Software for UK trades
Generic CRM doesn’t know what NICEIC means, what a CP12 is, why MCS has three clocks. We do.
You’re a tradesperson with a van, a phone, a WhatsApp full of customers, a paper diary that sometimes survives a coffee, and a relationship with Tradify / ServiceM8 / Powered Now / Commusoft / Joblogic that you’d describe as complicated. The apps work fine for some of what you do; they break on the bit that’s specific to your trade - the EICR on a Sunday evening, the CP12 round in September, the bathroom quote that ghosted on Wednesday, the fence-down storm-week, the CIS300 on the 17th, the Worcester 30-day window, the Long Melford Georgian hallway after photo you forgot. We make small custom apps that sit on top of what already works for you and quietly do the bit that wastes your Sunday evening.
This is the umbrella page across the nine sub-trades we build software for. Pick the one that’s most of your week - the page underneath is where the trade-distinct detail lives, in your voice, with the regulator and kit vocabulary your trade actually uses. If you run two trades (plumbing-and-gas, sparky-and-EV, builder-and-groundworks), pick the bigger half; the adjacent-trades reading list at the end of each hub points you at the other.
Which trade are you?
- Electricians →sparkies on NICEIC / NAPIT / ELECSA / Stroma. The EICR cert flow, the scheme-notification window, the OZEV / EVHS pipeline, the letting-agent dunning ladder. Live build: HC Electrical, Haverhill.
- Gas Safe engineers →Gas Safe + ACS. Boiler service and install (Worcester / Vaillant / Baxi / Ideal accredited), landlord CP12, MCS heat pump, commercial-catering. The August-to-October CP12 round and the 30-day Gas Safe notification.
- Plumbers (non-gas) →solo through small commercial. Bathroom-fitter, leak-detection, drainage, water-treatment, lettings / property-maintenance. The under-a-sink AI agent with photo and video first-class on inbound, the WhatsApp-native job thread, the bathroom-fitter stage-payment ladder.
- Roofers →NFRC / CompetentRoofer. Domestic re-roofs, flat-roof, storm-damage / insurance, recurring commercial maintenance. The weather-aware diary, the storm-week insurance-claim pack. Live build: Allways Roofing Haverhill.
- Builders →sole-trader through design-and-build SMEs. Extensions, conversions, refurbs, small commercial fit-outs, groundworks, heritage. The CIS engine (subbie verify + CIS300 + reverse-charge VAT), the stage-payment ladder on £25k-£60k+ projects, the Travis Perkins / Selco / Howdens statement reconciliation.
- Decorators →sole-trader through 2-5 van firms. Domestic, commercial / contract, kitchen-respray, period / conservation, intumescent fire-rated, HMO / landlord-portfolio. The Before / After Engine, the 24-month HMO re-paint annuity, the +90-day reactivation when the cheap quote’s paint peels.
- Landscapers / gardeners / tree surgeons →sole-trader through 2-5 van firms. Garden-design, tree surgery (NPTC + LOLER), commercial grounds, fencing, lawn-treatment (PA1 / PA6). The seasonal Q1 / Q4 cashflow cliff, the Recurring Round Optimiser, the storm-week capacity manager.
- Locksmiths + handymen →24/7 emergency (MLA), security-install (NSI / BAFE), multi-skill handymen, auto, safe, garage-door. The 60-second missed-call window that’s existential in this trade, the credentials-led phone-quote SMS that beats the cowboy-locksmith £49-call-out trap.
- MCS installers (heat pump / solar / battery) →MCS-certified renewables. ASHP / GSHP (MIS-3005), solar PV (MIS-3002), battery (MIS-3012), often bundled. Selling via Octopus / Heat Geek / OVO / Greenmark / EDF / British Gas alongside direct. The three-regulator-clock problem (MCS 14-day cert / Ofgem 3-month BUS voucher / DNO 12-week G99 wait) and the DNO Notification Stack across UKPN / SSEN / Northern Powergrid / Electricity North West / SP Energy Networks.
What’s the same across every trade we build for
Nine trades, nine vocabularies, one shape underneath. The bit between job done and paid, signed off, on the books, booked back in a year is roughly sixty percent the same across every trade we work with - what changes is the regulator vocabulary, the customer-side cadence, and the one or two trade-distinct moments that make your week your trade and not anyone else’s.
- Inbound that doesn’t drop. Calls, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, the chat box on the website - all answered in your voice while your hands are on the tools. Tuned per trade for emergency-vs-quote-vs-info triage. Longer version at Trainable Inbound AI Agent.
- Quote out, nudge, win. Every quote becomes a tracked object the moment it leaves the van. The nudge ladder reads urgency off the original enquiry - leak-detection nudges in hours, bathroom or extension over weeks, £25k+ projects over months. Longer version at Quote & Chase Ladder.
- Booking, on-the-way SMS, review chase. Booking → night-before reminder → en-route SMS off your calendar flipping to travelling → finished-work SMS with photo-evidence → review prompt with one-tap Google / Checkatrade / Trustist links. Negative sentiment routes back to you privately; positive goes out the moment the customer taps.
- Invoice and dunning - three cash cycles on one engine. Domestic on a 14-day cadence with a card link. Letting-agent batch invoices on the agent’s stated payment date with the per-property breakdown the bookkeeper expects, plus a day-31 statutory-interest line citing the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Commercial sub-contracts on CIS reverse-charge with retention tracked through to the 12-month release. Longer version at Invoice & Dunning Ladder.
- Recurring service-recall. Every plan-fitted asset, every annual cert, every renewal anniversary tagged with its cadence. The eleven-months-out SMS in your voice, the direct debit re-anchor if it lapsed, the renewal lands in your diary without anyone typing. Longer version at Recurring Service Recall.
- One or two trade-distinct moments. The bit that doesn’t carry across - the EICR cert flow, the August-to-October CP12 round, the CIS300 engine, the Before / After Engine, the seasonal cashflow cliff, the 60-second SMS that beats the cowboy locksmith, the three-regulator-clock tracker, the storm-week insurance-claim pack, the bathroom-fitter stage-payment ladder. These are what make each sub-trade hub yours and not a generic field-service template.
Built on top of what’s already on your phone - not as a replacement.

Our live trade build
- HC Electrical, Haverhilla domestic and commercial electrician in CB9, Suffolk. We built and run the public site (service pages for EICR / EV / consumer units / rewires / lighting / fan / emergency / sockets, plus location pages across the Haverhill catchment) and the back-office software behind it. The chassis above is the chassis we built for HC. The closest live reference for any tradesperson who wants the website and the operational layer from the same place. (Named pull-quote and final outcome figures hold until the permission checklist clears - full case study at Hc Electrical.)
- Allways Roofing Haverhilla roofer in the same Suffolk catchment, the same chassis ported across the trade vocabulary. The roofer-side proof that the shape generalises - the storm-week surge, the weather-aware diary, the loss-adjuster pipeline. (Full case study pending permission clearance - placeholder at Allways Roofing.)
- mendbuddyour own multi-channel AI agent across SMS, WhatsApp, web chat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and inbound + outbound voice. The “hands on the tools, phone in the van” agent is a per-trade build of this shape, trained on your scope and trust credentials. See Mendbuddy.
Adjacent verticals
- Lettings agentsthe agent-side of every trade’s lettings / property-maintenance relationship. The same EICR / CP12 / leak-photo conversation viewed from her desk, not your van. Useful background if you’re trying to win retainer work or negotiate a contract.
- Constructionfor bigger commercial / civils work above small-firm SME scale, principal-contractor scope, multi-trade Gantt-driven projects with formal CDM-15 / F10 / construction phase plan rigour. The trades hubs cover up to small commercial fit-out; construction picks up from there.
- Independent garagesthe vehicle-side trade with the same job-tracking + customer-status pattern. Sibling vertical, same software shape, different MOT / DVSA vocabulary.
FAQ
Do I have to bin Tradify / ServiceM8 / Powered Now / Commusoft / Joblogic?
No. We sit on top of what works for you and replace the bit that doesn’t - usually the inbound triage, the cert / cert-equivalent flow, the letting-agent batch invoicing, the recall annuity, the trade-distinct moment. If your job entry and diary are fine in Tradify, we hook into the export and start from there. The bespoke route usually comes out cheaper than an enterprise platform that’s overscoped for a 2-van outfit.
My business is two trades. Which sub-trade hub should I read?
Pick the bigger half; the adjacent-trades reading list at the end of each hub points at the other. Plumbing-and-gas: gas hub if gas is bigger, plumbing hub if it isn’t. Same posture for sparky-and-EV, builder-and-groundworks, locksmith-and-handyman, decorator-and-property-maintenance, gas-and-MCS-heat-pump.
Will you do my NICEIC / Gas Safe / WaterSafe / FENSA / NFRC / MCS / NSI / MLA renewal for me?
No. Scheme membership and competence assessments stay with you as the registered trade - the indemnity sits with the engineer or the principal. We build the reminder, the audit-pack assembly, and the pre-filled form where the portal allows it. You sign and submit.
Will you build me a website too, or just the back-office?
Both, usually. HC Electrical is the website and the back-office from the same studio - service pages, location pages across the catchment, the inbound that lands on the back-office, the cert flow that posts the PDF back. Allways Roofing is the same shape on the roofer side. We can do back-office only on top of whatever public site you already have, or build the lot.
What does it cost?
Every build is sized to your business - depends on your van count, your trade mix, what’s already on your phone, and which of the trade-distinct moments are the actual pain. We talk it through, agree the scope and the price in writing, then build. See pricing for how we work.
I’m a one-van sole trader - is this overkill?
The whole point of custom is that it’s the size of your business. A one-van outfit might just be the inbound triage and one trade-distinct moment. A five-van firm running multiple cash cycles and a letting-agent round might be the whole chassis plus a sub-trade spoke. We size it to what’s actually hurting.

Tell us what your trade looks like
Send an enquiry - what trade you run, your van count, what mix (emergency, planned, lettings, commercial, MCS, fit-out), what’s already on your phone, where the Sunday-evening admin sits. Pick the sub-trade hub that’s closest to your week and send from there - the form pre-fills with your trade context so the reply lands framed. We’ll come back with a sketch of what we’d build and what it would cost. No calendar, no demo to sit through. Email reply, scoped sketch, you decide.