A steady stream of small, urgent jobs
Certification work looks simple from the outside. A client needs a certificate, you help them through the questionnaire, and for the higher level an assessor carries out a technical assessment. In practice, your inbox is full of variations. One client needs a certificate for a tender that closes in three weeks. Another's certificate expired last month and a customer has noticed. A third started the questionnaire in spring and went silent.
The technical assessments need an assessor's time, often on site or by remote session, and they depend on the client having done their part first. Clients book, then postpone. Some turn up to the assessment with half their devices not ready.
Your team tracks all this in a spreadsheet with a column for each stage and a lot of coloured cells. Renewal reminders go out when someone remembers.
And because each assessment is small, the admin around it takes up a surprising share of the fee: several emails to book, a couple of chasers, a reschedule, and a manual invoice at the end.
Why certification work is hard to run
- Each assessment is small, so admin time is a large share of what it earns.
- Clients arrive with deadlines driven by tenders and customers, not by your diary.
- Clients stall partway through the questionnaire and need chasing.
- Technical assessments depend on client readiness, which is only visible on the day.
- Certificates expire annually, and renewal is the easiest revenue to lose.
The rules of the scheme itself are set by the scheme and its certification bodies. This is about the admin your firm does around it.
What the spreadsheet costs
| Missed step | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Renewal reminder not sent | Client lapses, or renews elsewhere |
| Stalled questionnaire not chased | Client misses their tender deadline |
| Readiness not checked before assessment | Assessor day wasted |
| Deadline not recorded | Wrong clients prioritised |
| Admin done by hand | Small assessments barely pay |
The assessment booking system we build
- Each client assessment is a record with its level, any external deadline (tender date, customer requirement), and its stage: enquiry, questionnaire in progress, submitted, technical assessment booked, certified.
- Clients get a simple start page with what they need to do and when, and automatic, polite chasers if they stall, timed against their own deadline.
- Technical assessments are booked into assessors' diaries through an online booking page, only once the client has confirmed a short readiness checklist that your assessors write.
- The day before, the client gets a reminder with what to have ready. If readiness items are unconfirmed, the assessor is warned in time to rebook.
- Certificate expiry dates are recorded, and renewal reminders start at a point you choose, with a link to book.
- Invoices are raised automatically at the stages you choose, through your accounts package.
We keep this separate from the certification body's own platform, which is where the assessment itself happens. Our system manages the booking, chasing and renewal around it.
A normal week with it running
Your team sees every assessment by stage and deadline, with the tender-driven ones at the top. Chasers go out without anyone writing them. Assessors see a diary of bookings with readiness confirmed. Renewals arrive in a steady flow, booked by clients from their reminders, rather than being rescued after expiry.
Take a typical enquiry. A client needs a certificate before a tender closes. They are logged with the tender date, receive their start page the same day, and get a chaser automatically when the questionnaire stalls. When they reach the technical assessment stage, they book a slot from the assessor's diary after ticking the readiness checklist, and the reminder the day before tells them exactly what to have ready. Nobody in your office wrote an email to make any of that happen.
The small jobs start to pay properly, because the admin around each one has mostly gone.
Signs your certification admin needs help
- Assessments are tracked in a spreadsheet.
- Clients' certificates lapse because nobody reminded them.
- Technical assessment days are wasted because clients were not ready.
- Tender deadlines are known but not recorded.
- Admin takes a large share of each small assessment's fee.