AI for the trades. The paperwork after hours.

In the trades you work during the day and administrate in the evening. Quotations, orders, receipts, queries: all of it after six. Here is which part of that can go away.

The work after the work

The difference from an office is the timing. Whatever gets administrated in a trade business gets administrated once the day is really over.

• Writing quotations. Measurements in your head, prices from the last project, line items typed by hand, and three hours are gone.
• Ordering materials and checking the confirmation. Between order and delivery there are four or five messages, and any one of them can contain a change to the delivery date.
• Tracking delivery promises. Who promised what for when, and did it actually arrive.
• Collecting receipts. The fuel receipt in the van, the invoice in a chat, the till slip in your trouser pocket, the portal invoice on the web.
• Writing invoices and chasing payments. Number ranges, line items, filing, and three weeks later the question of who has paid.
• Answering enquiries. The call during an installation, the WhatsApp in the evening, the email from the client.

The order confirmation is the underrated item

With a supplier, several messages arrive between order and delivery, and one of them often contains a change: a different delivery date, a substitute part number, an adjusted quantity.

If you read those messages but never compare them, you notice the change on installation day. Then a team is standing on site and the material is missing.

Automation here does not read more cleverly than a person. It simply reads reliably: every message against its order, every time, including at eleven at night.

Receipts are a subject of their own in the trades

In no other kind of business do receipts arrive by so many routes. The builders' merchant gives you a slip, the wholesaler sends an email, the subcontractor sends one by WhatsApp, and the fuel receipt is called IMG_4711 in your photo library.

That is exactly why part of it is missing at the end of the year. What is missing costs input tax and, in the worst case, an estimated assessment.

A collector that covers every route is worth more here than any accounting software: it fetches what exists, and tells you which bank entry still has no receipt against it.

What stays with the human being

The price. Whether to take a job on. The conversation with a customer who has a problem. And the decision whether a complaint is justified.

Whatever can be prepared gets prepared: the quotation is drafted with line items from comparable projects, but the price is set, not calculated.

Common questions

I have no office staff. Is it still worth it?

Then particularly. Without office staff the boss does the administration, and does it after hours. Every hour handed over there is free time straight back.

Do I have to disclose my prices?

No. Costing and pricing stay exactly where they are. This is about everything around them: line items, filing, numbering, follow-up.

What about receipts I photograph?

They count. A photo of a till slip is read, checked for whether it actually shows an amount with a currency, and filed. A site photo with a tape measure in it does not get booked as a receipt.

How long does the set-up take?

That depends on the first job. Collecting receipts from your mailboxes runs after a few days. The whole business is a matter of months, and rightly so: build everything at once and nothing is finished.