installed yourself, groups 2 and 6 come straight from the installation file. The sequence and the signatures are in

Lift Installation Stages in India: From Site Survey to Handover, and Who Signs Off Each One.

Which statutory fields depend on your state?

All of them. India has no national lift law, so the statutory group changes with the lift's address. Three examples from the Act text:

State	What the register has to hold	Source
Karnataka	Licence validity: ten years, renewable every five. Government inspection once a year	Karnataka Lifts, Escalators and Passenger Conveyors Act 2012, section 5; Rules 2015, rule 17(1)
Kerala	Licence validity: three years, then renewed annually after an inspection	Kerala Lifts and Escalators Act 2013 as amended 2018, section 4(5)
Maharashtra	Inspection at least once in six months under the 1939 Act. No licence validity term stated in the Act or the 1958 Rules	Maharashtra Lifts Act 1939, section 11; Bombay Lift Rules 1958

Telangana has no lift Act in force, so the statutory group stays empty there. The only record duty is the one in your own contract. For every other state, check your state's lift Act and Rules, or start with Lift Rules by State in India: What 15 States Actually Require (2026).

Who should own each part of the register?

A register decays when nobody owns it. Fields get filled once at handover and never touched again. Assign each group to a role, with the event that triggers an update.

Group	Owner	Update when
Identity	Office	New lift taken on, site contact changes
Specification	Installation team, or the technician on the first visit for a lift you took over	Handover, major repair, part replaced with a different model
Statutory position	Office	Licence issued or renewed, government inspection done
Contract	Office or sales	AMC signed, renewed, lapsed or converted
Service set-up	Service manager	Route change, new technician, new access rule
Documents	Office	Any new document arrives

The weakest field in most registers is the specification of lifts taken over from another company. Nobody installed them, so nobody filled it. Make it part of the first visit: the technician photographs the car plate, the controller and the machine nameplate, and the office types it in.

Is the register only for lifts? What about your own tools?

No. You need a second register for the things you own. The lift belongs to the customer. The ladders, chain blocks, testing instruments and harnesses your team takes to site belong to you. They go missing in the same quiet way spares do.

Asset management in ElevatorPlus registers each company asset with its type, serial number, purchase date, value and current status. It records which technician or installation site has it, with the history of who had what and when. Keep the two registers separate. One tells you what you maintain. The other tells you what you own.

What changes outside India?

The six groups stay the same. The statutory group and the vocabulary change.

Market	What the statutory group holds	Words to use
US	Written maintenance records for each unit under ASME A17.1 Section 8.6, kept for five years. Electronic records are explicitly permitted	Elevator, maintenance agreement, callback
UK	Date of the last LOLER thorough examination and the next one due. Lifts carrying people are examined at least every six months. File each Report of Thorough Examination against the lift	Lift, maintenance contract, service visit

The register itself is the same idea everywhere: one record per unit, with a permanent ID. Only the statutory fields and the words change with the market.

👉 Can your office list every lift you maintain, by type and AMC expiry month, without opening a spreadsheet? See how every lift's AMC, visits and renewals are held in ElevatorPlus →

How do you test whether your lift register works?

Run the one-hour test. Pick ten lifts at random: some new, some taken over, some from each branch. Give one person in the office one hour to fill all six groups for all ten.

Score each lift on how many of the six groups were complete without a phone call to site.

Score	What it means	What to do
6 of 6	The register works for that lift	Nothing
4 to 5	Usable, with gaps	Fill the gaps on the next visit
3 or fewer	The lift is known to one person, not to the company	Make it a first-visit task this month

The pattern matters more than the score. If specification is missing on every taken-over lift, fix the first-visit routine. If statutory dates are missing everywhere, nobody owns them. Give them an owner this week.

In ElevatorPlus, every preventive visit, breakdown, part changed and complaint is logged against the lift it happened on. Parts are issued to a technician against a specific job or lift. AMC reminders go out 60 days, 30 days and 1 day before expiry. Each lift's record also holds its specifications, its warranty position, its installation documents and any other important documents. That includes lifts installed years ago, before your company used the app, and the documents stay on record. A register built on the same lift ID makes the one-hour test a search rather than a hunt.

Frequently asked questions

1. What is a lift register?

A master record of every lift you maintain, one record per lift, holding identity, specification, statutory position, contract, service set-up and documents.

2. Is a lift register the same as a log book?

No. The register holds facts about each lift that rarely change. The log book records each visit, breakdown and repair on that lift.

3. What should a lift register include?

Six groups: identity, specification, statutory position, contract, service set-up and documents. Around 30 fields in total, each with a named owner.

4. Do Indian states require a lift register?

Each state sets its own rules, and India has no national lift law. Check your state's lift Act and Rules. The register is worth keeping either way, because renewals, pricing and planning run on it.

5. What lift ID should we use?

Your own permanent ID, never reused, alongside the customer's name for the lift. The ID should survive a change of building name, owner or contract.

6. How do we fill the register for lifts taken over from another company?

Make it a first-visit task. The technician photographs the car plate, controller and machine nameplate, and the office enters the details.

7. What is the one-hour test?

Pick ten lifts at random and give one person an hour to fill all six groups for each. Any lift scoring three or fewer is known to one person, not to the company.

Most lift companies can tell you how many AMCs they hold. Far fewer can tell you how many lifts sit behind those AMCs, by type, by age and by licence expiry. That second number is the one that prices contracts and plans technicians.

The register is not paperwork for an inspector. It is the list your business runs on. If it lives in one person's memory, so does the business.

Start with the one-hour test. Ten lifts, six groups, one person. The gaps you find will tell you exactly where to begin.

👉 Find out what your lift records are costing you. Book the Revenue Leak Walk-Through →