September 4, 2023

The 6 best heating engineer software tools you should be choosing from in 2024

Payaca

This UK based CRM is going through rapid growth as it works towards improving service businesses all over the world - branching out to Australia, the United States and South Africa. If you're unfamiliar with CRM technology, check out our blog looking at what a CRM is and how it can help you.

When you try out Payaca's software, it’s easy to see why it’s becoming such a popular option for heating engineers.

The customer quotes look professional, the software itself is very easy to use and it comes with all the useful heating engineer forms you might need to send out - like CP12 gas safety certificates and job reports.

Payaca is one of those rare breeds that actually listens to its customers and uses their feedback to turn around awesome new product releases every week. If you get in touch and say you need a certain heating engineer form - they’ll build it. If you tell them about something that can be improved on their app - they’ll improve it.

But their attitude isn’t the the only thing that sets them apart from the competition. Payaca’s app is rated higher than any other competitor on Google Play (4.6/5) and the Apple App store (4.8/5). And it’s award winning too - taking the top spot last year at the Go:Tech Awards 2021.

Payaca's user reviews put their software ahead of the competition too, with a whopping 4.8/5 rating on Capterra.

Heating engineers love how professional Payaca's quotes look and are often reporting revenue increases of up to 30% from this feature alone, as the quotes are winning them more business than before. The ability to take instant card payments is a real game changer for Payaca users too. It makes it easy for customers to pay while enabling these payments to reach businesses much faster than traditional BACs.

Customer support is a big selling point too - Payaca users benefit from a dedicated success manager offering round the clock support over the phone, email and webchat.

If that’s not reason enough to give them a go - Payaca's pricing is incredibly transparent. No start up costs or hidden fees, just a simple user based subscription fee starting at £54pm + VAT, and then an additional £15pm for every additional user. 

You can try it for free too - at the moment Payaca are doing a 7-day free trial, so it’s definitely worth testing this product out if you haven’t already.

ServiceM8

A big benefit of using ServiceM8 is the ability to add unlimited users at no additional cost. Which is great if your heating engineer business has a big team. But that's where the buck stops in terms of freebies. The big downside of using ServiceM8 is that their CRM is riddled with hidden costs.

The number of jobs you can make are capped, as are plenty of ServiceM8's features. So while their £8pm plan looks appealing, if you want to send customer forms you'll be immediately bumped up to £59pm. And after unlocking their other quoting and messaging features, you could be paying over £300 a month.

The user reviews for ServiceM8 are pretty good on the whole, averaging 4.7/5 on Capterra. 'Lack of customer support' seems to be the big issue for for most users, as ServiceM8 don't offer support over the phone and can be hard to reach via email / webchat.

On the plus side, there are plenty of great features to get your teeth into. You can create custom heating engineer forms and job reports, integrate with all the online accountancy apps you'd expect and send automated emails and texts to your customers for job reviews on Google and Facebook.

If you want to take advantage of all these features, it might end up costing you more than you expected. Other CRMs have a more transparent approach and include them in their monthly subscription fee. But ServiceM8 do offer a 14 day free trial, so it's definitely worth getting hands on with their CRM and seeing if it's a good fit for your heating engineer business.

Commusoft

The ability to design and build custom heating engineer forms is a great benefit with Commusoft. They also offer the ability to track heating engineer vehicles in the field. And when it comes to integrations, there’s a vast number of popular apps you can use via Commusoft, which is really handy. From all the major accounting apps, to a choice of payment gateways like Stripe, and communication tools including Gmail and Outlook.

On the downside, Commusoft’s pricing structure isn’t very flexible. It requires all businesses to buy at least 2 user licenses from them, which isn’t at all useful for sole traders. And unlike Payaca and Joblogic, they don’t promote a free trial of their software. They also do not openly offer a personalised demo of their software either - just a generic 20-minute video and you will need to contact their marketing team to try and organise a proper demo. 

Another negative with Commusoft is that full access to their automations is only available if you’re willing to fork out on their most expensive plan at £80pm per license (they’re available across all Payaca’s plans) while you will only get very limited functionality on their lower plans.

Powered Now

With over 20 customer communication templates and an intelligent diary and scheduling system, Powered Now's CRM has become a popular tool for plenty of trade businesses. Their pricing is also incredibly reasonable too, with plans starting at just £5pm.

To unlock useful features like heating engineer forms, you’ll need to sign up to their top tier plan, but at just £25pm, it’s still a great value option for heating engineer software.

Accounting wise, Powered Now will only integrate with Xero, so if you use other accounting software to run your heating engineer business, you’ll be better off using a different CRM.

If you use Xero and you’re a sole trade heating engineer business, you’ll get everything you need from this software. Powered Now offer a 14 day free trial and free product demos - definitely worth checking out if you’re after a low-cost CRM.

Gas App UK

This app is a fantastic resource for any heating engineer. The standout benefit of Gas App UK is providing access to thousands of heating appliance manuals at your fingertips (both domestic and commercial). Even the outdated ones. And the best part - it’s completely free to download and use.

There are also plenty of other useful tools - from pipe sizing, ventilation and purge calculators, to a ‘Reference Library’ full of useful checklists, meter docs and refresher courses.

There is functionality for ‘bespoke’ invoicing and quoting, and even all the digital forms you might need to email your customers. This app  definitely won’t give your customer communications the same professional look that the other CRMs in this list do (it’s a free app after all).

But that doesn’t matter. The real value of Gas App UK is it’s vast archive of heating engineer learning and training resources. And whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve been in the heating engineer trade for forty years, you’ll benefit from this free app in one way or another.

It’s available on the Apple App Store, Google Play - download it now if you haven’t already and thank us later.

Anton Sprint Mobile

This app is a great way to create and present FGA reports for your customers without spending a penny. Anton Sprint Mobile is another nifty free app you can download to help your heating engineer business run more efficiently. 

Like Gas App UK, there are useful calculators in the app for energy conversion and pipe sizes.

But what we love about the Anton Sprint Mobile app is that it provides you with automated reminders for to book in annual boiler service appointments with your customers! 

And if you own an Anton Sprint Pro, this app with integrate with the analyser, log heating, pressure and temperature readings and email the report directly to your customers.

Give your heating engineer business the best chance to succeed

Heating engineer businesses that use Payaca tend to see revenue increases of up to 30%. Try Payaca for free and see why it’s the go-to CRM for thousands of businesses like yours.


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