Industry · Trades & Field Service

Software for Tradies

Most Australian trades should use ServiceM8 or simPRO — and we'll tell you that. Custom software earns its place when you've outgrown the SaaS limits, your service mix doesn't fit, or per-user pricing has crossed the build-vs-buy line at scale.

What we build for trades businesses

  • Field-service mobile apps with offline-first architecture (jobs work without signal)
  • Photo capture, before/after, geo-tagged, automatically attached to jobs
  • Digital signatures for sign-offs, with audit trail and PDF export
  • Quoting and proposal generation with templated line items and markups
  • Job dispatch dashboards with live status, GPS, and crew availability
  • SWMS, JSA, induction and certificate tracking with auto-renewal alerts
  • Equipment service history and utilisation tracking
  • Xero / MYOB integration with full reconciliation and progress invoicing

Why offline-first matters more for trades than any other industry

Tradies work in basements, tunnels, regional sites, and behind concrete walls. Mobile signal is unreliable. A cloud-only app that loses everything when signal drops will get rejected by the crew — and rightly. Every system we've built for trades is offline-first: local database, full functionality without internet, automatic background sync when signal returns. The user shouldn't see the difference.

The compliance layer we always build

Australian trades compliance is non-trivial and varies by state. Standard scope for any system we build:

  • SWMS templated, generated per job, acknowledged with timestamps
  • Daily JSA capture with photos and risk identification
  • White card, trade licence, working-at-heights, confined-space, EWP cert tracking
  • Equipment service history with next-service alerts
  • Asbestos handling tracking where relevant
  • Test-and-tag and electrical compliance records
  • State variations (QLD/NSW/VIC) baked into the data model

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Software for Australian tradies — FAQ

Honestly — for most Australian trades businesses, those are the right answer. We tell prospects this regularly. Custom software for tradies makes sense in three specific cases: (1) you've outgrown the SaaS limits — multi-region operations, complex compliance, integrations the SaaS doesn't support; (2) your service mix is genuinely unusual and the SaaS forces you to dilute it; (3) you're 50+ field staff and the per-user pricing has crossed the build-vs-buy line. If none apply, we'll point you back to ServiceM8.
Mobile job-management app (offline-capable, photos, signatures, sync) plus office back-end: AU$60,000–$140,000. Add quoting and proposal generation: +AU$15k. Add Xero/MYOB integration with full reconciliation: +AU$10k. Most projects we see for established trades businesses (20+ staff) land around AU$80k–$120k for v1.
Yes — this is non-negotiable for trades. Mobile signal is unreliable in basements, tunnels, rural areas, and large-format builds. Our default architecture is offline-first: local SQLite/WatermelonDB, full functionality without internet, automatic sync when signal returns. Field staff don't see the difference; nothing breaks; nothing duplicates.
Yes. Xero and MYOB are bread-and-butter integrations for us. We've also integrated with simPRO, AroFlo, ServiceM8 (their public API), QuickBooks Online, and various ERP-tier systems. If your software stack has a documented API, we can integrate.
Standard scope for any trades job-management system we build: SWMS (Safe Work Method Statement) generation and acknowledgement, daily JSA (Job Safety Analysis) capture, white card / induction expiry tracking, equipment service history, plus Australian-specific compliance like Working at Heights, Confined Space, and asbestos handling. State variations are baked into the data model.
Discovery: 2 weeks. By end of sprint 1 (week 4), the app is on real phones via TestFlight/Internal Track. Full v1 ready for live job-site use: 12–16 weeks from kick-off. We always run a 4-week pilot with 5–10 field staff before rolling out to the whole crew — that pilot finds 80% of the issues a full rollout would surface.

Build vs buy — get an honest answer

Book a free 30-minute call. We'll listen to your situation and tell you honestly whether custom software, ServiceM8, simPRO, or doing nothing is the right call.

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