Software for UK heat-pump installers
MCS in fourteen days. BUS voucher in three months. The grant comes off the invoice. The paperwork doesn’t.
Heat-pump install is the third trade - different from boiler installs because the ticket is double, the customer-side preparation (EPC, loft insulation, radiator-resizing) is its own project, and the paperwork has a name on it before the kit even arrives. MCS MIS-3005-I says the certificate has to land within fourteen days of commissioning and the customer copy within ten working days. The BUS voucher you submit to Ofgem stays valid for three months from issue, deducts £7,500 from the invoice on commissioning, and pays the installer on installation evidence. Heat Engineer and Spruce sit alongside as the design-side software; the EPC is on the homeowner’s side; and the manufacturer - Daikin, Mitsubishi, Vaillant aroTHERM, NIBE, Samsung - has its own commissioning record. You’re the engineer carrying all of it.
This page is for installers whose week is mostly MCS heat-pump work. If heat-pump is one part of a mixed gas-engineer week, the main gas-engineers page is the better fit. Heat-pump is its own business because the £15k-£25k ticket with a £7,500 grant on it lives or dies on whether the paperwork lands on time.
What your week actually looks like
- A new heat-pump enquiry that needs an EPC + loft-insulation check + radiator-resizing conversation before you can price.
- MCS MIS-3005-I cert window - 14 days from commissioning, customer copy in 10 working days. Slip, and the BUS voucher pays late.
- BUS voucher application to Ofgem - installer-led, three-month validity from issue, £7,500 grant deducted from the customer’s invoice.
- An Ofgem submission that comes back with a query (postcode mismatch, EPC ID off, install-date doesn’t match commissioning) and another two weeks of clarification.
- Heat Engineer or Spruce as the design-side tool - heat-loss calc, radiator schedule, cylinder sizing - that doesn’t talk to anything else in your install workflow.
- Annual MCS surveillance - a yearly audit of installed systems where MCS picks five at random and asks for the evidence.
- A hybrid install (heat-pump alongside an existing boiler for the bigger Victorian houses) that triggers Building Regs Part L and the manufacturer’s specific hybrid wiring spec.
- Customer comms cascade with a customer who’s spent £25k and is in the middle of underfloor heating that’s two weeks behind because the screed didn’t dry.
- The manufacturer-warranty registration (Daikin, Mitsubishi, Vaillant aroTHERM, NIBE, Samsung) alongside the cylinder warranty alongside the MCS cert.
- A solar PV / battery cross-install where the same customer wants the lot - see the MCS-installers hub for the broader scheme cluster.
Example problems we could solve
1. The MCS certificate + BUS voucher submission engine
The two-clocks moment: commissioned Friday. MCS cert due in 14 days, customer copy in 10 working days, BUS voucher to Ofgem inside the 3-month validity. You missed the cert deadline by a day in March; Ofgem queried the postcode in April; the customer’s invoice held for six weeks while the grant payout sat on hold.
Solved looks like: commissioning logged on the tablet at the door → the MCS certificate auto-generates inside the 14-day window with the install address, the MCS membership reference, the heat-pump model + serial, the cylinder model + serial, the commissioning measurements, the SCOP estimate from the design (Heat Engineer or Spruce import where available), and the EPC reference from EPC Register. The customer copy fires inside the 10-working-day window with the handover pack. The BUS voucher submission to Ofgem queues with the application reference, the EPC ID, the install date, and the commissioning evidence (photographs, electrical certificate, gas-disconnect cert if hybrid). Ofgem queries land in a dedicated workflow with the matching evidence pre-attached, so the “postcode-mismatch” query is a two-minute resolve, not a fortnight of back-and-forth. Grant deduction reconciles against the customer’s invoice on the same dashboard. MCS + Ofgem run on different clocks with different evidence requirements; the build is shaped around making both clocks visible on one screen so neither slips. The longer version lives at Grant & Submission Handling.
2. The pre-install survey and EPC check that prices the job before it’s quoted
The half-Saturday-wasted moment: customer rang about a heat-pump. You drove over, took the survey, came back, found her EPC is a D and the loft’s at R5. She needs insulation before the heat-pump’s worth fitting. Half a Saturday gone before the conversation could even start.
Solved looks like: a pre-survey enquiry flow that captures the customer-side prerequisites before the engineer drives over. EPC lookup from the EPC Register against postcode; loft-insulation depth + cavity-wall-insulation flag from the EPC; radiator-count + room-by-room sizing from photos the customer uploads, with a Heat Engineer or Spruce import where the heat-loss calc has already been done. The system returns one of three answers: survey-ready (proceed to engineer visit), needs prerequisites (insulation / radiator-resize before survey - auto-drafts a quote for the prerequisite work or a referral to a partner), or not suitable (the property doesn’t get past the threshold and the agent says so politely). Half the heat-pump enquiries are properties that aren’t ready for one - the build is shaped around qualifying that out before a Saturday’s survey, not after.
3. MCS annual surveillance - the evidence pack on demand
The MCS-email moment: MCS surveillance email lands on a Tuesday. They want last year’s install at 47 Acacia Avenue - design pack, install photos, commissioning record, customer sign-off, post-install SCOP if you have it. Two of those live somewhere on your iPad, two more are in WhatsApp threads, and one is in a folder you renamed last March.
Solved looks like: every install lands in a structured evidence record with the MCS-required fields baked in - design pack reference (Heat Engineer / Spruce export), install photos (heat-pump location, cylinder install, hydraulic interface, electrical connection, controls), commissioning measurements (system pressure, refrigerant charge where serviceable, electrical earth-bond, system flush, inhibitor dose, F-Gas log where applicable), customer sign-off PDF, manufacturer warranty registration. When the surveillance email lands asking about a specific install, the pack assembles on demand as a single PDF - your last twelve months sorted by install date, the surveillance request lifted to the front of the queue. MCS surveillance is the scheme-membership-renewal moment for the installer, and the pack-on-demand turns a Sunday-morning panic into a five-minute send.
4. The customer-side comms cascade for a £25k project
The £25k-and-screed-not-dry moment: customer’s spent £25k. Screed isn’t dry. Cylinder’s two weeks late. She’s been off work for the install week and rings every other day. You’re the only one who knows where the project actually is.
Solved looks like: the install is a multi-phase project, not a single visit - eight phases over eight to twelve weeks (design-and-quote → prerequisites → pre-install → install-day → commissioning → MCS / BUS paperwork → handover → first-twelve-months-monitoring). Each phase has its own customer-comms artifact in your voice: the design-stage “we’re going for the Vaillant aroTHERM 7kW because your heat-loss is just under the threshold, here’s why”, the pre-install “the cylinder arrives Tuesday, install starts Wednesday, here’s what you’ll see”, the commissioning “first heating cycle ran for 30 minutes, SCOP estimate is looking 3.4, that’s in line with the design”, and the post-install “your first month’s electric usage was X, your old gas usage was Y, the conversion saved you Z”. The customer-comms expectation is closer to a kitchen-fit than a boiler-swap, and the cascade is what stops her ringing every other day. The longer version lives at Booking & Review Loop; the heat-pump version’s distinct feature is the multi-phase project cascade with the hand-off to the MCS / BUS paperwork leg.
The closest things we’ve already built
- HC Electricaldifferent trade, same Suffolk trade-chassis with the OZEV / EVHS grant-portal workflow on the EV-installer side. The reference for how a grant-portal submission tracker (status, queries, payout reconciliation) runs in a trade business. (Pull-quote held behind the permission checklist; see Hc Electrical.)
- mendbuddyour own multi-channel AI agent across SMS, WhatsApp, web chat, and inbound + outbound voice. The platform behind the customer-side comms cascade in problem 4 and the pre-install qualifier in problem 2. Trained on your MCS-membership identity, your design-software outputs, and your customer-side language. See Mendbuddy.
- pharmaceutical-analytics.comanalytics dashboard for an analytics consultancy. Different vertical; the MCS surveillance pack-on-demand and the BUS voucher dashboard are the same shape: operational data captured at install, decision dashboard for the operator and the regulator. See Pharmaceutical Analytics.
FAQ
Will you submit the MCS certificate / BUS voucher on my behalf?
No. MCS membership carries an installer accountability that stays with the engineer; the BUS voucher submission is installer-led under Ofgem rules. We pre-fill the cert and the voucher, queue them in the right windows, and bridge to the MCS + Ofgem portals - you sign and submit.
Will the design-side (Heat Engineer / Spruce) integrate?
Yes. Heat Engineer publishes an export; Spruce has a similar flow. The heat-loss calc, the radiator schedule, and the cylinder sizing carry across into the MCS cert and the customer handover pack so the design doesn’t get retyped.
My install is a hybrid (heat-pump + existing boiler). Will the engine handle that?
Yes. Hybrid installs run on the same MCS MIS-3005-I framework with the manufacturer’s specific hybrid wiring spec layered alongside; Building Regs Part L notifies through the competent-person scheme. The handover pack carries the gas-side commissioning record alongside the heat-pump one.
Will the EPC lookup work for a property without a current EPC?
The EPC Register lookup tells you if one exists. If the property doesn’t have a current EPC, the pre-install qualifier flags it as a customer-side prerequisite - the BUS voucher won’t progress without one, so the conversation has to happen before the survey, not after.
Can the engine handle F-Gas logging on serviceable refrigerant circuits?
Yes - F-Gas company cert validity, engineer F-Gas certificate, the per-install refrigerant-charge log, and the leak-check cadence sit alongside the MCS evidence record. The annual F-Gas company cert renewal flags before it lapses rather than after.
What does it cost?
Every build is scoped per installer - depends on install volume, MCS portfolio age, whether the solar / battery cross-install layer (see MCS-installers) is in scope. We talk it through, agree the scope and the price in writing. See pricing.
Up to the hub
← UK gas engineers (hub) · Landlord CP12 (sibling) → · Boiler installer (sibling) → · Commercial catering (sibling) → · MCS installers (adjacent trade) →
Tell us about the heat-pump side
What MCS membership, what manufacturer mix (Daikin / Mitsubishi / Vaillant / NIBE / Samsung), what your install volume per month looks like, whether BUS is the dominant lead source. Send an enquiry - we’ll come back with a sketch.