Mechanical and electrical

M&E compliance software,
built by a contractor.

A UK M&E contractor needs software that plans engineers across sites, records hours at the gate and produces the certificate at the appliance. Unibuild is bespoke construction management software built for that shape of firm: QR clock-in timesheets, the weekly labour planner, gas and F-Gas records, and safe isolation permits.

M&E and building services contractors running jobs in Unibuild
Your week

Your engineers are spread across a dozen sites, and you find out where they went when the timesheets come in.

Certificated work is the product. It gets produced on a pad in a van, photographed, sent by message, and typed up days later by somebody who was not there.

Monday 07:10
Two supervisors are both expecting the same engineer. Neither of them is wrong.
A day lost
In a plant room
The gas record is written on carbonless paper, in the dark, next to a boiler.
Transcribed wrong
At the counter
Materials bought on account with a job name given verbally. No order exists to check the invoice against.
Coded to guesswork
Quietly, in March
An engineer's gas or F-Gas registration expired. Nobody noticed until a client's auditor did.
Certificates in doubt
Eight months late
A test instrument went out of calibration, which puts a question mark over everything issued since.
Retesting
The client rings
They want the certificate from last September. It was definitely issued. Somewhere.
An afternoon
The common thread The record is made away from where the work was Everything else follows from that
M&E compliance software

Compliance software is judged on
what it can produce afterwards.

Unibuild does three things. It records the work where the work is, it evidences it attributably and retrievably, and it prompts before a date passes. The duty stays with the duty holder.

01Recorded at the appliance
The gas safety record is created on the phone where the appliance is, domestic 46C or commercial C3C, appliance by appliance with the combustion readings, the defects, and the warning notice and warning label flags. The engineer's registration number, the issue date and the next check due date sit on the same record. There is no paper original, so there is no transcription step and no transcription error.
02Evidenced with a name and a time
The four part safe isolation permit is the record that the equipment was made dead, isolated and earthed, with the specific points identified. Authorisation, acceptance, work sign off and cancellation each capture their own signature, printed name and timestamp, and a switching schedule covers a sequenced isolation. The permit is raised on the phone before work starts and the moment it was created is stamped on it, so one completed afterwards says so.
03Prompted before it lapses
Gas Safe dates, REFCOM and other accreditation certificates, test instrument calibration and every training record carry an expiry, banded onto one reminder page with a thirty day window, amber inside ninety days on the matrix and red once passed. A named person acts on each one. One case is automatic: a subcontractor whose insurance or certificate has lapsed is removed from approved status overnight, which withdraws that firm from the order forms and the labour planner. That has fired 62 times on live data.
04Produced on the day
The record is a finished certificate the moment it is saved, numbered and branded, so it is handed over on site rather than after an office cycle. EIC, EICR and Minor Works Certificates are produced the same way, branded to your firm.
05Found by the job, not from memory
Certificates, permits, F-Gas logbooks, photographs and engineer's reports sit against the project and the asset they belong to, with an audit trail on the document itself. When a client asks in September for something issued last year, it is retrieved by the job rather than searched for across a mailbox and a filing cabinet.
What matters most to you

Six things M&E compliance
software has to get right.

In the order an M&E business feels them: recording work where the work is, and proving competence when somebody asks.

Hours you
can rely on

01

An A4 poster at the site entrance carries the project QR code. The operative scans it and the QR clock-in records the clock-in against the correct job.

  • The time comes from the server, not the phone
  • A photograph and the location captured at the clock-in
  • The day line writes itself onto the timesheet
  • Projects can be set so QR is the only way in
5,204 clock-ins recordedLive

Labour planning
across sites

02

Employed staff, agency workers and subcontract firms on one weekly grid, published to a wall board and to every operative's phone.

  • A person can be planned onto two sites in one day
  • Approved holiday removes the allocation control entirely
  • The clock-in marker appears in the planned cell
  • The plan survives its author going on leave
Plan against actualLive

Gas and F-Gas
on the phone

03

The record is created at the appliance. There is no paper original, so there is no transcription step and no transcription error.

  • Domestic 46C and commercial C3C, two proper forms
  • Appliance by appliance, with combustion readings
  • Engineer and recipient both sign on the screen
  • F-Gas logbook and leak checks against the asset
Certificate before the van movesLive

Safe isolation
permits

04

The four part permit your engineers will recognise immediately as the real thing rather than a generic form with a signature box.

  • Points of isolation and earthing identified
  • Switching schedules for sequenced isolations
  • Two parties sign, each with a printed name and date
  • Cancellation is a signed act with a time on it
Electricity at WorkLive

Spend
control

05

No purchase without an order, and no order without a named person approving it. Raised at the merchant's counter, decided in under a minute.

  • Push notification opens the approval screen itself
  • The order number is only issued on approval
  • Invoices upload against the order that carries the job
  • Own card purchases raise the reimbursement automatically
879 orders in five monthsLive

Competence
evidence

06

Every card, ticket and course your people hold, in a grid that colours itself red when something has expired.

  • Sixteen qualification columns, thirty-nine e-learning courses
  • Amber inside ninety days, red once passed
  • One A3 landscape page for the pre-start meeting
  • The certificate file attached to the record
Handed to a main contractorLive
One engineer, one day

Nothing in this day was
typed up afterwards.

A working Tuesday for a service engineer on a commercial contract, following the information rather than the software.

07:12On site

He scans the poster on the welfare unit door.

The project comes from the code, so there is no job number to remember. The server stamps the time, the phone takes a photograph, and the coordinates are recorded with it. The day line on his timesheet now exists.

Timesheets and QR clock-in
08:40Plant room

Isolation is authorised before he touches anything.

The permit names the points of isolation, the points of earthing and where the danger signs went. The authorising person signs, he signs to accept, and the validity window granted is shorter than the one he asked for, which is recorded on the document.

Permits to work
10:25At the appliance

The gas record is completed appliance by appliance.

Operating pressure, safety device operation, spillage test, flue flow, initial and final combustion analyser readings, ventilation and termination. He signs, the responsible person signs, and the numbered A4 certificate exists from that moment.

Gas safety records
11:50Merchant's counter

He raises the purchase request from the queue.

Supplier, project, value, VAT treatment and a photograph of the quote. Every member of the approval committee is pushed a notification that opens directly on the order. He is at the counter for four minutes rather than forty.

Purchase orders
15:05Second site

He writes the engineer's report where he found the fault.

What he found, what he did about it, photographs of the condition on arrival, and the client's signature on the screen. Three months later, when responsibility for that damage is disputed, there is a dated document rather than a conversation.

Engineer reports
16:48Off site

He clocks out, and the week builds itself.

Both times and both locations are on the day line. On Friday a supervisor reviews a week that is already there, already against the right jobs and already priced at each person's dated cost rate. Nobody types anything.

Approval and job costing
6,643 timesheet lines recorded for a building services contractor in Unibuild
6,643Timesheet lines recorded
4,237Of them from a QR scan
376Maintained assets under contract

Counted in the construction deployment, July 2026. A building services contractor of roughly fifty staff.

The regimes you live under

Certificated work carries criminal liability, so the record has to stand up.

Unibuild records, evidences and prompts.
The record is attributable, retrievable
and ready when it is asked for.

01Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998
The landlord's annual check and record under regulation 36, captured appliance by appliance with the defects, the warning notice and warning label flags, the engineer's registration number, the issue date and the next check due date. The record is a finished certificate the moment it is saved, so it can be handed over on the day rather than after an office cycle.
02Gas Safe registration
The registration number is recorded on the certificate exactly as the engineer enters it, and the record is tied to that engineer's own account. The training matrix separately holds a Gas Safe date per member of staff. For a gas heavy business, that is connected to the Gas Safe Register, so an expired registration warns the office.
03Retained UK F-Gas Regulation
Refrigerant type, charge weight, GWP and the calculated carbon dioxide equivalent held per asset, with a dated logbook of work and gas added, and leak check records carrying the engineer, the ACRIB card number, the test type, the result and the next test date. It prints as a REFCOM presented record log book. You set the leak check frequency band, and the register carries the due dates forward.
04Electricity at Work Regulations 1989
Regulations 12, 13 and 14. The permit is the record that the equipment was made dead, isolated and earthed, with the specific points identified, and the lone working permit prints an explicit prohibition on live electrical work when working alone.
05BS 7671
EIC, EICR and Minor Works Certificates are produced in the platform, branded to your firm, alongside electrical and mechanical installation sign off and the company handover document: ten questions covering permissions, isolation, cable support and document handover. Around each certificate sits the rest of the job, the labour, the client and the site it belongs to.
06Calibration traceability
Every instrument with its serial number, its holder and its calibration expiry, warned thirty days out. Each test record is linked to the instrument that produced it, set up with your forms.
07PUWER 1998
Work equipment suitable and maintained. Every power tool is an individual record with its PAT history, its service history and its hand arm vibration magnitude, reachable by scanning the label on the tool itself.
08Working Time Regulations 1998
Start and finish times per day per person per project, held over an unbroken history with a full change log. The platform holds the hours the 48 hour average is calculated from.
Questions from your sector

Asked by M&E and
building services firms.

What software is best for a UK M&E contractor?
Software that holds the engineer, the hours, the certificate and the spend on one job record, because that is where an M&E firm's margin and liability sit. Unibuild is bespoke construction management software for UK M&E and building services contractors: QR clock-in, the labour planner, gas, F-Gas and electrical certificates, safe isolation permits and purchase orders. It is a platform in daily production since 2016, shaped to the way each firm already works. When a firm needs something new, Unibuild builds it. Changes asked for after go-live are included in the monthly fee rather than charged at a day rate. See how bespoke construction software is built from a working platform.
Is Unibuild compliance software, or a management system?
Both words are doing work, so it is worth being exact. Unibuild runs the job: quoting, planning the labour, the hours, the orders, the assets and the reporting. The compliance side is not bolted onto that, it is the same record. The gas safety record is created against the job the engineer clocked into, the permit against the equipment he isolated, the calibration expiry against the instrument itself, and the training matrix against the person who did the work. Compliance software kept on its own becomes a second system somebody has to remember to update, which is how a registration quietly expires. What it does is record and evidence, and prompt before a date passes. The duty stays with the duty holder.
Can we produce electrical certificates in it?
Yes. EIC, EICR and Minor Works Certificates are produced in the platform, branded to your firm, alongside electrical and mechanical installation sign off and handover records. Around each certificate sits the rest of the job: the labour, the client and site record, the asset, the safe isolation permit with its switching schedule, the test instrument and its calibration status, the document store and the audit trail. The certificate and the evidence behind it live in one place rather than in scheme software with everything else somewhere else.
Does it check that our engineers' registrations are current?
Yes. The training matrix holds a Gas Safe date against every member of staff and colours it red once it passes. The registration number is recorded on the certificate as the engineer enters it, and CSCS cards are verified. Where you want it, the matrix is connected to the certificate, so an out of date registration warns the office or blocks issue.
Will my engineers actually use the app?
They already do, in the businesses Unibuild was built for. There are 5,204 clock-in records and 6,643 timesheet lines in one deployment alone, every clock-in from an operative scanning a printed code on site. The reason it works is not that the app is delightful. It is that the app is how they record their hours, so there is a direct personal reason to open it, and it uses a PIN rather than a password so it takes seconds. It is also your app, published on the App Store and Google Play under your company's own name and icon. An engineer installs the firm on his payslip, not a vendor's. Adoption is fastest when supervisors expect it and the paper route is closed rather than left running alongside.
Can an engineer record an F-Gas leak check in the field?
Yes. The F-Gas record set is complete and it is genuinely good: refrigerant, charge, GWP, calculated carbon dioxide equivalent, a dated logbook and a dated leak check history with the ACRIB card number, printed as a REFCOM presented log book your client can read in their portal. The engineer records the check at the unit on the app, with photographs, video or documents attached to the record rather than a switch.
How do we stop materials being bought with no order?
The order has to exist before the money is committed, and an unapproved order has no number and prints as pending approval, which makes it useless as an instrument for buying anything. Approval is restricted in code to named committee members, on the phone as well as at a desk. One deliberate exception: travel orders and anything recorded with the payment method already known are auto approved, because the money has already gone. Those are visible precisely because the approver column is empty, and they can be tightened if your controls require every pound sanctioned in advance.
We already have certification software from our scheme.
Then keep it. Unibuild produces EIC, EICR and Minor Works Certificates branded to your firm, and around any certificate, raised here or filed from your scheme software, it holds the job it belongs to, the labour that went into it, the materials, the permits, the photographs, the handover sign off and the filed certificate itself, all against one project. The register exists precisely so that a certificate produced elsewhere has a controlled home in the system that runs the rest of your business.
Our engineers keep their own instruments and nobody knows how many we own.
That is the usual starting position, and it is why the calibration register asks for the holder as well as the instrument. The first pass is a stocktake: every instrument, its serial number, who has it and what its certificate says. That is a morning's work, and it is usually the point at which a business discovers it owns two instruments nobody has calibrated in three years.
No card, no lock-in

Bring an engineer,
and one real certificate.

0114-day free trial
Your real engineers, your real sites, your real paperwork.
02Free migration
Staff and training records, asset registers, clients, open jobs.
03Bring an engineer
Let him try the app. His opinion decides this, not ours.
04Cancel by email
One sentence to success@unibuild.co.uk. Done.
05UK data, UK support
UK office, working hours, a real phone number.
06Unlimited users
Every engineer, every apprentice, every director. Same price.
Next step

Bring one of your
engineers to the demo.

Bring one of your engineers to a Unibuild M&E demonstration
The point His opinion decides whether this works for you Not the director's
Ask for a quote

Tell us a little about the firm.
We do the rest.

Two minutes. A written figure by email, usually the same working day. Unlimited users, so every engineer in the van is included.

Headcount
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