Sector
Software and IT for trades and home services businesses
The defining problem in a trades business is not technology, it is transcription. A customer’s details get typed at quote stage, again on the invoice, again into the accounts package and again into the VAT spreadsheet. Four times per job, forever. Fixing that alone usually pays for a build inside a year.
What trades businesses actually run
Most firms we see are running some combination of a job management package, Simpro, Commusoft, ServiceM8, Tradify or Fergus: an accounts package such as Xero, QuickBooks or Sage, a shared inbox, a phone, and at least one spreadsheet that quietly holds something important. The problem is rarely any single one of those. It is the gaps between them.
The gaps are where the retyping lives, and where jobs get lost. An enquiry arrives by phone, by web form and by Facebook message; it gets written on a pad, entered into the diary, and mentioned to somebody in a van. Whether it becomes a booked job depends on how busy that morning was.
Sometimes the right answer is to configure and connect the software you already pay for, which is cheaper than building anything and is what we will recommend when it fits. Sometimes the package almost fits but never quite does, and the workaround has become a job in itself, that is when building is the cheaper option, and the free process review is how we tell the difference.
When the packages do not fit, that becomes custom software built around how you work.
Mobile working, realistically
The van is the office, and anything that requires an engineer to do admin in the evening will be done badly or not at all. That is not a discipline problem; it is a design problem. Job sheets, photographs, signatures, parts used and time on site all need capturing at the job, on a phone, in under a minute, or they will be reconstructed from memory at nine at night.
The IT half of that matters too: phones and tablets that are actually managed, data that survives a lost handset, and access that can be revoked the day someone leaves. Trades businesses have high device attrition and it is worth planning for.
What that looks like as an ongoing arrangement rather than a one-off tidy-up is set out under IT support for trades businesses.
What downtime and lost enquiries cost
For most trades firms the expensive failure is not a computer breaking, it is an enquiry going unanswered for four hours while a competitor answers in ten minutes. That cost is invisible because you never hear about the job you did not get.
The second cost is invoicing lag. Work completed on the fifth and invoiced on the twenty-eighth is three weeks of your money sat in someone else’s account, and it happens because invoicing depends on somebody sitting down with a pile of job sheets.
Proof
Who we work with
We built the website and booking system for RPH Home Services, the website and local SEO for Sam Wass Tree Surgeons, and the platform behind TradeyHub, a trades-sector system that replaced five separate spreadsheets. That last one is the clearest illustration of the pattern: the problem was never the spreadsheets, it was that the same information lived in all five.
Read the TradeyHub case studyThe IT half, which nobody sells you
Trades businesses get pitched software constantly and IT support almost never, which is odd given that a trades operation is more device-dependent than most offices. Phones and tablets in vans, a laptop in the back office, a router that everything depends on, and a card reader that has to work at a customer’s kitchen table.
The recurring problems are unglamorous. Devices that were never enrolled in anything, so a lost phone is a data question nobody can answer. Photographs of completed work living only on an engineer’s camera roll. One shared login used by six people because it was faster to set up that way three years ago. An office machine holding the only copy of the quoting spreadsheet.
None of that needs a large project. It needs managed devices, a backup that runs without anybody remembering, and accounts that can be switched off the day somebody leaves. On a monthly plan it is included rather than a separate conversation, which is the practical advantage of one supplier covering both halves.
That side is covered by our monthly IT support plans and pricing.
Get in touch
Tell us how your trades and home services business runs
A few lines is enough. We will tell you straight whether we can help, what it would cost and how quickly we can be there. No hard sell, and no follow-up sequence if you decide against it.
- We reply within one working day
- A straight answer, including when it is no
- Free process review available, before any money changes hands
Would rather just ring? 01623 354250, Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm.
Questions we get from trades and home services
If the answer is not here, ask us. You will get a straight one, from someone who does the work.
Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm
We already pay for job management software. Do we need anything else?
Often not. If the package fits your process, the right answer is to configure it properly and connect it to your accounts system rather than build anything, and that is what we will tell you. Building makes sense when the workaround has become a job in itself.
How much time does the retyping actually cost?
That is exactly what the free process review measures. We put hours against each repetitive job: how long, how often, who does it, so you get a number rather than a feeling. For most firms doing four entries per job, it lands somewhere between one and three days a month.
Will engineers actually use it?
Only if capturing a job takes under a minute on a phone at the job itself. Anything that requires evening admin gets done badly or not at all, which is a design problem rather than a discipline one, and it is the first thing we test.
Can you connect it to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage?
Yes, and that connection is frequently where most of the saving is, because it removes the retyping rather than replacing the software you are used to.
What happens when an engineer loses a phone?
With managed devices, the data is recoverable and the access is revocable the same day. Trades businesses have high device attrition, so it is worth setting up properly rather than discovering the gap afterwards.
How quickly do we see a return?
The build is staged so the highest-saving, lowest-risk piece lands first. In practice that usually means the quote-to-invoice link, and most firms notice it inside the first month rather than at the end of the project.
