Going Paperless in the New Year: A Tradesperson's Guide

Going paperless as a tradesperson means moving five things off paper: job sheets, quotes, invoices, photos and customer signatures. You do not need to do all five at once, and you do not need expensive software. You need one app that does most of it, a device that survives the van and the site, and a few quiet weeks to set it up. If you are reading this in the autumn, January is a sensible target: use November and December to get the pieces in place, and start the new year with the clipboard in the glovebox rather than on the dashboard.

Why Aim for January

A new year is a tidy break point for admin. Quote and invoice numbering can start fresh, the days around Christmas can be quieter, which gives you time to set things up without a customer waiting, and you are not changing systems halfway through a big job. It also gives you a deadline. Without one, going paperless is the sort of job that sits on the list for another year.

If you have heard about digital record keeping requirements for tax, ask your accountant what applies to you and from when. This guide is about the tools, not the rules.

What to Set Up, in Order

1. Job Sheets

Start with the job sheet, because everything else hangs off it. A digital job sheet is a form on the screen: customer, address, work requested, work done, materials, time on site, photos and a signature box. Most job management apps give you this out of the box and let you add your own fields, so a gas engineer's sheet and a roofer's sheet can look quite different inside the same app.

What it saves: the evening spent typing up what you wrote on site, the sheet that went through the wash, and the drive back for a page that got left behind. The record exists the moment you finish the form, and the office, or your kitchen table, sees it at the same time.

Pick the app before you pick the device. List what the sheet needs to capture and try two or three apps on a free trial. Many run in a web browser or have an Android or Windows app, so check each one on the device you plan to buy. Some older trade software only runs on a Windows PC, and if yours does, that decides the device. Our guide to Android versus Windows rugged tablets has a five minute test for working this out.

2. Quotes

Quotes are the next quickest win. A template with your logo, terms and payment details, filled in on the tablet and sent from the van before you have pulled away, is a very different experience for the customer than a scrap of paper or a promise to email it tonight. Many quoting apps let the customer accept on their phone with a tap, and the app can keep a record of when they accepted.

What it saves: the quotes you never got round to sending. Set up a price list for the materials and jobs you quote most often. It takes a little time in December and shortens every quote in January.

3. Invoices

Invoicing is where paperless pays most obviously. If the job sheet is digital, the invoice can be raised from it the same day, with the materials and hours already filled in. Many apps combine quoting and invoicing, so the accepted quote becomes the invoice with a couple of taps.

What it saves: the gap between finishing a job and asking to be paid. An invoice sent the same afternoon, with a payment link or your bank details on it, reaches the customer while the work is fresh in their mind, rather than a fortnight later. If you use an accountant or an accounts package, ask whether the invoicing app can pass invoices to it automatically and save you a second round of typing.

4. Photos

Photos are the part most people already do, but on a personal phone, mixed in with everything else. The change is small: take the photo from inside the job sheet, so it is attached to the job record and timestamped, and, if the app supports it on a device with GPS, tagged with the location. Before, during and after. Boards, pipework, the state of the floor when you arrived.

What it saves: arguments. A dated photo of the damp patch that was there before you started settles a dispute faster than memory, and you stop hunting through a camera roll for a picture from last March.

Two things matter in the device here: a camera that copes with dark cupboards and voids, and enough storage or cloud sync that you are not deleting photos to make room. The Tuga A6 has a 64MP night vision camera for those dark spaces. The Tuga A8 has a 13MP rear camera, so if dark voids are a big part of your day, look at the A6 first. Both take a microSD card.

5. Signatures

The customer signs on the screen at the end of the job, and the signed sheet is in your records before you leave the drive. Most job management apps include a signature box. A finger works, but a stylus can give a neater signature. Our Capacitive Stylus is £14.99 and is listed for the A8, A10 and W8, among others, but not for the A6, so on the A6 use a finger.

What it saves: the second visit for a signature you forgot, and the argument about whether the customer ever signed anything. For work done for landlords, managing agents or main contractors, check what proof of completion they ask for, because a signed, timestamped job sheet may already be it.

Do You Need a Rugged Tablet to Do This?

No. Every step above can be done on the phone in your pocket, and if your jobs are short and your forms are simple, start there. It costs nothing and you will learn what you need from a bigger device.

The problems show up with use. A detailed job sheet on a phone screen is a lot of scrolling. A phone that is also the family phone fills up with work photos. A consumer tablet in a case is cheaper on day one, but our cost comparison explains why it often is not cheaper over three years. If it is a pain to use, you will drift back to paper by February.

We cannot give you a number of hours or a percentage saved, because we do not have one that applies to your business. The wider case for making the move is in our guide to why tradespeople are switching to rugged tablets.

Which Tuga Device Fits

If you are not sure where to start, the Tuga A8 at £379 is the middle size and a sensible first look for paperwork. It is an 8 inch Android tablet: enough screen to fill in a job sheet or read a drawing without pinching and zooming, and small enough to hold in one hand or drop into a van door pocket. The 800 nit screen is readable outdoors, it has glove mode and a 10000mAh battery. It is sealed to IP68 and drop tested to MIL-STD-810H, has 4G LTE built in so forms upload from site, GPS and GLONASS so apps can tag locations, and it is vehicle mountable.

If you would rather carry one device that lives in a pocket, the Tuga A6 at £299 is a 6.78 inch Android handheld with IP68 and IP69K sealing, 5G, a 10600mAh battery and the night vision camera mentioned above. A Belt Holster for it is £22.

If your work involves full size drawings or spreadsheets, the Tuga A10 at £449 gives you a 10.1 inch Full HD screen and dual SIM 4G in a 680g body.

If the five minute test lands you on Windows, the Tuga W8 at £629 is the 8 inch Windows 11 option, with USB-C, USB-A and HDMI for plugging into equipment. It costs £250 more than the A8, so only go this way if a program you rely on needs it.

Prices are as listed, with no VAT to add. Every device comes with a 12 month warranty, and delivery to UK addresses is free in 7 to 10 working days, so if you want it set up and tested before January, order in good time.

Your December Setup Checklist

Give yourself two or three weeks before the first job of January:

1. Get the device online. A SIM and a data plan if it has 4G or 5G, so you are not relying on site Wi-Fi or hotspotting from your phone.
2. Install your apps and check they run. Job management, quoting and invoicing, cloud storage, email. Run through a pretend job on the device before you trust it.
3. Build your templates. Logo, business details, payment terms and bank details on quotes and invoices. Your standard job sheet fields. A price list. If invoice numbers restart or change format in January, tell your accountant.
4. Turn on backup. Make sure job sheets, photos and signatures sync to the cloud, not just the device, and that you know where they go.
5. Set a screen lock. A PIN at minimum. The A6 has a fingerprint sensor and face unlock, and the W8 a fingerprint sensor, which make unlocking quick.
6. Sort charging. A 12V DC Car Charger at £26 fits every device in our range. The Charging Dock at £49.99 fits the A10, W8 and W10 for charging at your desk. Both are on the accessories page.
7. Run two or three December jobs on paper and screen in parallel. Nothing is lost if the app does something unexpected.
8. Let customers know. A line on your December invoices saying quotes and invoices will arrive by email from January avoids the "I did not get it" problem.

If you are equipping a team rather than one person, volume pricing is on our bulk page and trade accounts on the trade page. Either way, if you would rather talk it through, get in touch and tell us which apps you are weighing up, and we will say whether it looks like an Android or Windows job. Check the apps on the device before you rely on them.