repair-or-replace

---
name: repair-or-replace
description: Takes the repair history, the two quotes and the lost trading hours for one piece of equipment and produces the decision on numbers, with the tax treatment and the safety floor stated separately. Use when the walk-in fails again, the glasswasher is on its fourth callout, or an engineer says it is not worth fixing.
---

# Decide whether to mend it or bin it, on the numbers, at nine in the morning

You give this one piece of equipment: what it is, when it was bought, every repair invoice you can find, the quote to fix it this time, the quote to replace it, and how many trading hours you lost the last time it went down. You get back a one-page decision with a number on it, the running cost of each option over the next three years, whether the spend is a repair or an improvement in HMRC's eyes, and a plain statement of anything that removes the choice altogether because the law requires the equipment to work. It does not tell you what most people do. It tells you what this machine has cost you and what each option costs next.

## What it does

1. **Name the asset precisely and say what the failure actually is.** Make, model, serial number, the date it was bought or inherited with the site, what it cost, and whether it is owned, leased or on finance. Then the failure in engineer's words from the report, not "it keeps breaking": the compressor, the door seal, the pump, the control board. This matters immediately because a leased machine is somebody else's asset and the decision may not be yours, and because the failing component decides whether the next step is a repair at all. A finance agreement with 26 months to run changes the arithmetic entirely and an owner who forgets it will "replace" a machine they are still paying for.

2. **Total what it has already cost you, with dates, and work out the interval between failures.** List every callout and every repair invoice: date, engineer, parts, labour, total. Add the callouts where nothing was found. Then write the gap in days between each failure. The pattern is the finding, not the total. A machine repaired three times in eleven years and once last month is a machine having a bad month. A machine repaired in March, June, August and now September is telling you something, and the shortening interval is worth more than any rule about the repair costing half the replacement price. If you cannot find the invoices, say how many repairs you cannot evidence rather than guessing, because a total built from memory will be too low and will argue for the repair.

3. **Get both quotes in writing, with the same things in them.** The repair quote must state the parts, the labour, the callout, whether it is guaranteed and for how long, and what the engineer says about the rest of the machine. The replacement quote must state the unit price, delivery, installation, any electrical or plumbing work, removal and disposal of the old machine, and the warranty length. Compare like with like or the comparison is theatre: a £2,800 replacement that needs a £600 electrical spur and a £150 disposal is a £3,550 decision. Get the replacement quote even when you intend to repair, because the repair decision is only defensible against a real alternative price.

4. **Price the downtime in covers, because that is usually the biggest number on the page.** Count the trading hours lost last time the machine failed, what you could not serve, and what you had to buy in or refuse. Convert it to lost contribution using your own average spend per cover rather than a percentage. Then estimate the same for the next failure, at the interval you worked out in step 2. A walk-in that fails on a Friday in July does not cost the price of a compressor, it costs a Saturday service plus the stock you threw away, and a decision that leaves that off the page will always choose the repair.

5. **Work out the three-year running cost of each option, not just the price today.** For repair: the repair quote, plus the expected number of further repairs at the interval from step 2 priced at the average repair cost, plus the energy the old machine uses, plus servicing. For replacement: the full installed cost from step 3, plus the energy the new machine uses read from its own data plate or specification sheet rather than from a claim in a brochure, plus servicing and the warranty period during which repairs cost nothing. Put both on one line each, over 36 months, with the assumptions written underneath. Where you do not have a figure, for example the energy consumption of the old unit, write "not measured" instead of estimating it, and say which way the missing figure would move the answer.

6. **Say which side of HMRC's repair and improvement line the spend falls, because it changes the tax by thousands.** HMRC's Business Income Manual states the principle directly: "the cost of repairing a worn or dilapidated asset is normally an allowable expense; the cost of replacing the whole or the 'entirety' of an asset is not a repair; it is capital expenditure and not an allowable expense". The test is what the asset is, and HMRC says the approach is to ask whether something "looks like a separate asset" and "stands apart from other assets, is it freestanding or is it something that is removable". On improvements it is blunt: "If the taxpayer alters or improves the asset then it is not a repair; the expenditure is capital and is not an allowable deduction", and "If the work amounts to an alteration or improvement then there is no revenue deduction for any part of the expenditure", including redecoration done as part of it, with "No deduction ... for any notional repair expenditure, i.e. what it would have cost to simply repair the asset". One relief that owners routinely miss: modern parts do not automatically make it an improvement, because "the use of new technology as part of a repair does not necessarily mean the repair becomes an improvement", and HMRC's own example is that once double glazing became the industry norm, "replacing single glazing with double glazing ceased to be an improvement, and capital expenditure, and became allowable expenditure for tax purposes". State which side you think the spend lands on, in one sentence, and flag it for the accountant rather than deciding it.

7. **Check the capital allowances position on the replacement before comparing the two cash figures.** If the spend is capital, the Annual Investment Allowance may apply: "The AIA amount is £1 million" and "You can claim AIA on most plant and machinery up to the AIA amount". It cannot be claimed on "business cars", on "items you owned for another reason before you started using them in your business", or on "items given to you or your business". The allowance is per accounting period, and a short period is reduced pro rata, HMRC's own example being that "If your accounting period is 9 months, the AIA will be 9/12 x £1,000,000 = £750,000." For a hospitality business this almost always means the full cost of a new walk-in or combi oven is available against profits in the year of purchase, which narrows the gap between repairing and replacing considerably. Put the pre-tax and the indicative post-relief figures side by side, label the second as indicative, and send it to the accountant.

8. **Apply the safety and hygiene floor last, and let it overrule the arithmetic.** Some equipment is not a commercial decision. PUWER requires that "all work equipment be maintained in an efficient state, in efficient order and in good repair" and that "where any machinery has a maintenance log, the log is kept up to date", and HSE warns that "unsafe maintenance has caused many fatalities and serious injuries, either during the maintenance or to those using the badly maintained or wrongly maintained/repaired equipment". On the food side, the hygiene regulations require that articles, fittings and equipment with which food comes into contact "be so constructed, be of such materials and be kept in such good order, repair and condition as to minimise any risk of contamination" and "be effectively cleaned and, where necessary, disinfected". So if the failure is a cracked seal on a chilled unit, a cracked worktop, a faulty gas interlock or a guard that no longer works, write "safety or hygiene floor engaged" at the top of the page and stop comparing prices. The only remaining question is how fast, and whether the item is taken out of service now.

9. **Write the decision in five lines and put the next review date on it.** The five lines: the recommendation, the three-year cost of each option, the assumption that most affects the answer, what is not known, and the date to look again. Then, whichever way it goes, do the two things that make the next decision easier: start a maintenance log for that machine with the date, engineer and fault of every visit, and book the service interval the manufacturer specifies. Most repair-or-replace decisions are hard only because nobody wrote down the last four.

## Then it checks

1. The asset line shows make, model, serial number, purchase date, purchase cost and ownership status, and any finance or lease agreement is named with its remaining term.
2. Every repair in the history has a date and a cost from an invoice, and the number of repairs known about but not evidenced is stated separately as a count.
3. Both quotes are in writing and cover the same scope, with installation, any electrical or plumbing work, removal and disposal, and warranty length itemised on the replacement quote.
4. The downtime cost is expressed in lost covers and pounds, using the business's own average spend per cover, and the hours lost are counted rather than described.
5. Every figure in the three-year comparison is either sourced or marked "not measured", and no energy, servicing or repair-frequency figure has been estimated silently.
6. The page states in one sentence which side of the HMRC repair and improvement line the spend is thought to fall, and separately whether a safety or hygiene requirement removes the choice.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never use a rule of thumb in place of the arithmetic. "Replace it if the repair costs more than half a new one" ignores downtime, energy, warranty and tax, which between them are usually larger than the repair quote, and it is the reason worn-out equipment survives another summer.
- Never let the tax treatment drive the decision. Work out the right answer operationally first, then show the tax position beside it, because a machine bought for the allowance and not for the kitchen is still the wrong machine.
- Never state the tax outcome as settled. Whether a spend is a repair or an improvement turns on facts about the specific asset, and getting it wrong means either a disallowed deduction or a missed one, both of which surface a year later.
- Never argue a safety or hygiene item down on cost. If the equipment cannot be kept in good order and repair, the comparison is over, and the only live question is whether it comes out of service today.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's accountant, and where safety or food hygiene is engaged for their environmental health officer or competent safety adviser, to check before it is acted on. It performs arithmetic on quotes and invoices; it is not tax advice, and it is not a safety assessment of the equipment.

## Built from
- HM Revenue & Customs, "BIM46910 - Specific deductions: repairs and renewals: what is a repair: the 'entirety'", https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim46910, read 14 September 2026: the repair versus capital principle and the entirety test that step 6 applies.
- HM Revenue & Customs, "BIM46915 - Specific deductions: repairs and renewals: improvements", https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim46915, read 14 September 2026: the rule that an alteration or improvement disallows the whole spend including any redecoration within it, and that no notional repair deduction is available.
- HM Revenue & Customs, "BIM46925 - Specific deductions: repairs and renewals: changing technology", https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim46925, read 14 September 2026: the relief in step 6 that a modern replacement part is not automatically an improvement, with HMRC's own double glazing example.
- GOV.UK, "Claim capital allowances: Annual investment allowance", https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/annual-investment-allowance, read 14 September 2026: the £1 million allowance, the exclusions, and the pro rata rule for short accounting periods used in step 7.
- Health and Safety Executive, "Maintenance of work equipment", https://www.hse.gov.uk/work-equipment-machinery/maintenance.htm, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: the PUWER duty to keep work equipment in an efficient state, in efficient order and in good repair, and to keep the maintenance log up to date, which sets the safety floor in step 8 and the log in step 9.
- Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs, Annex II Chapter V (equipment requirements), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2004/852/annex/II, read 14 September 2026: the requirement that food contact equipment be kept in such good order, repair and condition as to minimise any risk of contamination, which is the hygiene half of the step 8 floor.

# repair-or-replace

## You are given
A folder for one piece of equipment in a UK hospitality business containing any of: the purchase invoice or the inventory line inherited with the site, any lease or finance agreement, every callout and repair invoice that can be found (PDFs, photographs, emails), the engineer's report on the current failure, the written quote to repair, the written quote to replace, the manufacturer's data plate photograph or specification sheet, service records, the till export covering the sessions lost when the machine last failed, the business's average spend per cover, the supplied HMRC text on repairs, improvements and the Annual Investment Allowance, and the supplied PUWER and food hygiene equipment text.

The folder also contains a statements file written by the owner, their accountant or Claude giving: which side of the repair and improvement line the spend is thought to fall and why, whether a safety or hygiene requirement removes the choice, the recommendation, and the assumption that most affects the answer. Codex records those statements. It does not make them.

## Produce
Write into an `output/` folder next to the inputs:

1. `asset-record.csv` with columns in this order: `field`, `value`, `source_file`, `status`. `status` is `evidenced`, `stated by owner` or `not held`. Write one row for each of: make, model, serial number, location on site, purchase or inheritance date, purchase cost net of VAT, ownership, finance or lease agreement reference, monthly payment, months remaining, agreement end date, manufacturer service interval, warranty status, warranty expiry date, failure as written in the engineer's report, failed component as named by the engineer.
   `ownership` is one of `owned`, `leased` or `on finance`.
2. `repair-history.csv` with columns in this order: `repair_no`, `date`, `engineer_or_company`, `fault_as_written`, `parts_gbp`, `labour_gbp`, `callout_gbp`, `total_gbp`, `nothing_found`, `invoice_number`, `invoice_file`, `days_since_previous_failure`.
   Sorted oldest first. `nothing_found` is `yes` or `no`. `days_since_previous_failure` is empty on the first row.
3. `unevidenced-repairs.csv` with columns: `stated_repair`, `approximate_date_as_stated`, `stated_by`, `date_stated`, `reason_no_invoice`. Rows here carry no figures and are excluded from every total. Count them separately.
4. `quotes-compared.csv` with columns in this order: `line`, `repair_quote_gbp`, `replacement_quote_gbp`, `repair_source_file`, `replacement_source_file`, `quote_date`, `quote_reference`, `status`.
   Write one row for each of: unit price, parts, labour, callout, delivery, installation, electrical work, plumbing work, removal of the old unit, disposal, commissioning, first service, VAT, `TOTAL INSTALLED`. Then rows for: guarantee length on the repair, warranty length on the replacement, and the engineer's comment on the rest of the machine quoted verbatim.
   `status` is `on both quotes`, `not in the repair quote`, `not in the replacement quote` or `not held`. Every row that is not `on both quotes` is a finding, because the comparison is only meaningful like for like.
5. `downtime-cost.csv` with columns in this order: `event`, `failure_date`, `trading_hours_lost`, `sessions_lost`, `covers_lost`, `covers_basis`, `average_spend_per_cover_gbp`, `average_spend_source`, `lost_sales_gbp`, `contribution_pct`, `contribution_source`, `lost_contribution_gbp`, `stock_written_off_gbp`, `bought_in_cost_gbp`, `total_downtime_cost_gbp`, `status`.
   One row for the last failure with `event` as `last failure`, and one with `event` as `next failure, projected at the interval in repair-history.csv` carrying the interval used and the same arithmetic applied to it. `covers_basis` is `counted from the till export` or `stated by owner`.
6. `three-year-comparison.csv` with columns in this order: `line`, `repair_option_gbp`, `replace_option_gbp`, `basis`, `source`, `status`, `which_way_the_gap_would_move`.
   Write one row for each of: quote today, further repairs expected over 36 months, downtime at the observed interval, energy over 36 months, servicing over 36 months, warranty period with no repair cost, disposal, finance or lease payments remaining, `TOTAL OVER 36 MONTHS`, `MONTHLY EQUIVALENT`.
   `status` is `sourced` or `not measured`. `basis` writes the arithmetic out with the real numbers in it, including the repair interval and the count of further repairs assumed. `which_way_the_gap_would_move` is filled only on `not measured` rows and reads `towards repair`, `towards replacement` or `unknown`, taken from the statements file.
7. `tax-position.csv` with columns in this order: `item`, `type`, `statement_or_figure_supplied`, `figure_gbp`, `supplied_by`, `date_supplied`, `text_quoted`, `source_supplied`, `status`.
   `type` is `question` or `figure`. `status` reads `for the accountant` on every row.
   Question rows, at minimum: is the spend a repair or the replacement of an entirety; does the work alter or improve the asset; does a modern replacement part make it an improvement here; if capital, does the Annual Investment Allowance apply; do any of the exclusions apply; is the accounting period a full twelve months.
   Figure rows, at minimum: capital spend, Annual Investment Allowance limit as supplied, accounting period length in months, pro rata limit, amount claimable as supplied, tax rate as supplied, indicative relief, pre-relief cost, indicative post-relief cost. Every relief and post-relief figure carries the word `indicative` in `statement_or_figure_supplied`.
8. `safety-floor.csv` with columns in this order: `check`, `statement_supplied`, `supplied_by`, `date_supplied`, `requirement_text_quoted`, `requirement_source_supplied`, `floor_engaged`, `taken_out_of_service`, `date_taken_out_of_service`.
   `floor_engaged` is `yes as supplied`, `no as supplied` or `not stated`. `taken_out_of_service` is `yes`, `no` or `not stated`.
9. `decision-page.md` - one page, five lines, in this order: the recommendation as supplied, the three-year cost of each option, the assumption that most affects the answer, what is not known, and the date to look again. Above all five, where any row of `safety-floor.csv` reads `yes as supplied`, print the line `Safety or hygiene floor engaged` and mark the three-year comparison `not the live question`.
10. `maintenance-log.csv` - the blank log to start now, with columns in this order: `date`, `engineer_or_company`, `reason_for_visit`, `fault_found`, `parts_fitted`, `labour_hours`, `total_gbp`, `invoice_number`, `machine_returned_to_service_date`, `signed_by`. Pre-fill the service diary rows from the manufacturer service interval in `asset-record.csv`, leaving every other cell empty. Where no interval is held, write no diary rows and say so in `README.md`.
11. `README.md` - the files read, the repair invoice date range, and everything that could not be resolved.

## Rules
- **Never assert the tax treatment.** Codex does not decide whether a spend is a repair or an improvement, whether the entirety has been replaced, or whether the Annual Investment Allowance is available. It copies the statement from the statements file, quotes the supplied HMRC text beside it, and marks every row `for the accountant`. Never write that a deduction is allowable, disallowable, claimable or due.
- **Never assert the safety or hygiene position.** Codex never sets `floor_engaged` itself, never writes that equipment is unsafe, non-compliant or fit for use, and never decides whether anything comes out of service. Where the statements file is silent, the cell reads `not stated` and `decision-page.md` records it as unanswered.
- Every figure must trace to a supplied input file. Never fill a gap with a typical repair cost, an energy figure from a brochure claim or from your own knowledge, a percentage contribution, an average spend per cover you have not been given, or a replacement price from the web. A missing figure is written `not measured` in `three-year-comparison.csv` and is counted in the return.
- Never price a repair that has no invoice. Repairs the owner remembers go in `unevidenced-repairs.csv` with no figures, are excluded from every total, and are reported as a count.
- Read the energy figure for each machine from its data plate photograph or specification sheet in the folder. Never from a brochure claim, a comparison table or a model number you recognise.
- Never use a rule of thumb. Never write "replace it if the repair costs more than half a new one" or any variant, and never let a percentage stand in for the arithmetic.
- Compare like with like. A line on one quote and not the other is recorded as a finding in `status` and is never assumed to be included, free or zero.
- Quote the engineer's report and the engineer's comment on the rest of the machine verbatim. Never summarise a fault into "it keeps breaking".
- The interval between failures is the finding. Always show `days_since_previous_failure` for every repair and carry the interval used into `three-year-comparison.csv` in the `basis` column.
- Never omit a live finance or lease agreement from the comparison. Where `ownership` is `leased` or `on finance`, the remaining payments appear as their own row in `three-year-comparison.csv` and `README.md` records that the decision may not be the owner's to make.
- Costs go in net of VAT throughout, with VAT shown as its own row in `quotes-compared.csv`.
- Round money to two decimal places at the point of display only.
- Order nothing, book nothing, cancel nothing and send nothing to any supplier, engineer or finance company.
- British English, £, DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes. No emoji.
- Every output file carries, as its first line or its first row, the words: `Working document for the owner's accountant, and where safety or food hygiene is engaged their environmental health officer or competent safety adviser, to check before it is acted on. Not tax advice and not a safety assessment.`

## Return
A list of the files written with their absolute paths and row counts, the asset make, model and serial number, the number of repairs evidenced with invoices and the number stated without one, the total evidenced repair spend and the shortening or lengthening interval between failures, the total installed cost of each quote and every line present on one quote and missing from the other, the total downtime cost of the last failure, the 36 month total for each option and the count of lines marked `not measured`, what `safety-floor.csv` records, and every input named in the statements file that could not be found.