Software for UK electricians
You didn’t become a sparky to spend Sunday writing up EICRs.
You’re up a ladder when the phone rings. You’re driving back from Sudbury when the landlord texts asking where his certificate is. You finish a CU swap at half six and then sit at the kitchen table until ten copying test results off the Megger into a PDF. The cert is the deliverable - and every job-management app on your phone treats it like a footnote.
We make custom software for sparkies. Small apps and automations that sit on top of what already works for you - Tradify, ServiceM8, a paper diary, whatever you run - and quietly do the bits that waste your Sunday. Not another app to learn from scratch. Tell us what’s slowing you down and we’ll come back with a sketch of how to fix it.
What you spend your week on that you shouldn’t have to
- Sunday-night EICR write-ups - copying readings off the Megger into a template the letting agent might reject anyway.
- The NICEIC / NAPIT / ELECSA notification you keep forgetting until the £30 fine email.
- Chasing letting agents on 60-day terms while the bank thinks you got paid last month.
- Missing calls up a ladder, then losing the emergency job to whoever picked up first.
- OZEV / EVHS submissions that come back rejected because the photo angle was wrong.
- CEF said Tuesday. It’s Friday. The customer’s been off power for three days and ringing you about it.
- The same landlord asking every 48 hours when the cert PDF is coming - after you emailed it.
- Annual PAT / fire-alarm / commercial EICR renewals you treated as one-offs and forgot to chase.
- CIS reverse-charge VAT on commercial jobs that breaks every off-the-shelf bookkeeping flow.
These aren’t problems for a generic job app. They’re the bit between job done and paid, signed off, on the books, booked back in a year. That’s the bit we can take off your plate.
Example problems we could solve
Six things we hear most often from sparkies - with what the solved version looks like in your week. Every job is sized to your business: a one-van sparky probably needs the first two; a five-van firm with EV and commercial work might want all six. None of it means binning what already works.
1. The cert is the deliverable - but you’re sending it on Sunday night
The Sunday-night moment: test results on the back of a Travis Perkins receipt because the Megger won’t sync. Job’s done, but you’re hours from sending the PDF the customer is already asking about.
Solved looks like: your job-completion data flows into the BS 7671 EIC / EICR / Minor Works template the letting agent has already signed off on, comes out as a branded PDF, and lands in their inbox before you’ve washed your hands. The same moment raises the invoice in Xero, files the cert to Drive under the customer folder, and starts the 24-hour Google review nudge. You still sign and code the cert - the indemnity stays with you. We just take out the typing.
2. Up-a-ladder missed calls, and the chase that comes after
The lost-emergency moment: phone rings four times while you’re wiring a downlight. By the time you’re down, the caller has rung the next sparky on Google. Most missed calls are emergencies, and they go to whoever picks up first.
Solved looks like: an answer-on-your-behalf line that picks up while you’re on the tools - across calls, SMS, WhatsApp, and the chat box on your website - in your voice, trained on your safe-isolation FAQ and your last-sent cert PDF. “Is it safe to flick the consumer unit back on?” gets a sensible answer without you climbing down. The longer version lives at Trainable Inbound AI Agent; the sparky setup is tuned for emergency-vs-quote-vs-info triage on the line.
3. Letting-agent dunning that knows the law
The 60-day moment: did 11 EICRs for a Suffolk letting agent in March. Got paid in June. They wonder why you’re not picking up.
Solved looks like: invoices that go out on completion with the cert PDF already attached; chase emails that get politer on the easy agents and firmer on the chronic late payers; a small portal where the agent can find any cert they’ve lost without ringing you; and - on day 31 - a statutory-interest line that cites the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, politely but explicitly, without you having to feel awkward about asking. The longer version lives at Invoice & Dunning Ladder; HC Electrical is the live letting-agent example.
4. The NICEIC / NAPIT reminder you can’t ignore
The £30-fine moment: two weeks late notifying again. Snotty email follows.
Solved looks like: one calendar that watches every cert you’ve signed and tells you about the notification window before it closes - alongside insurance renewal, PAT recall, EICR-due-next-year for every landlord, and the BAFE / NSI service intervals where you’re doing fire & security. We can’t submit on your behalf - the scheme portals don’t have stable interfaces to plug into, and the indemnity sits with you - but you stop forgetting. The longer version lives at Compliance Evidence Record.
5. CU quotes that write themselves while you’re driving home
The undercut moment: three CU quotes to write up tonight, each a page of bullet points the customer won’t read, and a bloke on Facebook doing “CU change £350 all in” halving your day rate.
Solved looks like: a quote-builder you open in the van after the visit. RCBOs, breakers, SPDs, accessories pre-loaded at your CEF / Edmundson / Rexel pricing. The quote goes out before you start the engine, with the chase ladder running behind it whether you remember to chase or not. The longer version lives at Quote & Chase Ladder.
6. OZEV / MCS submissions, photographed once, tracked till the grant lands
The portal-rejection moment: OZEV submission rejected because the photo angle was wrong. Reuploaded. Rejected again. The customer thinks you’re incompetent. And: MCS takes weeks, system’s on the wall, customer can’t get FIT / SEG paid.
Solved looks like: an on-site capture flow that walks you through the photo set in the order the portal wants it, with sample shots so you know what good looks like. After submission, the customer hears the status from the system - Submitted → Queried → Approved → Grant paid - and stops ringing you. When the portal rules change next year (they always do), it’s a quick update on the retainer rather than a rebuild. The longer version lives at Grant & Submission Handling.
The closest things we’ve already built
- HC Electricala domestic and EICR electrician in Haverhill, 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 CB9 catchment) and the back-office software behind it. The closest reference for any sparky 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.)
- mendbuddyour own multi-channel AI agent for inbound conversations across SMS, WhatsApp, web chat, iOS app, and inbound + outbound voice. The “up a ladder” line in problem 2 is a sparky-shaped version of this. See Mendbuddy.
- RepairMinderour own software for running an inbound-items repair shop. Different business; same shape as the cert flow in problem 1 - work comes in, gets tracked, deliverable goes out, customer kept in the loop the whole time. See Repairminder.
If your week’s narrower than the whole of the above
Three sub-audiences whose week looks different enough that they have their own pages:
- EICR / letting-agent specialist →if your day is template volume and 60-day terms more than emergency call-outs.
- EV charge-point installer →if OZEV / EVHS portal time is eating half your install day.
- Commercial / industrial electrician →if you’re billing on CIS reverse-charge with retention deducted.
Adjacent trades
- Plumberssame paper-diary-plus-WhatsApp starting point; different regulator.
- Gas Safe engineersthe CP12 round is the gas-side mirror of NICEIC notification.
- MCS-registered solar / battery installersif MCS is the bulk of your work, the MCS page is the better fit than this one.
- Lettings agents and landlord portfoliosthe other side of the EICR conversation; if you mostly work for one or two agents, the agent side may be the better build target.
FAQ
Do I have to bin Tradify / ServiceM8 / Powered Now?
No. We sit on top of what works for you and replace the bit that doesn’t - usually the cert / scheme-notify / dunning chain. If your job entry and diary are fine in Tradify, we plug into the Tradify export and start from there.
Will you submit my NICEIC / NAPIT / ELECSA notification for me?
No. The scheme portals don’t publish stable interfaces, and the indemnity sits with the engineer. We build the reminder, the audit log, and (where the portal allows it) a pre-filled form you can paste in. You still sign and submit.
What does it cost?
Every job is sized to your business - depends on what you’ve got already, what’s getting replaced, and what’s getting added. We talk it through, agree the scope and the price in writing, then build. Send an enquiry and we’ll come back with a sketch. See pricing for how we work.
How long until something’s live?
Most sparky builds we’ve sketched go from scope conversation to a working version you can test on a real job in a few weeks, then a couple more weeks of running real work through it before go-live. Exact cadence depends on what’s being replaced.
Can you handle CIS reverse-charge for commercial work?
Yes - that’s the commercial page. CIS reverse-charge is the bit that breaks generic accounting setups; we build it properly into the invoice and books path.
I’m a one-van sparky - is this overkill?
The whole point of custom is that it’s the size of your business. A one-van setup might just be problem 1 (cert flow) and problem 2 (up-a-ladder line). A five-van firm with EV and commercial work might be all six plus the sub-pages. We size it to what’s actually hurting.
Tell us what your week looks like
Send an enquiry - what you do, what’s slowing you down, what you’ve already tried. 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.