Forty fitters, forty ways of sending photos
You sell installs nationally, through your website and partners, and use self-employed or small-firm electricians to fit them. Jobs go out by email with a PDF. Completion photos come back by WhatsApp, some named, most not. Certificates arrive days later, occasionally for the wrong address. Fitters invoice in their own format, monthly or weekly, and the accounts person spends Friday matching invoices to jobs.
Meanwhile a partner wants proof of completion for a batch of jobs, and a grant claim is waiting on a serial number from a fitter who is not answering.
A network with no shared system
Your fitters run their own businesses and their own paperwork. You cannot make them use your job management software, and the licensing for forty extra users would be unaffordable anyway. So the relationship runs on email, phone and chat, which is fine for five fitters and unmanageable for forty.
- Job packs are PDFs, reissued when anything changes.
- Completion evidence has no fixed list, so it varies by fitter.
- Certificates, photos and serials arrive at different times.
- Fitters' accreditations and insurance expire without anyone noticing.
- Invoices do not reference your job numbers consistently.
What the chasing costs
Office time goes on chasing rather than selling. Incomplete evidence holds up partner sign-offs and grant claims, which holds up your cash. Fitter invoices get paid for jobs that were never fully evidenced, or held for jobs that were, which damages relationships with good fitters. And a lapsed insurance certificate you did not notice is a risk you are carrying without knowing.
Partners who send you national volumes also judge you on consistency. A customer in one region gets a tidy install with a full set of photos, and a customer in another gets a hurried job with no handover, and to the partner both carry your name.
The fitter portal we build
- Each fitter gets a login to a simple mobile portal, not your full job system. They see only the jobs offered or assigned to them.
- A job arrives with the survey photos, the quote, the unit, the customer contact and access notes, all current. Changes update the job rather than sending a new PDF.
- The fitter accepts a date, which updates your diary and the customer.
- On completion the portal asks for your required evidence in order: named photos, scanned serial, commissioning details, certificate upload. The job cannot be submitted until the list is complete.
- Your office reviews and approves the job, or sends it back with a note. Approved jobs feed partner updates and grant claims.
- Fitters raise invoices from approved jobs in the portal, or upload their own, which are matched to jobs before reaching Xero or QuickBooks. Accreditation and insurance documents are held with expiry dates and reminders.
| Area | Email and chat | Fitter portal |
|---|---|---|
| Issuing jobs | PDF job packs | Live job with survey and spec |
| Evidence | Photos in any format | Required list, checked before submit |
| Serials and certificates | Arrive later, if chased | Part of the completion step |
| Invoices | Matched by hand | Raised from approved jobs |
| Fitter documents | Filed and forgotten | Held with expiry reminders |
A network that runs itself more
The office stops chasing and starts reviewing. Fitters know exactly what is expected on every job, which good fitters prefer. Partners and grant claims get complete evidence sooner. Invoices match work. And you can see, per fitter, how often their jobs come back for missing evidence, which helps decide who gets the next batch.
Recognise any of these?
- Completion photos arrive on personal phones in no particular order.
- Grant or partner sign-offs wait on a fitter's paperwork.
- Matching fitter invoices to jobs takes a morning or more.
- You are not sure every fitter's insurance is current today.
- Job changes mean reissuing PDFs.