Best iCertifi Alternative for UK Electricians (2026)

An electrical app earns its place at the awkward end of a job. You have finished the testing, the customer wants to know what happens next, and the document still has to be complete, checked, signed, sent and stored where you can find it years later.

That makes the quickest demo a poor buying test. Most apps can produce a clean looking first page. The useful differences appear around a thirty circuit schedule, repeated observations, remote review, weak signal, corrections after issue and the next person trying to locate the record.

This comparison uses formal document names where they apply: Electrical Installation Certificate, Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate and Electrical Installation Condition Report. They are not interchangeable labels, and they should not be shortened into invented document names.

What is iCertifi and what does it actually cover?

iCertifi is an Apple focused electrical certification app for UK electricians. Its current App Store listing says it supports professional BS 7671 electrical certificates on iPhone, iPad and Apple silicon Mac, including offline work, observations, photos, templates, remote qualifying supervisor signing, backup and sync.

The same listing describes circuit design tools, test instrument support and a range of presentation templates. That is a substantial certification workflow, not simply a blank PDF form.

The practical limitation is fit. An electrician who already manages enquiries, jobs, quotes and invoices elsewhere may prefer a focused product. A business trying to remove several disconnected systems may want certification to sit inside the same customer and job record. Neither model is automatically better.

Be careful with the name when researching. There is also an unrelated US identity verification company with a similar name. Search results about document fraud, identity checks or onboarding are not evidence about the UK electrician app.

Where does a certification-only app stop being enough?

It stops being enough when the paperwork after testing is only one part of the problem.

Consider a simple EICR job. Someone receives the enquiry, creates the customer and site, sends a quote, books the inspection, assigns an electrician, completes the report, records remedial work, sends an invoice, tracks payment and remembers the next inspection interval. A focused certification app can be excellent at the report while leaving the other stages in a diary, spreadsheet, accounting package and messaging thread.

That split is perfectly manageable for many sole traders. It becomes painful when customer details are typed repeatedly, nobody knows which version is final, office staff cannot see progress, or the certificate history is detached from the commercial job.

The right question is not, “Does this app have job management?” It is, “Which handoffs are costing us time or creating risk?” If certification is the only weak link, buy the best focused certification workflow. If customer, job, document and payment context keep separating, test an integrated platform.

Which iCertifi alternatives handle EICR, EIC and minor works?

Several products publish support for the core forms, but their depth and device model differ.

Tradecert says every subscription includes EICRs, EICs, Minor Works and other certificate types across iPhone, iPad, Android and web browser. TestFast lists EICR, EIC and Minor Works in a workflow that also includes offline use, observation tools and supported tester integration. NAPIT describes FastTest as multi-platform certification software covering electrical installation and inspection and testing.

Checker provides formal electrical documents alongside its wider gas, heating, plumbing and business workflow. Elec-Mate positions certification within a broader UK electrician workspace. Joblogic, Powered Now and Tradify bring electrical paperwork into wider job management, while Certify Apps separates its electrical workflow into CertifyELECTRIC.

Do not accept a generic “electrical certificates” claim. Ask the vendor to show the current version of each form you use, including schedules, continuation pages, signatures, observations and final PDF output. If you work under a scheme or qualifying supervisor, test that review path too.

Which do PAT testing as well?

PAT work has a different rhythm from fixed installation certification. It can involve many assets, labels, retest dates and a customer register rather than one property document.

iCertifi’s current listing includes PAT documentation. Checker has a PAT testing workflow alongside customer, job and invoicing tools. Tradecert and TestFast both publish PAT coverage. Certify Apps has a dedicated CertifyPAT product with appliance registers, label PDFs, history and retest tracking.

The buying test is volume. Create a realistic asset set, not a two item demo. Check how quickly you can reuse locations, record pass or fail results, add notes, generate labels if needed, issue the final register and set the next retest. Also export the asset history so you know what leaving later would involve.

Which add job management, invoicing and quoting on top?

Checker, Joblogic, Powered Now and Tradify are the clearest candidates in this group if you want commercial workflow around the electrical record. Their shapes are different.

Checker is designed for UK gas, heating, plumbing, electrical and renewable engineers. Its Pro tier adds reports and backend tools, while Pro+ at £25.99 per month adds subusers. The backend covers CRM, reminders, business analytics, accounting tools and Growth Engine features. Lite is for record creation only, so compare the correct tier.

Tradify is broad job management with quoting, scheduling, costing, invoices, payments and accounting sync. Joblogic is aimed at field service operations with office and mobile workflows. Powered Now combines trade paperwork with job management and business admin. Elec-Mate also positions itself as a connected workspace for UK electricians rather than only a certificate form.

The danger is paying for breadth you will not use. A focused certification app plus your existing accounts workflow may be simpler for a sole trader. A multi engineer business may gain more from removing duplicate customer and job records than from shaving seconds off one field.

Build a scorecard from your own month rather than a generic feature list. Give the most weight to the forms that generate most of your revenue, the device every electrician already carries, and the review steps that catch mistakes before issue. Then score customer setup, circuit entry, observations, photos, signatures, PDF quality, retrieval, export, support and price. A rarely used dashboard should not outweigh a daily field task.

Include the office view even if you work alone today. Check how easy it is to find every record for one address, distinguish draft from issued work, see who changed a document and hand access to an administrator or qualifying supervisor later. Software that is fast for the first certificate but opaque when a customer calls two years later has only solved half the job.

What do UK electricians say about certification apps?

Public electrician discussions repeatedly return to four practical themes: slow grid entry, offline reliability, support, and being able to start on site then finish or review elsewhere. Those are anecdotes rather than representative research, but they are useful test cases.

One recent UK electricians thread includes people comparing iCertifi, FastTest, EasyCert, TestFast and other products, with complaints about pricing and automated entry alongside recommendations based on support or workflow. Another asks for software that can move between site, van and office. The opinions conflict, which is exactly the point: a feature that saves one electrician time can interrupt another electrician’s established checking method.

Turn those comments into a trial script. Use your own largest board, your own observation style, your own device and the signal conditions you encounter. Time the complete checked report, not the first few screens.

Support deserves its own test. Ask a precise pre sales question about importing history or correcting an issued document and judge the clarity of the answer. Then look for a help centre, export instructions and a route for urgent problems. An electrician should not have to discover the support model while a customer is waiting for a corrected record.

iCertifi alternatives compared

Platform	Primary shape	Core electrical forms	Wider workflow to test
iCertifi	Apple focused certification app	Published BS 7671 certificate coverage	Apple device fit, remote signing, export
Checker	All in one trade workflow	EICR, EIC and Minor Works workflows	Jobs, quotes, invoices, reminders
Tradecert	Cross device certification	Publishes EICR, EIC and Minor Works	Browser access, export, team review
Elec-Mate	UK electrician workspace	Verify current certificate library	Jobs, quotes and connected tools
TestFast	Electrical certification workflow	Publishes EICR, EIC and Minor Works	Offline, observations, tester support
Joblogic	Field service management	Verify current electrical form setup	Assets, engineers, office controls
Powered Now	Small trade business admin	Verify current certificate coverage	Quotes, jobs, invoices, team use
Tradify	Broad job management	Compliance certificates on Plus	Quote to payment, costing, accounts
NAPIT FastTest	Multi-platform certification	Electrical plus other building services forms	Scheme fit, licence, migration
Certify Apps	Separate trade record apps	CertifyELECTRIC route	Availability, export, product maturity

How do you move your templates and certificate history?

Start with retention, not import. Decide what must remain editable, what only needs to be retrievable as an issued PDF, and what underlying customer, site and inspection data must be searchable.

1. List every document type. Include current forms, old form versions, continuation pages, photos, signatures and remedial evidence.
2. Export an untouched archive. Preserve the source files before changing names, templates or customer records.
3. Choose a difficult sample. Use a multi board EICR, a Minor Works job, an EIC with schedules and a PAT register if that reflects your work.
4. Test identities. Confirm that customer, site, installation and document dates remain distinct after import.
5. Rebuild templates deliberately. Do not recreate every old shortcut. Keep the ones that still match current work and review standards.
6. Reconcile the output. Compare PDFs, row counts and search results, then get the people who sign or review documents to approve the process.

Keep the old system accessible for a defined period if the licence terms allow it. New work can begin in the replacement on a cutover date, but historic records should not be declared moved until a separate person can retrieve a sample by customer, property and date.