Using gas engineer software to store digital gas safety certificates ensures you and your customers are instantly up-to-date, provides an audit trail and more.
Gas engineers spend most of their days in the field doing installations, fixing boilers, and servicing equipment.
Managing multiple jobs a day makes paperwork and issuing gas safety certificates hard to keep on top of.
But recently, there is a new wave of businesses that have realised the benefits of having digital gas reports and invoices instead of static paper, and many businesses are enjoying the boost it’s giving them.
Today, the gas safety industry is rapidly moving towards digital solutions to create and manage gas certificates.
🔨This is where gas engineer software comes in.
This specialist software allows engineers to quickly and easily create and store digital gas safety certificates, whilst on-site or in the office.
A win-win for both the customer, who will need the certificate for their records and the gas engineer who needs it for regulatory compliance.
Let’s delve into this a little deeper, starting with a quick definition of what digital gas engineer software actually is.
What is digital gas engineer software?
Digital gas engineer software is specialist software that leading gas engineers use to, amongst other things, electronically create and submit gas certificates. It makes record keeping and quickly accessing important safety information much quicker and easier.
Available on a tablet or mobile device, digital gas engineer software can capture key information like the date of inspection, exact location of a property, type of inspection and more.
This is particularly beneficial for speeding up processes when going back to a site as the engineer can ensure they have the right parts, locate the gas meters quickly, and quickly check previous history.
It also allows them to capture and attach photographs and electronic customer signatures to records.
If this alone appeals to you, there’s more!
Why move to digital gas engineer software
Now, some software for gas engineers go above and beyond all this. We wrote a blog about how to solve the most common gas engineer challenges. I'm sure you can guess our solution.
There are so many benefits. For example, it can trigger automated reminders for re-inspections or invoices for prompt payment.
Here’s how:
#1: Safely store a range of gas engineer certificates in one place
Instantly create and store unlimited gas certificates and records - including gas safety records, landlord gas safety records, gas service records, and domestic oil records.
Each record/certificate is safely stored in the cloud and can be quickly viewed - meaning you never lose a record again and meet industry standards.
Both office staff and engineers can add notes to jobs at any point, this then keeps everyone in the loop and everyone knows the status of any open job.
#2: Issuing records and gas certificates
You can create digital gas records and certificates in a few taps and email them to your customers in just seconds.
All records and certificates get saved on the cloud to view on your PC when you’re at home or in the office.
It can even create automatic service reminders for your customers. So that your customers think that you are a superhero. 🦸
#3: Streamline planned preventative maintenance
Rather than waiting until equipment fails and making reactive repairs, with the right software, you can streamline Planned Preventative Maintenance (or PPM).
For example, you can link it to automated reminders. This can cut reaction times by 50% and ensure 100% SLA compliance.
#4: Send invoices and get paid faster
Get paid faster by updating jobs and issuing invoices on the go as soon as the job is complete (or by automating them entirely).
Plus, with electronic billing, customers receive the invoice directly to their email and can quickly organise payment. Of course, these can be customised with your business branding so that invoices are professional-looking.
As well as being fast, digital records offer traceability – so you instantly know who owes you money and can send out automated reminders.
#5: Meet compliance and regulations
Safely storing gas safety certificates and other compliance documents on the cloud ensures that you and your customers are instantly up-to-date.
It also provides an audit trail to prove you have checked for safety defects and also issued important documents to customers. This can all be accessed anytime after they were issued.
#6: Create digital job sheets and safety forms
Gas engineer software can create new safety forms that follow a set template. This template ensures key criteria are checked and certain procedures are followed (as job sheets won’t be able to be saved until mandatory information is filled in).
For example, you might want to create these in a ‘tick box’ format. All this captured information is then becomes logged digitally and can easily be searched against customer records (pulling back everything from photos to customer signatures). This helps create a highly standardised process to enforce best practices and efficiencies.
Once this is complete, a customer-friendly version of this report can be issued for their records too. And, of course, it can save time by focusing the engineer on only relevant form questions to simplify data entry.
#7: Track gas inspections and safety forms
You can dispatch any form to your field staff to be completed with assigned locations, due dates, and priorities.
Then you can monitor the completion and workflow status from user to user.
#8: Collect data ‘on the go’ via a mobile app
Finally, you can use a mobile app to allow engineers to perform jobs and collect data such as photos, videos, and signatures to document inspections and installations and flag any issues found.
And all this data you are collecting is really important to your business too. Some gas engineer software tools will analyse the data and present it back to you in a way you can understand.
Choosing the right gas engineer job management software
If all those benefits have convinced you that software is the way to go for your gas engineer business, here are some final tips to choose the right solution:
- Does the software connect your back office to your engineers in real-time through an all-in-one job management platform?
- Does it offer vehicle tracking so that you know exactly where your people, vehicles and stock are at any moment in time?
- Can you connect other tools, such as Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage?
- Is there a mobile app for engineers to update jobs, upload photos, and signature capture in real-time?
- Can it easily and securely store gas safety certificates and other documents?
- Does it provide an easily accessible library of COSHH certificates and more?
- Does it provide automation to trigger alerts to engineers, customers, and for planned predictive maintenance?
- Finally, does it provide an easy-to-use CRM with all your customer data stored safely in one place?
The right solution will eliminate manual processes and streamline your day-to-day work across the entire team.
Make the move to digital
If you run your own plumbing and heating business, or have a team of gas engineers, you’ll find gas engineer software a perfect partner to help boost your business.
But when it comes to gas engineer software, you need a name you can trust.
This is where BigChange comes in. BigChange is designed to be the central hub of a busy field service business. Find out more about our gas engineer job management software here.
