Choosing electrical certificate software: what to demand

Judge any certification software, ours included, on six questions: Does it carry every field of the model forms, unabridged? Do issued certificates lock permanently? Does it genuinely work on a phone at the board, saving as you go? Does each engineer sign under their own name and credentials? Can you get your records out if you leave? And does the pricing punish you for being busy? A tool that fails any of these is a liability with a nice interface, whatever the screenshots promise.

Full model-form coverage, unabridged

BS 7671's Appendix 6 model forms define what a certificate records: on an EICR that means the full schedule of circuit details and test results (all the columns, not a friendly subset), the complete schedule of inspections, and observations carrying classification codes and regulation references. "Simplified" forms read as approachable in a demo and as gaps to the inspector, the scheme assessor, or the solicitor who examines the document in anger years later. Check with your most complex real job, not the vendor's sample bungalow.

Permanent lock on issue

On paper, a signed certificate cannot quietly change afterwards, and that permanence is what makes it evidence. Software should reproduce it: once issued, locked, forever, with corrections made by issuing a replacement that leaves the original in the history under its own number. A tool that lets anyone reopen and edit an issued certificate has abolished the property that gave the document its value. Ask the vendor directly: "Can an issued certificate be edited?" The only good answer is no.

Built for the board, not the office

The certificate gets filled in standing at a consumer unit, phone in one hand, probes in the other. That demands save-as-you-go persistence (pocket the phone mid-schedule, lose nothing), an interface with sanity built in (device values from real BS EN ranges rather than free-typed, maximum Zs worked out rather than thumbed from tables), and honest behaviour when the basement has no signal. Desktop-first tools with a mobile afterthought reveal themselves in the first week of real use.

Real signatures, per engineer

The signatory's competence is the whole document (see our guide on who can carry out an EICR). Multi-user software must let each engineer sign with their own name and qualifications. A system that stamps the boss's signature on the apprentice's inspection is manufacturing a false record at scale. On-site electronic signature capture, per person, is the standard to demand.

Your data, exitable

You will hold certificates for many years; whether you hold the same software that long is unknowable. Ask what export looks like: PDFs of every certificate at minimum, structured data ideally. Then ask whether it costs anything. A vendor who makes leaving hard is telling you how they expect to retain you.

Pricing that survives a busy June

Per-certificate charges are a tax on your best months and a nudge, however small, against raising the paperwork properly. Per-user pricing with unlimited documents keeps the incentive clean. Watch also for modules priced separately until the real total is double the headline, and contracts where a subscription would do.

Where the whole-business question comes in

Certification-only tools answer the certificate and stop; the quote, diary, invoice and tax figures live elsewhere, and you are the integration between them. Whether that matters depends on the business you want, but it is the question Pascal exists to answer: the certificate handled to the standard above, on the same record as the enquiry, the quote, the booking and the invoice, priced per user with no contract. Judge us by this page's own checklist; we wrote it because we are happy to be measured against it.