What Is Gaffer? The All-in-One System for UK Trade Businesses

If you run a trade business, the work itself is rarely the hard part. You know how to wire a board, fit a boiler, fell a tree or chase a drain. What grinds you down is everything around the work: the quote you meant to send three days ago, the invoice you forgot to chase, the appointment that clashed, the customer who's gone quiet, the paperwork stacking up on the passenger seat.

Gaffer exists to take all of that off your plate. This guide explains what it actually is, who it's for, and how it runs the whole job — from first enquiry to money in the bank.

What Gaffer is, in one sentence

Gaffer is an all-in-one job management system for UK trade businesses — it captures leads, builds quotes, schedules work, runs the job in the field, raises invoices and collects payment, all from one place that works on your phone and in the office.

Think of it as the office manager you can't afford to hire yet: it remembers everything, chases everything, and keeps the paperwork straight so you don't have to.

Who it's for

Gaffer is built for sole traders and growing teams across the trades — not a generic CRM bent to fit. It ships with ready-made workflow packs for 58 trades, including:

• Electricians — EICRs, EICs, minor works certificates, consumer unit records
• Plumbers and heating engineers — gas safety records, boiler commissioning, benchmark checklists
• Tree surgeons — site assessments, TPO checks, method statements
• Roofers, builders, decorators, landscapers, drainage, locksmiths, HVAC and many more

Whether you're a one-van operation doing your own quoting at 9pm, or a team of ten with engineers spread across the county, the system scales to fit. The trade packs mean the right forms, certificates and compliance documents are already there for your trade on day one.

How it runs the whole job

The reason it's called all-in-one is that it follows the job through every stage, instead of leaving gaps where things fall through the cracks.

1. Capture the lead

A new enquiry from your website, a missed call, or a referral lands in one place instead of three different inboxes. Speed-to-lead automations can fire back an instant acknowledgement so the customer knows you've got it — which is often what wins the job before a competitor even replies.

2. Quote fast and look professional

Build a tidy, branded quote in minutes from saved templates and your own price list, then send it from your phone between jobs. The customer can accept it online with a tap. No more "I'll get back to you tonight" turning into a lost job three days later.

3. Schedule without the clashes

Approved jobs drop onto a shared calendar. Assign engineers, see the day at a glance, and sync to Google Calendar or Microsoft 365 so nothing double-books. The customer gets appointment confirmations and reminders automatically.

4. Run the job in the field

Out on site, the mobile app is the whole office in your pocket. Pull up the job, complete the trade-specific certificate or checklist, take photos, capture a signature, and add materials used — even with no signal, because it syncs when you're back online. The compliance paperwork is done before you've packed the van.

5. Invoice the moment it's finished

The instant a job is marked complete, the invoice is ready to send — no re-typing what you already quoted. Send it on the spot while you're still standing in the customer's kitchen, when they're happiest to pay.

6. Get paid

Take card payments through Stripe or set up Direct Debits through GoCardless. Invoices chase themselves with polite, automatic reminders, and everything flows through to Xero or QuickBooks so your accountant gets clean books with no double entry.

The automations that work while you sleep

The quiet superpower of Gaffer is the stuff it does without you asking:

• Quote follow-ups — nudges a customer who hasn't responded, so you don't have to remember to chase
• Deposit and invoice chasing — automatic, polite reminders until you're paid
• Service reminders — books in the next boiler service, EICR renewal or LOLER inspection before the customer even thinks about it
• Win-back — gently re-engages customers who've gone quiet for a year
• Review requests — asks happy customers for a Google review at exactly the right moment

Every one of these is a job, a renewal or a five-star review you'd otherwise have lost to a busy week. And every automation is a toggle — switch on what suits how you work, leave the rest off.

Why "all-in-one" actually matters

You could stitch this together yourself: a quoting app here, a calendar there, a separate invoicing tool, a spreadsheet for reminders, and a notebook for everything else. Plenty of trades do.

The problem is the gaps between those tools. The quote that never becomes a job because nothing chased it. The completed work that sits un-invoiced for a fortnight. The service that was due but nobody flagged. Every gap is money leaking out of the business.

When one system runs the whole job, those gaps close. The quote becomes a job becomes an invoice becomes a payment becomes a review becomes the next job — automatically, in order, without anything dropping.

What you need to get started

Not much. Gaffer runs in any web browser for the office and as a mobile app for the field, so there's no kit to buy and nothing to install on a server. You can be sending your first quote within an hour, with a 14-day free trial so you can run a few real jobs through it before you commit.

The bottom line

Gaffer is the system that runs your trade business so you can get back to the trade. It captures the lead, sends the quote, books the job, handles the paperwork, raises the invoice and collects the money — for electricians, plumbers, heating engineers, tree surgeons and 40-odd other trades — in one place that's with you on every job.

Less admin. Fewer dropped jobs. More of your evenings back.

FAQs

What does Gaffer actually do?

Gaffer is an all-in-one job management system for trade businesses. It handles the full job lifecycle — lead capture, quoting, scheduling, field paperwork, invoicing and payment collection — plus automatic follow-ups, service reminders and review requests, all from one app for the office and the van.

Which trades is it for?

It's built for UK trades and ships with ready-made workflow packs for 46 of them, including electricians, plumbers, heating engineers, tree surgeons, roofers, builders, landscapers and more. The right certificates, forms and compliance documents for your trade are there from day one.

Do I need to be tech-savvy to use it?

No. It runs in a normal web browser and as a mobile app, with nothing to install. Most people send their first quote within an hour, and the trade packs mean you're not building forms from scratch.

Does it work on site without signal?

Yes. The mobile app lets you complete jobs, fill in certificates, capture signatures and add photos offline, then syncs everything automatically once you're back in coverage.

Can I connect it to my accounting software?

Yes. Gaffer integrates with Xero and QuickBooks for clean, automatic bookkeeping, plus Stripe and GoCardless for taking card payments and Direct Debits.

How much does it cost?

Gaffer comes with a 14-day free trial so you can run real jobs through it before deciding. You can start sending quotes straight away and only commit once you've seen it pay for itself.