The questions
worth asking first.

It is built for you. Unibuild is not a fixed product you configure yourself and then work around. The platform is shaped to your forms, your approval routes, your reports and your terminology, and anything you need, we build. That is the whole offer, and it is why there is a scoping conversation before there is a quote. What makes it affordable is that we are not starting from an empty screen. The core already runs UK trade businesses every working day and covers the general work of running one. So you get the exact fit of a commissioned system without the months, the cost or the failure rate of commissioning one. Changes you ask for later are inside the monthly fee, not a day rate.

It is quoted per firm, so there is no figure on this site to read off. One figure covers everything: every module, unlimited users, your branded app and its store publishing, the subcontractor and client portals, configuration, training, data migration, support and changes after go-live. It is never per person, so putting the whole site on it costs no more than putting three managers on it. The figure is sized to your firm once, fixed for three years from the date of the quote, and arrives in writing usually the same working day.

Because one price for everyone means somebody is overpaying. A published rate card charges a five-person firm the same as a fifty-person one and then hides the difference in tiers and add-ons. Your figure is sized once, when it is quoted, on your firm, your trade, what we build for you and where you work. After that it is fixed for three years, and taking on more people never changes it. A contractor in central London and one working out of a small town in County Durham do not have the same money coming through the door. So the number gets worked out properly rather than read off a chart. Ask for a quote and you will have one the same day.

Everyday AI is part of the monthly fee. Heavier, high-value AI work is paid as you use it, at the AI provider’s own rate, with nothing added by Unibuild. You choose which AI model does the work, and a firm that already pays for an AI service can connect its own account. The cost of AI is bespoke, so you pay only for what you use. How AI is charged.

The demo is where you find out, and you drive the working platform yourself on your own kind of job rather than sitting through a scripted presentation. Beforehand, the fair thing to ask for is evidence that it has already fitted a business unlike the one it was written for. It has: firms in different parts of the industry run on it, and they use modules others have never switched on.

Most firms this size have. The usual cause is a platform designed in the abstract and then bent to fit a real business during implementation. That is when the cost and the timescale escape. Unibuild starts from a system that already runs UK trade businesses, so implementation is configuration and extension rather than construction. That is a different starting point, and the demo is where you test it.

Most firms go live in about two weeks, in phases, with a sandbox to try things in first. The programme is agreed with you after scoping.

No, and we would advise against it. Take the module where the pain is loudest, normally timesheets or health and safety, get one site running, then add. The evidence that this works is that the purchase order software was introduced into a live deployment in February 2026 and carried 879 orders within five months. Adding a module to a running business is routine rather than a project in itself. A phased rollout also gives the field team time to form the habit before the commercial modules start depending on their data.

Migration is part of implementation and is not charged as an extra. Clients, projects, operatives, rates, suppliers and your existing RAMS and template library are the usual set. We bring it across ourselves, whatever shape it is in, and advise which older records are best kept as an archive.

There is no ticketing system and no call queue. You ring and a person who built the platform answers, and that includes the director. Every customer also gets a WhatsApp group with our team in it, which you can message at any hour. Formal cover is UK working hours, and in practice replies outside them are common. Support also covers things outside Unibuild: a spreadsheet that has stopped adding up, a Microsoft 365 account that will not send, office IT that has fallen over. We treat that as part of the job rather than a favour.

Your data exports as CSV, XML, JSON and PDF throughout the agreement, not only on the way out. Leaving never means losing the record. Cancel by email: there is no minimum term and no exit fee, and we hand back a clean dataset within five working days. If you want continuity or escrow terms written into the contract, raise it during the discussion and we will put whatever is agreed in writing. The full process is in the cancellation policy.

They use one that saves them a job. The field app is built around clocking in by QR, signing what needs signing and capturing evidence where the work happens. It is not data entry for the benefit of the office. The app is how they get paid, so it gets opened every day without anybody having to ask. The evidence: 5,204 clock-in records and 6,643 timesheet days in one deployment, and 4,237 of those days came from a scan rather than a keyboard. More on the mobile app.

Yes. Clock-ins work online and offline: on a site with no signal, the scan is stored on the phone and syncs as soon as the phone is back in signal. The rest of the field app works on no-signal sites too, and what is recorded there reaches the office the same way.

Yes, from the plan to the payroll. For the trades that work nights, such as rail, civils, highways, street works and shop fit-out, the night is planned, run and paid in one system. Night shifts go on the labour run weeks ahead, and each operative sees their nights in the app, with a push notification if one changes. Cards, tickets and fatigue status sit beside each name, so the gang is in date and inside its hours before anybody travels. On the night, the RAMS and the briefing are signed on the phone, and clock-ins work with no signal. A shift that runs past midnight stays one shift on the timesheet, and night hours are paid at the rate your firm sets. Consecutive nights and rest are checked by Advanced Fatigue Manager.

Yes. Unibuild’s AI reviews RAMS, method statements and risk assessments, estimates, quotations and tender submissions before they are issued or accepted, including a subcontractor’s RAMS. It works inside the system where the document is written and signed, and your own people make the call. AI document review.

Yes. It gives you a live cost position against the value of the job while it is still running. Labour flows in automatically at each person's rate on the day, with purchase orders at committed value and approved expenses, all attached to the job. You see where a job stands while you can still do something about it, rather than at the final account. The job profitability report shows the margin on every job, by project manager and by department.

No. The subcontractor portal is live and included in the fee, and so is every login for your supply chain. Bringing your subbies on never changes the fee, which is the point of charging per firm rather than per person. Agency and subcontract operatives can also clock in on the same QR poster without a staff record, with their hours grouped by firm so the office can check each invoice.

Yes. Each person's web access is set menu by menu and section by section, rather than inherited from a role template. App access is a separate list set independently, so a supervisor can have full use of the field app and little or no back office access. On top of that sit specific controls on the sensitive things, including whether someone can see hourly rates at all. See access and permissions.

Yes. Single sign-on with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace is supported, and two-factor sign-in can be added on top of it, enforced for every user or only for the people you choose. Mobile login also takes a PIN as well as the password, which is what makes a shared site tablet usable by several people who each sign as themselves. Sign-in is accepted from the UK, and another country can be opened for a named person while they travel.

Compliance is a set of duties held by people. Unibuild holds the record of whether those duties were discharged, and makes that evidence findable, current and attributable. When somebody asks, you produce it in minutes rather than days. Records and logs are kept for seven years.

Your data is held in London, encrypted, and it does not leave the UK. We hold Cyber Essentials Plus and are ICO registered, and ISO 27001 is in progress. If a certification is a procurement requirement for you, raise it early and we will tell you exactly where we are.

It works alongside it. Unibuild runs the job, the labour, the compliance and the subcontract, and hands the commercial position to your accounts package. Approved supplier invoices, credit notes and travel orders post to your accounts package with their coding, or go to your bookkeeping capture inbox if you use one. Each carries the order number, supplier, project and values, and the inbox handover is in daily use. Unibuild syncs with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage 50, any other external system is synced on request, and all data exports as CSV, XML or JSON. The detail is on integrations.

Yes. Recurring client invoices go out by themselves on the date set, weekly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly. Recurring purchase orders are emailed to the supplier monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly. Subcontractor, supplier and hire invoices are uploaded on the portal or emailed to your firm’s unique invoice address, and logged with nothing to upload. Recurring invoices and orders.

Unlimited. Storage is never measured or capped: there is no limit on space, on the number of files or on the size of a file. Any file type is stored, from Excel and PDF files to photographs, videos and drawings, in general company folders and project folders. Every upload is synced automatically to your own OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox. Document management.

Yes, from the purchase request to the remittance advice. Orders are approved by your rules and deliveries are recorded on the phone. Supplier invoices are read by AI down to the line items and matched to the order and the delivery. Approved invoices are paid in a payment run approved by a named person, and every supplier is emailed a remittance advice. Users are unlimited and there is no quota on orders or invoices. Accounts payable automation.

Yes. Approvals arrive as a push notification in your own branded app and as an email that can be approved without signing in. Routes are set by value, job, department, supplier or budget, with reminders, escalation and delegates. Approval workflows.

Yes. On the supplier portal, merchants, hire firms and service suppliers onboard themselves and keep their own bank details up to date, with every change validated and approved. They upload price lists and invoices, and see where each invoice stands, through to paid. Supplier portal.