Guides for trades and service businesses
Practical, no-nonsense guides to the admin side of running a trades or service business, whether you wire houses, fix their boilers or clean them. Quoting, getting paid, keeping the week straight and staying on the right side of your records. 63 guides, free to read, no sign-up.
For every trade
Getting paid, booked and squared away
The admin problems every trades and service business has, whatever the trade.
Install Dispatch on your phone
The Android app is on Google Play. On iPhone, put it on your home screen in about thirty seconds.
Quoting with a deposit
Price the job, get a straight answer, and have the deposit banked before you order materials.
Chasing unpaid invoices
A sequence that gets you paid without burning the customer relationship.
Job scheduling for a small team
Keeping two or three vans straight without a whiteboard and a group chat.
Making Tax Digital for sole traders
What digital record keeping actually means for a one-person trades business.
Sync jobs to your calendar
See your jobs in Google, Apple or Outlook: job number and postcode only.
Timesheets and logging time
Log hours against the job as you go, instead of reconstructing the week on Friday.
CIS invoicing for subcontractors
The deduction comes off labour, not materials or VAT. How to invoice for it.
Software for domestic cleaners
A house-cleaning round on Dispatch: the week booked, photos filed, invoices paid.
Tier 1
Core trades
Electrical, plumbing and heating, renewables, fire and security, locksmithing.
Job management software for electricians
Certificates, notifications and quotes, on a business where the paperwork is the product.
Job management software for plumbers
Emergency callouts against booked work, and the Gas Safe paperwork in between.
Software for solar and heat pump installers
Long lead times, MCS paperwork and a handover the customer actually understands.
Software for fire and security installers
Installs, commissioning and the maintenance contracts that follow them.
Job management software for locksmiths
Pricing at the door, proving who you let in, and getting paid before you drive off.
Tier 2
Inspection and compliance
Businesses where the certificate is the product and the re-test date is the revenue.
Gas safety certificate software
The twelve-month landlord round, and never missing an expiry date.
EICR and PAT testing software
When the certificate is the product and the money is in the re-test date.
Fire risk assessment and extinguisher servicing
Servicing intervals, written assessments, and the records a responsible person needs.
Legionella testing and water hygiene
Monitoring rounds, temperature records and evidencing a duty holder's compliance.
HVAC, refrigeration and lift servicing
Planned maintenance on someone else's plant, with the asset history you need on arrival.
Tier 3
Property maintenance
Fabric, water, pests and the trades that keep a building standing up.
Handyman job management software
Six small jobs a day, quoted on the spot and paid before you leave.
Job management software for roofers
Weather, scaffolding and staged payments, on work the customer cannot see.
Drainage and CCTV drain surveys
Pricing an unknown, and turning the survey itself into the deliverable.
Pest control business software
Domestic callouts against commercial contracts, and the records an audit asks for.
Property maintenance for letting agents
When the payer is not the person on site, and everything needs evidencing.
Tier 5
Cleaning
Contract rounds, specialist single visits and everything in between.
Questions trades ask
Choosing software
Which tool, what it should cost, and whether you need one at all.
Best job management software for small trades
What you actually need, the five questions worth asking, and how to decide in a week.
Do I really need job management software?
Six honest tests. If none of them lands, keep your notepad and your money.
Can tradesmen use free job management software?
What free usually means, the four ways it stops being free, and when it is genuinely enough.
Job management or construction scheduling?
Where field service tools stop and construction programmes begin.
How much should you pay for job software?
The four pricing shapes, what they cost at three users, and how to compare honestly.
Job management vs project management
Jobs, projects and tasks are three different things. Buying the wrong one is expensive.
How to choose between trade management apps
A one-week trial method that beats any comparison table, including ours.
Features trade job software should have
Nine essentials, four overrated extras, and the one that quietly matters most.
Is it easy to learn if you are not techy?
What actually makes software hard, and a first-week plan that avoids all of it.
Can one app replace all the others?
What consolidates well, what does not, and the one thing you should keep separate.
What if there is no signal on site?
An honest look at connection-free working, and what most trades actually need instead.
The best job app for a one-person business
What a sole trader needs is different, and most of it is about not forgetting.
Judging a vendor customer support
Four tests you can run before you buy, and what small-company support really means.
The simplest way to start today
A one-hour setup and a five-day plan to get the business off the notepad.
Questions trades ask
Running the week
Scheduling, dispatch, and keeping several live jobs straight at once.
Managing multiple jobs without losing track
Where jobs actually go missing, and the one list that stops it happening.
The cheapest way to schedule and dispatch
What a whiteboard and a group chat really cost, and what to refuse to pay for.
Dispatching technicians more efficiently
Cluster by area, protect a slot, send the job with the person. No tracking required.
Getting job details onto the engineer phone
What the van actually needs to see, and why a browser beats an installed app.
Managing recurring customer jobs
Regular work should book itself, not depend on somebody remembering in March.
Preventing double-booked engineers
Why warnings beat hard blocks, and the three habits that stop clashes happening.
Keeping customer information current everywhere
One copy on a server beats four copies on four phones. What that means in practice.
Handling the day that goes sideways
Emergencies are not exceptions. Build the week expecting them.
Questions trades ask
Getting paid
Quotes, invoices, payments, and the gap between finishing and being paid.
Keeping track of invoices and payments
Who owes you what, without a spreadsheet and a bank statement side by side.
Creating professional invoices from your phone
Draft on site, issue from the office, and get the number allocated properly.
Software that handles quotes and estimates
Quote, validity, deposit, acceptance. What turns a maybe into a booked job.
Joining invoicing to job scheduling
Why two systems always drift, and what a joined-up chain looks like.
The fastest way to send an invoice
Draft on site, issue the same day, and remove the three usual delays.
Getting paid faster
Five levers, in the order they pay off. Most of the delay is self-inflicted.
Questions trades ask
Customers and communication
Records, updates, and the conversations that go wrong.
The easiest way to manage customer records
Searchable customers with their job history attached, and nothing you have to maintain.
The best CRM for trade business owners
Most trades do not need a sales CRM. They need the job history attached to the customer.
Keeping customers updated on job progress
Four moments that matter, and how to cover them without a running commentary.
Handling customer communication better
The four conversations that go wrong, and the wording that keeps them civil.
Questions trades ask
Costs, profit and admin
Where the hours, the materials and the margin actually go.
Tracking time on jobs accurately
Why reconstructed hours are always wrong in the same direction, and what to record instead.
Cutting the admin without cutting corners
Where the hours really go, and which ones software can actually take back.
Improving job profitability
Find the job type you have been quoting at a loss, then fix that one price.
Tracking material costs per job
Receipts photographed on site beat a shoebox in March. What to record and what to skip.
Getting useful numbers out of your business
Six numbers worth watching, and why a wall of charts changes nothing.
Automating the routine bits
Four things worth automating, three that should stay manual, and why.
Why these guides
Written for the business, not the software
Every one of these guides is about a problem that exists whether or not you use Dispatch: a quote that never gets answered, an invoice that quietly ages past due, a week where two jobs land on the same van, a shoebox of receipts in April.
Where Dispatch happens to solve the problem we say so, and where it does not (or where you need an accountant rather than software) we say that too. See what Dispatch does if you want the product tour instead.
Run the admin side in one place
Structured fault reports, quotes with deposits, a week calendar and invoicing that chases itself. Free plan to start with.