The blog
Practical advice for getting the admin side of the trade off your plate — quoting, getting paid, and keeping track of the work.
The van, the tools, the boots, the phone and the drive to site: what HMRC lets a self-employed tradesperson claim, what it doesn't, and the records to keep, for the return due on 31 January 2027.
Read more →British Gypsum says its finish plaster doesn't suffer from inherent shrinkage cracks, so a crack in a new skim is worth reading. What causes them, what the new-home warranties accept as normal, which cracks need a closer look, and what to say before the job.
Read more →Gas work for pay needs Gas Safe registration in law. From 1 April 2026 a new business pays £319.96 + VAT to register and £139.78 + VAT a year to renew online. Below: what each fee covers, what ACS reassessment costs, and who has to be on the register.
Read more →Usually a setting that keeps Google out, a site too new for Google to have found, or Google showing other results first. How to tell which from your phone, and what does and doesn't move you up.
Read more →Your website's address can be registered in somebody else's name without you knowing. How to find out whose it is, how to get it into yours, what to do when the person holding it has gone quiet, and what happens if it lapses.
Read more →The ways a UK tradesperson can get a website, side by side: the general builders, the trade builders that come with quotes and invoices, the one-person pay-monthly firms, an agency, a free profile, and ours. What each one does for you, what it leaves to you, and which suits which business. Checked 14 October 2026.
Read more →Getting your review link and QR code out of your Business Profile, the words to use in person, by text, by email and on the invoice, and the lines Google's rules and UK law don't let you cross.
Read more →A Checkatrade profile is a page on Checkatrade's site, reached through Checkatrade, with reviews you can use only while you pay. A website is yours. What each one does, what each costs, what happens to your reviews when you leave, and the free third thing that does most of the job.
Read more →Build it yourself, pay monthly, or pay once: what each route costs over three years rather than at the checkout, what you own when you stop paying, and the five questions to ask before you pay anyone. Prices checked October 2026.
Read more →There's no licence to trade as a handyman and no limit on the value of a job. The rules attach to the type of work. Electrics are more open than most people think, gas is closed, and the line most handymen cross without knowing it is the waste in the van.
Read more →The three units decorators price in aren't three prices for the same job. Each puts the risk in a different place. What the law now asks of a day rate, how painting is formally measured, and one room priced three ways.
Read more →No UK nation makes an electrician register with anybody. What a scheme buys in England and Wales is the right to sign off your own notifiable work. In 2026 that costs £695 + VAT at NICEIC or £655 + VAT at NAPIT in year one, and it usually pays for itself within two or three jobs.
Read more →We've printed 'the first reply usually wins' more than once. So I went looking for what's behind it. The famous numbers come from American sales-software companies, nobody has measured it for UK trades, and the real picture is more useful than the slogan.
Read more →Three signature boxes on an EIC, two on an EICR, and almost no law about who may fill them in. What the standard actually asks, what your scheme adds on top, and the things that quietly make a certificate worth nothing.
Read more →Three things are notifiable in England, and that list is wrong in Wales and meaningless in Scotland. What each nation actually asks of you, what it costs, and what happens when work wasn't notified at the time.
Read more →The quote was for 110. Two weeks out it's 88, and on the day 81 sit down. Why a smaller wedding barely costs less to cater, what other caterers' terms actually say, and the version of a final-numbers clause most likely to hold up.
Read more →Three weeks in, the materials are on your card and the customer will 'sort it at the end'. How stage payments actually work — which rules protect you, which don't, and the cancellation rule that catches builders who agree the job at the kitchen table.
Read more →The letter, the quarterly updates, the software and the penalties — without the alarm. What changes for a sole trader, what doesn't, who's in from April 2027, and the three things most people have wrong about it.
Read more →Landlord, owner or electrician — the answer is different for each, it changed in England last November, and for the electrician it runs a lot longer than the five years on the front of the report.
Read more →The structural decision every trader makes in week one, with the numbers as they actually stand in 2026 — including two changes that moved the maths against incorporating, and one thing that catches Scottish traders that no comparison table online accounts for.
Read more →Every list of how to get work tells you to sort your Google listing. None of them tell you how to verify one from a house, why your service area isn't a radius, or which of Google's review rules you're probably breaking.
Read more →Most quotes that die don't get turned down — they get no answer at all. What silence usually means, the two follow-ups worth sending, the sentence that actually gets a reply, and why a straight no is worth more to you than a maybe.
Read more →Almost everything written about this is written by people who sell websites. Here's what the UK evidence actually says, what a site really costs once the first-year prices expire, and the one job it does that a free Google listing genuinely cannot.
Read more →You open the floor and it's worse than it looked. What you're allowed to charge, why the 10% rule everyone quotes doesn't exist in UK law, and the piece of paperwork that decides whether you get paid for the extra at all.
Read more →The thing that stops most people moving isn't the software — it's the sheet with four years of work in it and no idea what happens to it. Most of that shouldn't come with you, and knowing which part does turns the job from a weekend into an afternoon.
Read more →"Job management software" is a vague phrase, and the category pages explaining it are written by people who have never issued a certificate. Here's what it covers for a working electrician, where an electrical job stops matching the software's idea of a job, and what to do about the gap.
Read more →What each observation code on an EICR actually means, which ones make a report unsatisfactory (fewer than most people think, since April 2026), and the landlord duty that still bites even when the report says satisfactory.
Read more →Invoiced minus materials is not your profit — it's what's left to pay you with. Put your own hours in at the rate you actually need and the ranking of your jobs changes, sometimes completely.
Read more →The day rate that covers your wages, the van, the insurance and the days you don't bill — worked backwards from what you need to earn, rather than guessed from what the trader down the road quotes.
Read more →The advice about where trade work comes from assumes you've been trading a while. What to do in the first ninety days, when you've got no past customers, no reviews, and nobody to be recommended by.
Read more →What the Construction Industry Scheme takes off a subcontractor's invoice, why materials are supposed to be left out of it, and how to get the money back at the end of the year.
Read more →Most of these products do the same things, and the feature lists are written to be compared favourably. Six things genuinely differ — where it starts, how it charges, what's on the tier above, and three more — plus how to run a trial that tells you anything.
Read more →The money question is easier than it looks — £25 a month is about half an hour of billable time. The harder question is whether you'll actually use it, and there are four situations where the answer is no.
Read more →The monthly figure on the website is the least useful number in this decision. The four pricing models, how to work out what you'd really pay, the costs that aren't in the sticker price, and when someone else is the cheaper buy.
Read more →Xero does quotes, invoices and project costs. It isn't built for the front of the job — the enquiry, the fast quote, the booking. Here's the honest division of labour, and what to check in any integration before you rely on it.
Read more →Every route to work is one of four kinds — the ones you own, the ones you're granted, the ones you rent, and the ones other people control. Which mix suits you comes down to one number: what your average job is worth.
Read more →Scheme registers, Local Services Ads, the lead platforms, EV charging and landlord EICRs — what each source costs an electrician, and why the five-year compliance clock is the one worth organising.
Read more →Architects, the FMB register, planning data and the lead platforms — where extension and renovation work comes from, and why the number that actually hurts is the three days you spent pricing a job you didn't win.
Read more →The parts of getting paid that genuinely run themselves — numbering, payment links, chasing, reconciling — and the parts that still need you. Plus the bit that costs trades the most money, which isn't typing the invoice.
Read more →Tradify is mature, reliable and well supported. People still leave it — over per-user pricing, over tiers that hold back features a one-person business needs, or because it doesn't reach the places their enquiries actually arrive. Here's what they move to, and which one fits which business.
Read more →Repeat work, Google, the lead platforms, pay-per-lead sellers and trade referrals — how you pay for each, what roofers report paying, and why the same £30 lead is nothing on a re-roof and most of your margin on a slipped tile.
Read more →Emergency repairs and boiler installs are two different businesses sharing a van. What each lead source costs, which one suits which half of the work, and the recurring channel most plumbers never work.
Read more →Amendment 4 was published on 15 April 2026 and the previous version was withdrawn on 15 October 2026. What changed on the EIC, the EICR and the minor works certificate, what you need in place now, and why you probably don't need the update course you're being sold.
Read more →Some businesses cover the fee with one won job a month. Others pay for a year of shared enquiries that rarely convert. The difference is measurable — here's what you're actually buying, when membership tends to pay, and the three-month test that settles it with your own numbers.
Read more →There's no joining fee, the cheapest listing is £30 + VAT a month, and the plans that actually send you enquiries are quoted per trade and postcode. What members report paying, the maths that matters more than the monthly fee, and the questions to ask before you sign for 12 months.
Read more →The four big UK lead platforms charge in completely different ways — a monthly membership, a fee when you're shortlisted, a subscription, and pay-per-contact credits. How each one works, what it costs, and how to pick the model that fits your diary and your job sizes.
Read more →Most single-storey extensions cost £1,800–£2,500 per square metre at a standard spec — so a 20m² extension lands around £36,000–£50,000 before VAT, fees and the kitchen. What the per-metre figure hides, what actually drives the price, and how payment should be staged.
Read more →Most single-storey rear extensions don't need planning permission — up to 4m deep on a detached house in England, 3m otherwise, with different numbers in Scotland and Wales. The actual limits per nation, what strips your rights, and the two bits of paperwork you need even when planning isn't one of them.
Read more →A standard bedroom costs around £250–£450 to have painted professionally — walls, ceiling and woodwork, trade paint included. Why the guides disagree, what prep and dark colours really add, and what a fair day rate looks like in 2026.
Read more →The £90,000 VAT threshold makes some traders' best year their most expensive one. How the rolling 12-month test actually works, what crossing costs when your customers are homeowners, and how to decide deliberately instead of drifting over.
Read more →Most domestic EICRs cost £100–£350, with a typical 3-bed house at £150–£250. What the inspection involves, why circuits — not bedrooms — drive the price, what the C1/C2/C3 codes on the report mean, and the one price that should make you suspicious.
Read more →Taking cash is legal. The wink that comes with it is the problem. What cash actually costs you — the missing paper trail, the income you can't prove to a lender, the penalties if you don't declare — and why card or bank transfer quietly protects you.
Read more →You've got the tools and the first jobs booked. Nobody teaches the admin. The checklist for your first 90 days self-employed: registering with HMRC, insurance, records, the tax you need to set aside, and the payments-on-account surprise nobody warns you about.
Read more →The gap between finishing a job and the money landing is where most sole traders lose time — chasing bank transfers, waiting on cheques, wondering if it's crossed the post. Here's what actually closes it: a payment link on the invoice, and reminders that chase themselves.
Read more →Plenty of field-service software claims to "work offline." Most of that is looser than it sounds. Here's what actually happens on grafter.ly when you lose signal on site — what you can still see, what needs a connection, and what happens when the signal comes back.
Read more →The diary in your head is where double-bookings, wasted mornings, and forgotten jobs come from. A practical way for sole-trader electricians to schedule work — so the week holds together without a dispatcher.
Read more →A customer's gone quiet on an invoice and you're wondering whether court is worth the hassle. For UK tradespeople: the free step that settles most of it, how small claims actually works (it's different in Scotland), and when to let it go.
Read more →A deposit at booking is the single cheapest fix for wasted call-outs and customers who vanish when the invoice lands. Here's how much to take, how to ask for it without feeling awkward, and why the people who object are usually the ones you're glad to lose.
Read more →A practical checklist for sole-trader electricians: what to put in a quote, when to take a deposit, and how to set payment terms that get you paid on time — without the awkward conversations.
Read more →Late payment and no-shows are part of working for yourself in the trades. Here's what your rights actually are in the UK, how to chase money without losing the plot, and the booking habits that stop it happening in the first place.
Read more →You quoted a price, did the job well, and now the customer reckons it was too quick to be worth that much. Here's why you price the result not the hour, how to stop the argument before it starts, and what to say when it happens anyway.
Read more →Set it up yourself in minutes. No sales call, no card, no drip emails.
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