Plumbing software for UK plumbing and heating teams
Take the call, book the engineer, price the work at the kitchen table and send the invoice before the van is off the street. Opsler is plumbing software built for how a UK plumbing and heating business actually runs — emergency call-outs and booked services on one board, every property’s history a click away, and a quote your customer can sign on their phone while you’re still in the airing cupboard.
Two seats are free forever. After that it is $25 a seat a month, with no minimum to reach and nothing bigger waiting to be upsold into.
14-day trial on Pro. No card, no sales call.
How the plumbing job lifecycle fits together
Enquiry, quote, job, invoice. In Opsler that is one record moving through four states, not four apps that each know a quarter of the story.
A customer rings on Monday about a dripping stopcock. She becomes a record with her address, her phone number and a note that the meter is under the stairs. Tuesday’s call-out is booked against that record. Your engineer prices a replacement on the spot, she approves it on her phone, and the invoice goes out that afternoon carrying the same lines the quote had. Nobody retypes anything, and nothing is held only in one person’s head.
Plenty of plumbers software will sell you a diary and stop there. The money is on either side of the diary — the history before the visit and the invoice after it. That is the real job of job management software for plumbers: keeping the thread from first phone call to cleared payment unbroken, so whoever answers the phone in six months can see precisely what happened and what it cost.
Two people can run that entire loop on Opsler without paying anything, for as long as they like.
Where Gas Safe sits.
Gas Safe registration, boiler certificates and any statutory gas-safety record are set by Gas Safe Register and by your own registered status. Keep producing those exactly as you do today. Opsler runs the business around that work — the customer, the diary, the quote, the job card, the evidence and the invoice.
Keep customers, properties and job history connected
Open a customer and you see every visit anyone has ever made to them, with the notes, photos and invoice attached to the visit they came from.
A customer holds a service address, a billing address and notes. Each job also carries its own address, and that is the detail that matters to a landlord with three flats above a parade of shops: three addresses, three separate job histories, one account and one person to invoice. It works the same way when a good customer moves house — the new address goes on the new job and the old property keeps its own record instead of being written over.
The payoff lands on the second visit. Whoever picks up the return job can read what the first engineer found, which valve was seized and which neighbour holds the key. Plumbing management software earns its keep the day nobody turns up at a property knowing less than the last person who left it.
Bring your existing customers in once and the history starts building from the very first job you book.
Handle call-outs, repairs and planned visits
A burst pipe at 07:40 and a boiler service agreed back in March both live on the same board, and neither one quietly pushes the other off it.
Reactive work drops straight onto the diary for the next engineer with room in the day. Planned work — the annual service, the bathroom fit, a landlord’s gas round — holds the date it was agreed until that date comes round, so a brutal fortnight of emergencies doesn’t swallow the work you already sold.
This is the split most plumbing software handles badly by forcing both through one shape. An emergency has to be placed in minutes; a planned visit has to be remembered for months. Holding both in one diary means that when a customer asks for Thursday, you can see how much of Thursday is already spoken for before you say yes.
Take the emergency without losing the service booking. That is the whole trick.
Schedule work and assign engineers
Drag a job onto an engineer and it is theirs — a fixed appointment where you have promised the customer a time, or a flexible slot where you have promised them a day.
The office can see who is where without ringing round three vans to find out. Reassigning is a drag across the board, not a rebuild of the week: the job moves, the engineer who now has it sees it on their own list, and the customer record keeps the change. When someone calls in sick on a Monday morning, that difference is the whole morning.
Flexible slots are worth using more than most people do. Half of domestic plumbing does not need a time, only a day, and every job you book that way gives your engineer room to absorb the emergency that turns up at eleven.
The diary in detail is on UK job scheduling software.
Create quotes and capture verified approval
Price the work in front of the customer and leave with a signed yes rather than a promise to think about it.
Quotes build from your own price book. Put one figure on a £180 leak repair, or give a £4,800 bathroom refit three options — good, better and best — and let the customer choose. Options are the oldest move in the trade because they change the question from whether to spend to how much, and the middle one wins more often than anyone expects.
The approval is properly checked, not a tick in a box. The customer opens a link from their email with no account and no download, a one-time code arrives in that same inbox, they enter it, pick their option and sign — typed or drawn with a finger — on one screen, in the browser they already had open. It runs identically whether they’re standing beside your engineer or reading it on the train home, and what you get back is a dated, signed record of what they agreed to.
The full quoting workflow, from price book to signed acceptance, is on UK quoting software.
Give the engineer a clear digital job card
Your engineer opens the job on their phone and already knows the address, the access arrangements and what happened at that property last time.
The job card carries the title, the description, the notes, the photos and the status of the work. It is the job sheet without the clipboard, the coffee ring and the copy that stayed in the van until Friday. When the status changes on site, the office sees it without a phone call asking how it went.
It matters most on cover. The engineer standing at the door of a job somebody else started should not be the least informed person on the property, and with the history travelling on the card, they aren’t.
More on what a card holds: UK job card software.
Record the work, the photos, the time and the materials
Before-and-after photos, hours worked and parts used are captured as the engineer finishes the job — the only moment anyone reliably records them.
Any plumbing business software can store a photograph. What decides an argument is that the photograph is attached to the visit it came from, on the property it was taken at, with a date on it. A picture of the corroded fitting you replaced, sitting on the job the customer is querying, ends the conversation in one email instead of three.
Parts used log against the same job, so you know what the work cost you before you decide what to charge for it. Time logged there tells you which kinds of job are actually earning. Every tradesperson has one sort of work that eats a day and pays for half of it; this is how you find out which one yours is.
Finish the job properly on site and the invoice is nearly written already.
Create invoices with VAT on every line
The invoice is raised from the finished job with the lines already on it — every part, every hour, every charge — and VAT applied per line at the rate you set.
Tax is configured once and then it simply happens. Choose the tax type your business charges — VAT for a UK plumbing or heating business, and sales tax, GST or HST are there too if you work across borders — enter the rate, make it the one that applies by default, and every quote and invoice carries it line by line rather than as a lump stuck on the bottom. A £2,400 bathroom refit goes out with its own breakdown, itemised the way the customer expects to see it.
At quarter end your invoices and payments come out as a QuickBooks-formatted or Xero-formatted file that drops straight into whichever of the two your bookkeeper uses. They get a clean set of figures instead of a carrier bag of paperwork and a phone call asking what happened on a job back in March.
The point of software for plumbers is that the money side stops being an evening job. Finish the work, raise the invoice, get on with tomorrow.
Plumbing software evaluation checklist
Ten questions worth putting to any plumbing business software on your shortlist. Ours are answered underneath. Put the same list to everyone else and see who has to get back to you.
Can one customer have jobs at more than one property?
Yes. Every job carries its own address, so a landlord with three flats keeps three separate job histories under one account and one bill.
Do emergency call-outs and booked work share a diary?
Yes. A burst pipe and next month's boiler service sit on the same drag-and-drop board, not in two systems that disagree.
Can I move a job without rebuilding the week?
Yes. Drag it to another engineer or another day. Whoever it lands on sees it on their own list.
Can the customer say yes without setting anything up?
Yes. A link in their email, a one-time code to that address, then a signature typed or drawn on the screen in front of them.
Can I offer options instead of one take-it-or-leave-it price?
Yes. Put one figure on the work, or lay out three levels — good, better and best — and let the customer pick the one they want.
Does the engineer see the history before knocking on the door?
Yes. Address, access notes, previous visits and photos travel out on the job card.
Is VAT handled on the invoice?
Yes. Set your tax type and rate once and VAT is applied per line on every quote and invoice after that, with a default in place so nobody has to remember it.
Can the month's figures reach my accountant?
Yes. Invoices and payments come out as a QuickBooks-formatted or Xero-formatted file, ready to import.
What does it cost to run a two-person outfit on it?
Nothing, permanently. Budding gives you 2 seats — 1 admin and 1 engineer — 50 jobs each month, customers with no cap, and 100 inventory items across 1 location.
What does the sixth engineer cost?
$25 a month. There is no seat minimum, no jump to a bigger plan, and no tier above Pro to be sold into later.
Budding costs nothing and stays that way: 2 seats — 1 admin and 1 engineer — 50 jobs each month, customers with no cap, and 100 inventory items across 1 location. Pro costs $25 a seat each month with nothing to reach first, and Pro’s 14-day trial runs without a card.
Plumbing software questions
One system that holds the customer, the diary, the quote and the invoice together — not four tools and a notebook in the van. That is the administrative core of a plumbing and heating business: who the customer is, what was done at that property before, what is booked next, what the job cost and whether it has been paid. Useful software for plumbers covers all four on one record, which is what Opsler does, and a two-person business can run the whole loop on the free plan without paying anything. Certification is a separate question and stays with your Gas Safe registration.
The enquiry becomes a customer record with a service address, notes and history. The job is booked onto an engineer's day, as a fixed appointment or a flexible slot. The engineer prices the work on site from your own price book — one figure, or three levels if the job is big enough to warrant options — and the customer approves it by opening an emailed link, entering a one-time code sent to that address and signing on screen. Photos, hours and parts are logged as the work is finished, then the invoice is raised from the same record with VAT applied per line. Nothing gets typed twice, and the whole thread stays readable six months later.
No. Opsler is not a certification tool — Gas Safe registration, boiler certificates and statutory gas-safety records are set by Gas Safe Register and your own registered status, and you keep producing them exactly as you do now. What Opsler runs is everything around that work: the customer record, the diary, the quote, the job card, the photos and the invoice.
Yes, and it is a plan rather than a countdown. Budding covers 2 seats, 50 jobs each month, customers with no cap and 100 inventory items across 1 location, and it does not expire — enough for a sole trader with someone answering the phone, or a two-hander doing domestic work. Most free plumbers software in this market turns out to be a fortnight's trial wearing a different name. When you outgrow Budding, Pro costs $25 a seat each month, with no minimum, and you can try it for 14 days without handing over a card.
No. Opsler opens in the browser on whatever phone your engineers already carry, so getting a new starter working is a login rather than a download, an approval queue and a device policy. That is one of the quieter reasons plumbing management software gets abandoned — the office adopts it and the vans never do.
Related
UK job management software
Every trade, one enquiry-to-payment thread
UK job scheduling software
The drag-and-drop diary your engineers run on
UK job card software
What the engineer carries onto the property
UK quoting software
Pricing, options and signed approvals in depth
UK HVAC software
For the heating and ventilation side of the book
Pricing
Free for two seats, then $25 each
Put one plumbing job through it tonight
Book it, quote it, get it signed and invoice it — the whole loop, on the free plan, before you decide anything.
Free forever on the Budding plan. No credit card required.