What Tradify Actually Does
Tradify is a job-management suite aimed at trade businesses with between one and around twenty employees. Its core features are job scheduling, quoting, invoicing, customer management, and a mobile app for field workers. It integrates with Xero and QuickBooks, which makes it genuinely useful if you are reconciling accounts across a team. The pricing for UK users sits at roughly £29-£39 per month per user depending on the plan tier, billed annually.
For a sole trader, the honest truth is that most of Tradify's value lives in the team-coordination and job-dispatching features. If you are a self-employed plumber booking your own jobs from your mobile and invoicing one customer at a time, you are funding a scheduling engine you do not need. That is not a criticism of Tradify. It is the right tool for a four-person heating firm. It is an expensive tool for someone who works alone.
Tradify does produce quotation and invoice PDFs, and it has basic certificate templates for some trades. However, the compliance depth on the certificate side is limited. A Gas Safe engineer still needs a CP12 that carries the correct registration number, appliance details, and warning notice fields. A Tradify-generated PDF will not automatically validate against Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 Regulation 36 requirements or prompt for the mandatory annual servicing declaration fields. You still have to know what belongs on the form and fill it in correctly.
- •Job scheduling and dispatch board
- •Quote-to-invoice workflow with Xero/QuickBooks integration
- •Customer and site management database
- •Mobile app for field use
- •Basic certificate and form templates
- •Priced per user, typically £29-£39/month/user
What TradeDoc AI Actually Does
TradeDoc AI is a document-generation tool built specifically for UK sole-trader tradespeople. It produces compliant trade documents: CP12 landlord gas safety records, EICRs, electrical installation certificates, PAT test logs, job-sheets, quotations, and invoices. It does not schedule jobs, manage a team, or integrate with accounting software. That narrower scope is intentional.
The free tier gives you 100 documents a month with no credit card required at sign-up. For the vast majority of sole traders, 100 documents a month is more than enough. A busy sole-trader gas engineer carrying out CP12 inspections full time might do 15-20 a week, which sits comfortably inside 100 per month. The Pro tier at £15 per month adds your logo to the PDF, one-tap email send to the customer, unlimited documents, and document vault storage beyond 90 days.
The compliance angle is where TradeDoc AI earns its place. The documents are built around current UK regulatory requirements. For electricians, that means the certificate templates reflect BS 7671:2018 Amendment 4:2026, the current edition known informally as the Orange Book, which came into force on 15 April 2026 and becomes the only valid standard from 15 October 2026. For gas engineers, the CP12 template aligns with Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. The tool prompts for the fields that need to be there so you do not miss something under time pressure on site.
- •CP12, EICR, EIC, PAT log, job-sheet, quote, and invoice generation
- •Free for first 100 documents a month, no card at sign-up
- •Pro at £15/month: branding, one-tap email, unlimited docs, extended vault
- •Documents reflect current UK regulatory requirements
- •No scheduling, no team management, no accounting integration
- •Covers plumbing, gas, electrical, and general building trades
Key Differences: Side by Side
The fundamental difference is scope. Tradify manages the operational workflow of a trade business, from first customer contact through to payment reconciliation. TradeDoc AI manages the compliance paperwork that sole traders are legally required to produce. They solve different problems, which means for some sole traders the answer is to use both, and for many the answer is that TradeDoc AI alone covers everything they actually need.
On cost, the gap is significant for a sole trader. Tradify at £29-£39 per month per user costs £348-£468 per year. TradeDoc AI Free costs nothing. Even TradeDoc AI Pro at £15 per month is £180 per year, less than half the entry-level Tradify cost. Over a five-year period, that difference is between £1,740 and £2,340 depending on Tradify's plan tier, before any price increases.
On compliance depth, TradeDoc AI wins for document-specific regulatory alignment. On operational management, Tradify wins outright. If you have a small team, need to dispatch jobs to other engineers, and want a single system of record for all customer history, Tradify justifies its cost. If you work alone and your main administrative burden is producing correct paperwork at the end of a job, TradeDoc AI covers that at no cost.
- •Tradify: full job-management suite, best for small teams
- •TradeDoc AI: compliance document generation, best for sole traders
- •Tradify: £29-£39/user/month
- •TradeDoc AI: Free (100 docs/month) or £15/month Pro
- •Tradify: integrates with Xero and QuickBooks
- •TradeDoc AI: no accounting integration, focused on compliant PDFs
- •Tradify: scheduling and dispatch board
- •TradeDoc AI: no scheduling features
- •Both: mobile accessible, covers multiple trades
When to Use Tradify: UK Scenarios
Tradify makes financial sense when you are coordinating work across more than one engineer. Consider a small electrical contracting firm in Leeds with three employed electricians and one office-based administrator. The administrator uses Tradify to book jobs, assign them to engineers, track completion, and push invoices to Xero. The per-user cost is offset by the time saved on administration. In this scenario, Tradify is doing real work that would otherwise require a part-time administrator or multiple spreadsheets.
Tradify also suits sole traders who bill a high volume of recurring service contracts and want automated invoice reminders and customer history in one place. A sole-trader air conditioning engineer in London servicing 200 commercial units annually on rolling maintenance contracts would get genuine value from Tradify's CRM-like features. The customer history, site notes, and automatic scheduling reminders justify the monthly spend at that volume.
One practical consideration for any tradesperson using Tradify or any similar platform: from 6 April 2026, sole traders with qualifying income above £50,000 must use MTD-compatible software for quarterly digital filing under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD ITSA). Tradify's invoicing data can feed into MTD-compatible accounting software via its Xero integration, which is a legitimate use case. However, TradeDoc AI quotations and invoices can be exported and used as source documents in any MTD-compatible software, so the MTD obligation does not in itself push you toward Tradify.
When to Use TradeDoc AI: UK Scenarios
TradeDoc AI is the right choice when you work alone, your compliance paperwork is your main administrative burden, and you do not need to dispatch work to anyone else. A sole-trader gas Safe engineer in Birmingham doing domestic boiler services and landlord CP12 inspections is the clearest example. Under Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 Regulation 36, a landlord gas safety check must be carried out annually and a record issued to the landlord and tenant within 28 days. Getting that record right, every time, on a busy day when you have done six properties, is where a compliant template with the correct fields saves you from a potential Health and Safety Executive enforcement action.
Electricians working in the private rented sector face similar document pressure. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 require an EICR every five years for most tenancies, and the report must be issued to the tenant within 28 days of the inspection. An EICR produced without the correct observation codes, circuit schedules, and declaration sections is not compliant, regardless of whether the underlying inspection was competent. TradeDoc AI generates the EICR structure so you are not building it from a blank PDF at 6pm after a long day.
Builders and general contractors benefit from compliant quotations and job-sheets. If you are a sole-trader builder quoting for domestic work, your quote and subsequent invoice need to reflect the work actually agreed, especially if the customer later disputes the scope. Under the Construction Industry Scheme, from 6 April 2026 the 'knew or should have known' liability test means you need a clear paper trail of what was contracted and what was paid. A well-structured job-sheet generated through TradeDoc AI is part of that paper trail.
Common Confusion Points
A frequent misunderstanding is that any job-management software automatically produces legally compliant trade certificates. It does not. A platform can produce a PDF with the word 'Gas Safety Record' at the top and still omit mandatory fields. The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 Regulation 36(3) specifies what the record must contain: the date of inspection, the address of the property, the name and address of the landlord, a description of and the location of each appliance or flue inspected, any defect identified, any remedial action taken, and a confirmation of whether the appliance is safe to use. A generic invoice-style template does not capture all of that. Knowing what the regulation requires is your responsibility as the engineer, not the software's, but a purpose-built tool prompts you for the right fields.
Another confusion point is MTD ITSA compliance. Some sole traders assume that using Tradify's invoicing means they are automatically MTD-compliant. MTD ITSA requires quarterly digital submission of income and expenditure data to HMRC using compatible software. Tradify produces invoices but is not itself an MTD ITSA submission tool. You still need to feed the data into qualifying software such as QuickBooks, Xero, or a dedicated MTD bridging tool. The MTD ITSA obligation from 6 April 2026 for those with qualifying income above £50,000 is about the submission method, not about which app you use to raise invoices.
A third confusion is around the Construction Industry Scheme and document requirements. From 6 April 2026, HMRC can now revoke Gross Payment Status immediately, impose penalties up to 30% of lost tax, and apply a five-year ban on GPS reapplication if you fail the compliance tests under the reformed Finance Act 2004 and Income Tax (Construction Industry Scheme) Regulations 2005. The 'knew or should have known' test means that if a subcontractor you paid without deducting CIS tax turns out to have been operating fraudulently, you may carry liability. Clear, dated job records and payment records are your evidence. TradeDoc AI job-sheets and invoices provide that dated, numbered paper trail in a way that a handwritten docket does not.
Regulatory Background: What Your Documents Actually Need to Cover
For gas engineers, the core obligation is Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 Regulation 36. The CP12 landlord gas safety record is a legal document, not a courtesy note. It must be given to the tenant before they move in or within 28 days of the check, and you must keep a copy for at least two years. If you are issued a CP12 template that does not have a field for whether each appliance was 'immediately dangerous', 'at risk', or 'not to current standards', that template is not fit for purpose. Using non-compliant documentation does not protect you from HSE enforcement.
For electricians, BS 7671:2018 Amendment 4:2026, the Orange Book, is the current wiring regulations standard. Published on 15 April 2026, it introduces new provisions including major revisions to Section 710 for medical locations, new Chapter 826 for stationary battery energy storage systems (BESS), and requirements for Power over Ethernet and ICT functional earthing. If you are completing an Electrical Installation Condition Report or an Electrical Installation Certificate, the document structure should reflect the current edition. From 15 October 2026, Amendment 4 is the only edition in force. Any electrician still issuing certificates based on older schedules after that date is producing documentation that does not align with the current standard.
For all trades doing domestic work on construction projects, the Building Safety Act 2022 extended competence duties beyond higher-risk buildings to all contractors and sole traders carrying out building work. The Building Safety Regulator became an independent statutory body from 27 January 2026. In practical terms, this means your documentation trail, including what work you did, when, and to what standard, is more important than it was before 2022. A clear, dated, numbered job-sheet generated at the time of the work is part of demonstrating competence and due diligence.
Worked Example: Cost and Compliance Over a Tax Year
Take a sole-trader gas engineer in Manchester. He carries out roughly 12 CP12 inspections per month alongside boiler servicing and breakdown work. His total annual turnover is around £55,000, which puts him above the £50,000 MTD ITSA threshold from 6 April 2026, so he must use MTD-compatible software for quarterly digital filing from that date.
Option A: He subscribes to Tradify at £29 per month, billed annually at £348. He uses it to log jobs and raise invoices. He still produces his CP12 certificates using a downloaded PDF template he found online three years ago. The template has not been updated since Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 Regulation 36 guidance was revised. He does not notice. His CP12 records are missing the mandatory 'action taken where appliance found unsafe' field for two properties. He passes an HSE spot-check, but only because no appliances were unsafe that day. He is also paying £348 for scheduling features he does not use because he books all his own jobs by phone.
Option B: He uses TradeDoc AI Free at no cost. He generates his CP12 records through the tool, which prompts for all Regulation 36 fields including the safety status declaration for each appliance. He exports the invoice data monthly into a spreadsheet that feeds his MTD-compatible bridging software, satisfying his MTD ITSA obligation from 6 April 2026. He upgrades to Pro at £15 per month, £180 per year, because he wants his logo on the certificates and the one-tap email to landlords saves him five minutes per job. His annual document-administration cost is £180 versus £348, saving £168 per year, and his CP12 records are field-complete every time. Over five years, that is £840 saved, and he has never handed a landlord a non-compliant record.
MTD ITSA and What It Means for Your Software Choices
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment is not optional for sole traders above the income threshold. From 6 April 2026, if your qualifying income exceeds £50,000, you must submit quarterly digital updates to HMRC using MTD-compatible software. The £30,000 threshold follows in April 2027, which will bring a larger portion of the sole-trader trade population into scope.
Neither Tradify nor TradeDoc AI is itself an MTD ITSA submission tool. Both can produce records that you then use as source data in qualifying software. The distinction matters because some tradespeople assume that using a job-management platform automatically handles their tax obligations. It does not. What both tools can do is give you clean, dated, numbered income records that make quarterly reconciliation faster and less error-prone.
If you are currently using a spreadsheet and a handwritten invoice book, the move to MTD ITSA is your natural trigger to adopt a more structured document workflow. TradeDoc AI's invoice output gives you a numbered, dated PDF with your customer's details and the job value, which maps cleanly to the income records you need for quarterly MTD submission. The free tier handles this at no cost, which means the MTD compliance overhead does not have to come with a new software subscription on top.
CIS, Paper Trails, and the 2026 Reforms
From 6 April 2026, the Construction Industry Scheme reforms under the Finance Act 2004 and Income Tax (Construction Industry Scheme) Regulations 2005 introduced a harder liability environment for contractors and subcontractors. The 'knew or should have known' test now applies to supply-chain fraud, aligned with the Kittel principle from VAT law. In practice, if you engage a subcontractor on a labour-only basis and fail to verify their CIS status before paying them gross, you may carry liability for the tax that should have been deducted, even if you did not know the subcontractor was operating fraudulently.
The penalties under the reformed scheme can reach 30% of the lost tax. Gross Payment Status can now be revoked immediately rather than following a notice period, and a five-year ban on GPS reapplication replaces the previous one-year ban. For sole traders who occasionally subcontract overflow work, the message is to verify CIS status before paying and to keep dated records of every payment.
TradeDoc AI job-sheets and invoices create a dated, numbered record of work contracted and payments due. They are not a substitute for CIS verification, which you do through HMRC's CIS online service, but they are part of the documentary evidence that demonstrates you contracted work properly and paid according to the agreed scope. If HMRC ever queries a payment, a clear job-sheet dated the same week as the invoice is supporting evidence. A memory and a bank transfer are not.
Get Started with TradeDoc AI
TradeDoc AI generates a compliant CP12, EICR, EIC, job-sheet, quote, or invoice in about two minutes. It is free for your first 100 documents a month, no card required at sign-up, and all four UK trades are covered in one place. If you want your logo on the PDF and one-tap email send to the customer, Pro is £15 per month.
If you have been paying for a job-management platform and finding that you mainly use it for certificates and invoices, the honest comparison is straightforward. Sign up at tradedoc.co.uk, you are on Free from the first document, and you can generate your first compliant certificate in the time it takes to make a brew.
For sole traders who do need scheduling and team management alongside compliant documents, the two tools are not mutually exclusive. Use Tradify for operations, use TradeDoc AI for the compliance paperwork. But if you are working alone and your main overhead is producing correct documents at the end of a job, start with Free and see whether you ever need anything more.
