Key takeaways

• Real FSM software carries one job from the office diary to the engineer’s phone to a paid invoice, with nothing rekeyed between apps.
• Offline reliability and native UK certificates (CP12, EICR and the rest) split these tools far more than feature counts do.
• With 81% of UK tradespeople chasing late payments (£6,210 owed on average, 86 hours a year lost), automated chasing earns its place next to scheduling.
• Checker folds scheduling, native certificates and four post-job automations into one platform from £10.99 a month per sub-user plus VAT, no lock-in.
• Fleet-scale and multi-site operations lean to Commusoft, Joblogic or BigChange, built and priced for that weight.

What is field service management software?

Every trade doing reactive and planned work runs the same loop: a job is booked, an engineer sent, work done on site, paperwork produced, an invoice sent. Field service management (FSM) software carries that whole loop in one system, so the office diary, the engineer’s phone and the customer’s invoice draw on a single record. In the UK trades it is just as often called ‘job management’; for a gas, electrical or heating firm the two describe the same purchase.

The seven questions that decide it:

• Scheduling and dispatch: can the office move a job and the engineer see it change?
• On-site mobile and offline: does it hold up in a plant room with no bars?
• Quoting and invoicing: does an accepted quote flow into an invoice without rekeying?
• UK compliance certificates: are CP12, EICR and the rest native, across every trade you cover?
• Automation: does it cut the chasing, or leave it to you?
• Accounting sync: Xero, QuickBooks or Sage, and one way or both?
• Price and commitment: cost per user, and whether you sign a year away.

Checker

Checker is built end to end for the UK field trades: gas, electrical, plumbing and heating. Its founder, Dan Sedgwick, worked as a gas engineer before he started building trade software in 2012, and that on-the-tools perspective shows most in how certificates are handled. Around 19,600 UK tradespeople use it today, with 6.88 million gas compliance reports produced.

In practice the schedule, customer records, quotes, invoices, reporting and digital certificates (CP12 landlord gas safety records included) sit on one job, not scattered across separate tools. Signal is optional too: Checker’s App Store, Google Play and homepage listings all state the app works offline and syncs once the engineer clears the dead spot, which counts in a basement or a rural boiler cupboard.

Where most FSM tools stop once the job is done, Checker keeps going. Its Growth Engine adds four automations: Appointment Reminders 24 hours ahead to cut no-shows; a Quote Chaser that follows an unanswered quote up to three times (days 7, 10 and 14), each with a one-click Accept Quote button; an Invoice Chaser that starts when terms are breached, sends up to three nudges and stops the instant the customer pays; and an Annual Service Reminder eleven months after a customer record is created, turning a finished job into next year’s booking. That clock runs from the record, not the statutory twelve-month gas safety deadline, so it is a booking prompt, not a compliance date. With 81% of tradespeople chasing late payments (£6,210 owed on average, 86 hours a year lost), handing that off is no small saving.

Invoices and payments sync both ways with Xero, QuickBooks and Sage, so the books reconcile without double entry. Pricing is per sub-user and openly published: Lite £10.99, Pro £19.99 and Pro Plus £25.99 a month, each plus VAT, rolling, no year-long tie-in. It fits regulated trades wanting certificates and repeat-business chasing native to the job. If your work is gas-led, our guide to the best app for gas engineers and buyer’s guide to choosing gas engineer software go deeper. Start at my.checker.app/register.

Tradify

Start with Tradify’s one hard limitation for field work: there is no offline mode, so an engineer in a signal blackspot cannot log anything until back on the network. Past that, it is a tidy, popular general job manager for smaller UK crews, fast to set up and covering the diary, quotes, timesheets and invoicing. Electrical compliance is now built in (EICR, EIC, PAT and Minor Works), but only from the Pro plan at £37 per user monthly, and gas certificates stay unconfirmed, worth verifying if you issue CP12s. Bookkeeping links run two-way to Xero and QuickBooks Online and one-way to Sage. Tiers are £34, £37 and £44 per user a month, with the Service Reminders feature reserved for that top Plus tier.

Commusoft

Commusoft is aimed at firms that have outgrown a single van, with scheduling and dispatch built to coordinate several engineers across multiple sites in a day. That is its strength, and also why it feels heavy for a sole operator. Compliance is native and wide: CP12 gas and electrical (EICR, Minor Works, PAT) certificate tooling, created offline on mobile with digital signatures. Commercially it expects commitment, a rolling twelve-month core contract, with monthly and daily add-on licences for seasonal or subcontracted staff, and no self-serve price; the product is pitched at firms of six staff or more.

Joblogic

Where Joblogic pulls ahead is contract-heavy work: planned-maintenance schedules, service-level agreements and multi-site dispatch, the daily reality for fire-and-security, HVAC and bigger gas or heating firms rather than a sole domestic engineer. Entry pricing is £45 per user monthly on an annual commitment, softened by a 30-day trial and a month-to-month alternative; the Premium and Enterprise tiers stay quote-only and target fifty-plus headcounts. Its accounting reach is wide (Sage, Xero, QuickBooks and others), with one caveat on Xero: customers sync both directions, but invoices and payments flow only from Joblogic outward. On offline use the vendor stays silent, so a firm working in shielded plant rooms should test it before committing.

ServiceM8

ServiceM8 runs the entire job from the phone, built around a visual, tap-through job card with on-site quoting and invoicing. It appeals to sole traders and small teams who never wanted a back office. Offline is a documented strength: an engineer can open a job, add notes and take photos with no connection, and it all syncs once the device is back online. The gap is statutory paperwork, it offers a flexible custom form builder rather than named UK compliance templates, so anyone relying on EICR or CP12 output should test that first. Pricing scales by job volume, not head count: free for 30 jobs a month on one user, up to £269 a month, ex VAT, no contract, unlimited users on paid tiers. Reminders come through add-ons rather than as standard.

Powered Now

Powered Now leans towards the paperwork end of field work: fast quotes, invoices and job sheets thumbed out on a phone at the customer’s door, which suits sole traders more than firms needing deep scheduling. Offline is confirmed by the vendor and syncs on reconnect. Its certificate library is wide for the price: EICR, EIC, MEIC and PAT for electrical, CP12, CP2 and gas service records for gas, all gated to the Professional plan and above. It flags automated certificate renewal reminders, and its Premium tier markets automated invoice and quote chasing. Plans run £28, £32 and £40 per user a month, ex VAT.

BigChange

BigChange is as much a fleet system as a job manager, folding vehicle tracking and telematics in alongside CRM, scheduling and invoicing. That suits contractors whose overheads include a yard of vans, not just a roster of engineers. It publishes no self-serve price; third-party listings put historic figures at roughly £70 to £100 per vehicle a month, best read as an estimate. Vehicle tracking sits inside the core plan, not as an add-on. On certificates, gas is native with a pre-built template library, while electrical is less clearly a shipped template and worth checking. Xero and Sage connect natively, but QuickBooks does not appear on BigChange’s own integrations page.

Fergus

Fergus began in New Zealand and Australia and has since built a real UK operation: a dedicated UK site, a Manchester office, UK phone support and supplier links to City Plumbing, Screwfix and others, with 20% VAT applied automatically. Its standout is job costing, tracking labour and materials against each job so a firm sees actual margin instead of a guess. UK compliance comes through a free Fergus Certificates add-on covering CP12 gas, PAT and Minor Electrical Installation Works, though nothing in its list carries the exact name ‘EICR’, so check the certificate you need. Pricing spans £39 to £45 a month across Essentials and Professional, with a custom Enterprise quote at ten users and up.

Comparison table

The table lines the eight up on the criteria that separate them in the field, a shortlist by fit rather than a leaderboard.

Tool	Scheduling & dispatch	Mobile & offline	UK compliance certificates	Automated chasing & reminders	Accounting integration	Pricing	Best suited for
Checker	Yes	Yes, syncs on reconnect	Yes, native (CP12)	4 workflows: appointment, quote, invoice, annual service	Xero, QuickBooks, Sage (two-way)	Per sub-user £10.99 to £25.99 (+VAT), no lock-in	Regulated trades wanting native certs plus automated repeat business
Tradify	Yes	No offline mode	Electrical native (Pro tier); gas unconfirmed	Service Reminders (Plus tier)	Xero, QuickBooks (two-way); Sage (one-way)	£34 to £44/user/month (UK)	Small teams with dependable on-site signal
Commusoft	Yes, dispatch-focused	Unconfirmed	Yes, native: CP12, EICR, Minor Works, PAT	Unconfirmed; check on sales call	Unconfirmed	Quote only, 12-month contract, 6+ staff	Multi-engineer firms past the single-van stage
Joblogic	Yes, multi-site	Not documented	Yes, certification modules	Unconfirmed	Sage, Xero, QuickBooks + more (Xero partly two-way)	£45/user/month, annual (rolling option); higher tiers quote-only	Contract-driven, multi-site commercial operators
ServiceM8	Yes	Yes, syncs on reconnect	Unconfirmed; custom form builder	Add-on only, not standard	Xero (native); QuickBooks/Sage unconfirmed	Free to £269/month by job volume, ex VAT	Sole traders running the job from a phone
Powered Now	Yes	Yes, confirmed native	Yes: EICR, EIC, MEIC, PAT, CP12, CP2+ (Pro plan+)	Renewal reminders confirmed; chasing on Premium	Xero (two-way); QuickBooks/Sage unconfirmed	£28 to £40/user/month (ex VAT)	Sole traders who live in quotes and forms
BigChange	Yes, fleet-aware	Unconfirmed	Gas native; electrical unconfirmed	Unconfirmed	Xero and Sage (native); no QuickBooks	No self-serve figure; quote required	Fleet-heavy contractors tracking vans and jobs
Fergus	Yes, job costing-led	Unconfirmed	Free add-on: CP12, PAT, EIC, Minor Works; no cert named “EICR”	Unconfirmed	Unconfirmed	£39 to £45/mo; Enterprise (10+) custom	Firms that want margin visibility per job

How to choose FSM software for your trade business

Work down three questions and the field narrows fast. First, how big is the team, and how long do you want to commit? Rolling, per-user pricing suits a small firm still testing the water (Checker, Tradify, ServiceM8, Powered Now), whereas Commusoft, Joblogic and BigChange are built and priced for larger operations with office staff to run them. If you are comparing job management platforms specifically rather than the broader FSM field, our comparison of job management apps for UK tradespeople weighs the same tools from that angle.

Second, how central are certificates? A firm issuing CP12s and EICRs weekly should insist on native templates rather than a form builder to configure later; Checker, Commusoft and Powered Now deliver that, while ServiceM8’s forms and BigChange’s electrical output need testing against your paperwork. Third, where do your engineers work? If plant rooms and rural properties are routine, Tradify’s lack of any offline mode is the fact most likely to catch you out, so weigh it before moving a team across.

Frequently asked questions