Issued is not the same as received
The certificate was signed on Tuesday. It was emailed to the tenant, whose number was on the job sheet. The landlord never saw it. The letting agent, who actually booked the job, asks for it on Friday. The office forwards it, then gets another email from the landlord's mortgage broker a month later asking for the same thing.
Every one of those requests is a few minutes of searching. Across a week they add up to a lot of someone's time.
One job, several people who need the paper
Who needs the certificate depends on the job. Rented property: landlord and agent, maybe the tenant. New build: the main contractor and sometimes the developer's compliance team. Commercial: the facilities manager and whoever holds the building file. Domestic: the homeowner, and the building control certificate follows later.
Your certification software emails a PDF to one address. The rest relies on the office knowing the client and remembering to forward.
| Job type | Usual recipients |
|---|---|
| Rented home, agent managed | Agent, landlord if requested |
| Homeowner | Homeowner, building control certificate later |
| New build plot | Main contractor, site manager |
| Commercial premises | Facilities manager, building file |
| Subcontract to another electrician | The instructing contractor |
Changes of hands make it worse. A letting agent takes over management of a flat halfway through the year, or a landlord sells a block to a new owner with a new managing agent. Your records still point at the old contacts. Unless someone updates the client record when they hear about the change, the next certificate goes to the wrong inbox and nobody notices until the new agent asks where it is.
The drip of repeat requests
Office time goes on forwarding and searching. Agents who can't find your certificates think less of your firm even if the work was excellent. Main contractors hold retention or payments until the paperwork arrives. And when a certificate goes to the wrong person, such as a tenant who has left, you have a privacy problem as well as an admin one.
Main contractors are the sharpest example. On a commercial job, the handover file cannot close until every certificate is in it, and a missing electrical certificate can hold up the whole package, including other trades' final payments. Being the subcontractor who is always chased for paperwork is not a reputation anyone wants.
The distribution we set up
- Recipient rules: for each client, and each job type, the office sets who gets a copy. Letting agents can specify their own compliance inbox.
- Job link: when a job is booked, the recipients are attached to it, so the electrician doesn't need to know who they are.
- Automatic send: when the certificate is signed in your certification software, it is picked up, named consistently, and sent to each recipient with a short covering note.
- Delivery log: every send is recorded against the job, with bounces flagged to the office.
- Self-service link: each recipient can download the certificate again from a secure link, so repeat requests stop landing in your inbox.
- Late documents: building control certificates and anything that arrives after the job are matched to it and sent to the same list.
Your privacy rules decide who is allowed to receive what. We build to them.
Fewer 'can you resend' emails
The electrician's part doesn't change. He signs the certificate as he does now, and the sending happens behind him without his phone ringing later.
Everyone who needs the certificate gets it once, from you, when it is signed. When someone does ask again, the office can see who it went to and when, and point them at the link. Agents start to rely on you for their compliance paperwork, which is a good position for the next job.
Recognise any of these?
- Certificates go only to whoever was on the job sheet.
- Agents and landlords ask for copies you have already sent.
- Main contractors hold payments waiting for paperwork.
- The office spends time searching old emails for PDFs.
- You are not sure who received a given certificate.