The office
portal
Thirteen menu groups, 87 pages, granted page by page per person. The desk half of the platform and the one most of a working day happens in.
Where you actually workLive
For office staff
The desk half,
The desk half,
and the chasing
that stops.
Most of an office week is not the work, it is the chasing. Unibuild is where the office works, and most of that chasing becomes a reminder that fires on its own.
The week you actually have
The job is not entering the data. It is finding out what is missing.
Nobody in an office is short of systems.
They are short of one place where the absence of
something is visible before it becomes a problem on site.
- Expiry chases itself
- Insurance, CSCS and trade cards, calibration dates, PAT, gas safety, LOLER: each held with its expiry, each raising a reminder before it lapses rather than after somebody is refused entry at a gate. The pattern that costs an office its week is finding out late, and that is the specific thing this removes.
- Certificates on your letterhead
- Fifty-eight document types generate on your own letterhead from records already in the system, so the certificate is a consequence of the work being recorded rather than a separate typing job that happens afterwards. The office portal you work in carries your firm's name, logo and colours too.
- Access granted page by page
- Not roles, not tiers. Individual pages, granted per person, from one panel. Eighteen distinct access patterns are already in use across the firms running on it. The office manager sees the purchase ledger; the person who only raises orders does not.
- Subcontractor accounts in one place
- The order, the variations, the invoices they raise against it and the payment position, per subcontractor, with insurance currency shown against the firm before anybody instructs them again.
- Hours arrive already attributed
- Timesheets come off the site as QR clock-ins against a job, so the office is approving hours rather than deciphering, transcribing and allocating them. Friday afternoon changes shape.
- Timesheets by QR code
- Hours approved, not retyped
- Reminders before anything expires
- CSCS and trade cards in date
- Insurances in date
- Calibration dates watched
- PAT tests on their dates
- Gas safety records in date
- LOLER reports in date
- Documents on your letterhead
- Version control on documents
- Access set page by page
- New starters ready on day one
- Office portal in your colours
- Training on your own projects
- Data migration included
- Orders raised against the job
- Supplier invoices checked
- Subcontract position per firm
- Subcontractor cover in date
- Invoices and statements
- Aged debt by manager
- CIS returns by tax month
- Synced with Xero and QuickBooks
- Payroll export, no retyping
- Holiday requests from the app
- Staff records in one place
- Reports across every job
- Web and app access set apart
- Clients see only their jobs
- Your firm's own app for site
- Your data out at any time
All of it on one account, with everyone in the office on it and never a charge per seat.
What is open on your screen
Six parts of the platform an office keeps open, and what each replaces.
The office
Documents and
certificates
58 document types on your letterhead, version-controlled, generated from the records rather than retyped from them.
Off the shared driveLive
Reminders
and expiry
Everything that lapses, held with its date and chased before it does. Insurance, cards, calibration, statutory inspection.
Before, not afterLive
Purchase orders
and suppliers
Raised against a job and counted at commitment, so the cost exists the moment it is committed rather than when the invoice turns up.
Committed spendLive
Subcontractor
management
Orders, variations, invoices and payment position per firm, with insurance currency in front of you before you instruct them.
One ledger, one storyLive
Access and
permissions
Page-level grants per person from a single panel, so a new starter gets exactly the pages they need on their first morning.
Per person, per pageLive
Asked by the person who runs it
What an office manager
What an office manager
asks in the first
ten minutes.
Will it chase expiry dates for us?
Yes. Insurance, CSCS and trade cards, calibration, PAT, gas safety and LOLER dates are each held with their expiry. A reminder goes out by email and push notification before each one lapses, so nobody finds out at a gate. See reminders and expiry.
How much retyping is there?
Little, because a record is created once by whoever is closest to it. Hours arrive as QR clock-ins already against a job. Certificates generate on your letterhead from the records, and purchase orders become committed cost the moment they are raised. Unibuild syncs with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage 50, and payroll and accounts data also export as CSV, XML or JSON.
Can we see each subcontractor's position in one place?
Yes. The order, the variations, the invoices they raise against it and the payment position sit together for each subcontractor. Their insurance currency is shown against the firm before anybody instructs them again. See subcontractor management.
Can I stop people seeing things they should not?
Yes, and at page level rather than by role. Each of the 87 pages is granted or withheld per person from one panel, and eighteen distinct access patterns are already in use across the firms running on it. Web and app access are set separately. Document visibility is controlled at page level, and at project level for clients.
Will I be the only person who understands it?
No. Training is included and delivered on your live projects rather than on a demo company, for office and site both. Unlimited users means nobody is kept off the system to save money, so what the system holds does not depend on one person.
Does it work if half the firm ignores it?
The office side stands on its own from day one: orders, documents, reminders and subcontractor accounts owe nothing to what happens on site. Hours and site records depend on the clock-ins and diaries coming in, which is why the field side asks for no password. Operatives download your firm's own app, published on the App Store and Google Play under your company's name and icon, and open it on a four digit PIN. If your operatives will only ever do one thing, tell us which one and the field side is built around it.
Will we have to change how the office works to fit it?
No. Unibuild is bespoke business software for UK trades and specialist contractors: a platform in daily production since 2016, shaped to the way each firm already works. Your entities, project codes, rate cards and approval routes are set up before day one. When the office needs something new, Unibuild builds it, and changes asked for after go-live are included in the monthly fee.
What happens to our existing files and spreadsheets?
Data migration is included in the quoted figure. It goes live in phases with a sandbox first, so your people can get it wrong somewhere that does not matter. See how implementation works.
Can we get our data back out?
Everything, as CSV, XML, JSON and PDF, at any time, and on the way out. If you do leave, cancel by email and we hand back a clean dataset within five working days. No minimum term and no exit fees.
What else does the office run from it?
Invoices and statements, aged debt by manager, CIS returns by tax month, and supplier invoices checked against their orders through accounts payable automation. Holiday requests arrive from the app for approval. Staff records, the training matrix and LOLER reports sit on the same login, and reports run across every job without a spreadsheet. See invoicing and CIS.
The rest of the firm
Not the person who will use it most?
The same platform, described for the job each person actually does. Every one of them is a different set of pages switched on, granted per person, not a different product.
Next step
Bring the thing you
Bring the thing you
chase every week.
