Subcontract orders that read as a subcontract rather than a purchase order. Variations papered the day they are agreed, with the photograph and the person who asked. Site diaries written where the work happened. Applications built from the job's own valued work, with retention and the payment dates carried forward. Thirty-plus modules on one account, and a contractor turns on the handful it needs.
New build, fit-out, refurbishment, mechanical, electrical or maintenance: the contracts differ, the office side does not.
Building the thing is the part a contractor already has right. What spreads out across the business is everything the contract later asks you to prove. Who was on site and on which day. What was instructed, by whom, and whether anybody wrote it down. Which subcontractor was insured that week. What the job actually cost while there was still time to do something about it. Two years later a final account turns on records nobody was thinking about at the time.
Unibuild is bespoke business software for UK trades and specialist contractors, built inside a contracting business rather than sold into one. One account carries the labour run, plant and equipment registers, materials and stock, certification and training records, documents, day works, variations and applications for payment.
The fit
What construction and building services require, and what Unibuild provides.
A contractor carries two businesses at once: the one that builds and the one that has to evidence what it built. Generic job software is usually built for the first. Each requirement below is followed by what the platform does about it.
The tradeThe platform
Agreed on a nod
The client's representative asks for something extra on a Tuesday. Your supervisor says yes, because saying no costs a week and sours the job. Nobody papers it, and at the final account it becomes two people remembering a conversation differently.
Variations are raised where the work is agreed, on the phone, with the instruction, a dated photograph and the name of the person who asked attached to the job. What gets billed later is the record that already exists rather than a reconstruction.
The application is assembled by hand from the tender document, a folder of instructions and last month's spreadsheet. It takes days, it goes in late, and the same variation occasionally gets claimed twice because nothing tracks what was already billed.
Applications are built from the job's own valued work, so measured items, day works and approved variations arrive already priced. Retention is stated and carried, and what has been billed is visible against what has not.
A subcontractor's employers' liability expired halfway through the contract. They have been through the gate every day since. The exposure is yours, and the first anybody knows about it is usually an audit or a claim.
Every subcontractor is a record with insurance, CIS status, accreditation and right to work held against it, with expiry dates watched rather than remembered. The firm updates its own documents through a portal, so chasing is a standing list rather than a task.
Your contract asks for contemporaneous records. What exists is a diary written on Friday afternoon covering the whole week, which an adjudicator discounts, and a camera roll on somebody's phone that nobody can tie to a date or a location.
The site diary, dated photographs, the weather and the trades on site are captured on the day, on the phone, against the job. Records made where the work happened are worth more eighteen months later than records made accurately in an office afterwards.
On most commercial work you carry duties for everyone who comes through the gate, not just your own people. Competence, induction, method statements, permits and the construction phase plan all have to exist and be produced when somebody asks for them.
Method statements are signed on the phone at the gate against a version that freezes on submission, by the operative doing the work. Subcontractor operatives and agency labour sign the same register at no extra cost, and permits and near miss reporting sit on the same job.
The real cost of a job lands after it has finished. By then the only decision available is to bid the next one differently. On fixed price work that gap is where the margin quietly went.
Labour, materials, subcontract and plant post to the job as they happen, so the position is current rather than historic. The programme view plots the value expected each week against what has actually been billed, for one job or across the board.
Counted in the deployment Unibuild was built on, July 2026: 6,643 timesheet lines recorded, 4,237 of them from a QR scan at the gate, and 376 maintained assets under contract.
New build
Fit-out
Refurbishment
Mechanical services
Electrical services
Civils and externals
Maintenance and PPM
Small works and reactive
The week
An ordinary week in a main contractor, and the record it leaves.
Six entries from a contractor's day book. The first is a Monday morning and the last is two years later, in a meeting about a final account, and they sit on the same job because a diary does not stop when the job does.
Monday, 7am
Two of your own teams and a drylining subcontractor arrive. Everyone signs in at the gate with a QR scan, inductions and method statements are signed against the current version, and the labour run already shows who was expected where.
On site, signed in
Tuesday, on the deck
The client's representative asks for two extra sockets and a moved partition. The supervisor raises it on the phone with a photograph and the name of the man who asked, before the wall goes up.
Papered the same day
Wednesday
A subcontractor's employers' liability is three weeks from expiry. The chase goes out through the portal, the renewed certificate comes back into their own record, and nobody had to remember the date.
Cover held
Thursday
A delivery lands and a hired welfare unit is still sitting on a job that finished a fortnight ago. Both are against a job rather than against the business, so one is costed and the other is visible.
Costed to the job
Month end, day one
The application is assembled from work already valued on the job rather than rebuilt from three files. Retention is stated on the face of it and the payment dates are carried forward from the order.
Out on day one
Two years on
The final account reaches the extras. The instruction, the photograph taken before the wall went up, the day it was agreed and the man who agreed it are all on the job, in one place.
The record answers it
The test
Eight things construction software has to do.
Cold morning, gloved hand, a queue at the gate and a supervisor who has nine other things to do before eight o'clock. A system that cannot meet these eight gets abandoned inside a month, and that is a failure of design rather than of discipline. Unibuild is thirty-plus modules on one account, and a contractor turns on a handful.
Two taps at the gate, gloves on
The field app carries 25+ modules on the phone, granted per person, so an operative sees the three things they need and nothing else. Clock in is a QR scan at the gate, on timesheet software that stamps the time on the server rather than trusting the phone. The design constraint throughout was a cold morning and a gloved hand, because a system that takes a minute in a queue does not get used twice.
An order that reads as a subcontract
Subcontractor management issues a subcontract rather than a purchase order: numbered conditions, an execution block for director signature and witness, retention terms and release conditions stated, and required cover levels filled from the policies already on record. Most software issues an order. The difference shows up eighteen months later.
The Construction Act mechanism, printed
Every order carries the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 payment mechanism as printed terms: the application date as the due date, a final date for payment 35 days after it, a Payment Notice required within 10 days, a Pay Less Notice permitted not less than 2 days before the final date, interest at 4% over Bank of England base rate on late payment, and an adjudication route. The dates are then carried rather than recalculated.
Variations captured where they are agreed
Variations are raised on site, with the instruction, the photograph and the person who asked. The value flows into the next application instead of being reconstructed from memory, and what has already been billed is tracked, which is what stops the same extra being claimed twice in consecutive months.
Competence checked before the gate opens
Insurance, CIS status, CSCS, SSIP, RAMS, right to work and a financial check sit against each subcontractor in the order they actually matter, with verification before payment rather than after it. The subcontractor portal lets the firm keep its own documents current, and the training matrix turns a card red before it lapses.
Records made the day it happened
Project and site management holds the site diary, drawings, day works and dated photographs against the job, with the weather captured and the trades on site logged daily. This is the contemporaneous evidence a delay claim is won on, and its whole value is that it was made at the time by the person who was there.
A cost position while the job is still live
Cost control takes labour at each person's dated cost rate, materials, plant and subcontract as they post, so the position moves with the job. Financial management then carries applications, retention and the programme view of value expected against value billed. Your accounts package stays, and the commercial position hands over to it.
Priced per business, not per person
Users are unlimited on every plan. Site staff, supervisors, the commercial team, the directors and your subcontractors all sit on the same price, so taking on more people never changes the fee. One figure per firm covers everything, sized to the business, quoted in writing and fixed for three years.
The stores
What a construction and building services firm holds
The yard, the store and the site, and the quirk in each line that breaks ordinary inventory software. Written for the sector rather than for any one firm. Most contractors will recognise seven or eight of these lines and ignore the rest.
What a UK construction and building services contractor holds, and the tracking quirk in each line
Almost all hired, and the hire runs on long after the team leaves. The cost is invisible until the invoice, and nobody owns the decision to send it back
Temporary electrics
Distribution boards, festoon and task lighting, transformers, generators, extension leads, RCDs
Every item needs testing evidence, and the kit moves between sites faster than the paperwork. A board with no current test is a stop notice waiting to happen
Access equipment
Podium steps, towers, ladders, mobile elevating work platforms, edge protection
Anything that lifts people needs a thorough examination at least every six months. Owned and hired items sit side by side on the same site and are easily confused
Calibration expiry decides whether the certificate the instrument produced is worth anything. The instrument and its certificate need to be the same object
Mechanical materials
Pipe in several materials and diameters, fittings, valves, pumps, ductwork and fire dampers, insulation, plant items
Long lead plant is ordered against a programme date months out, and a slip on site strands it. Made to order items cannot be returned
Electrical materials
Cable on drums, containment, tray and basket, accessories, boards, luminaires, fire alarm and data
Cable is a part drum by the second job, so the honest unit is the metre. Drum returns and offcuts are where the material margin sits
Materials on site
Delivered goods stored on the job before they are fixed, off site fabrication, client free issue
Often claimed in an application as materials on site, which requires evidence of delivery, storage and sometimes vesting. Paperwork, not stock control
Subcontract labour
Trade subcontractors, labour only teams, agency operatives, specialist installers
Not stock, but the largest line on most contracts. Each firm carries insurance, CIS status, accreditation and competence with its own expiry dates
Maintained assets
Client plant under a maintenance contract: boilers, air handling, chillers, pumps, fire and security systems
Somebody else's asset, on your register, with your service frequency against it. The record has to survive the contract changing hands
Highest volume, lowest chance of being booked to a job. Nobody will ever book out a tube of mastic, so run these as minimum and maximum bins
Regulations
The regimes a main contractor works under
A contractor sits under two stacks at once: the safety and building regime that governs the work, and the commercial regime that governs getting paid for it. This is the reference version, kept factual.
What each regime asks of a construction and building services contractor
Regime
What it requires
CDM 2015
The defining regime. On most commercial work you are a contractor and often the principal contractor, with duties around planning, the construction phase plan, site induction, cooperation and the competence of everybody who comes through the gate. The duties are continuous rather than a document produced once at the start. See the CDM 2015 guide for the duty holder detail.
Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996
As amended in 2009, this is the payment regime the whole supply chain runs on. An application has a due date and a final date for payment, a Payment Notice is required within a set period, and a Pay Less Notice has to be served before the final date if you intend to pay less than the notified sum. Missing a notice is how a sum becomes payable in full regardless of the merits, which is why the dates matter as much as the figures.
The Construction Industry Scheme
Subcontractors must be verified with HMRC before payment, not after, and the deduction rate follows from that verification. Gross, net and unmatched statuses all behave differently, and getting it wrong is a cost to you rather than to the subcontractor. The CIS guide and the deduction calculator cover the mechanics.
Building Safety Act 2022
For higher-risk buildings the Act introduced gateways, the golden thread of information and the dutyholder roles, and it changed what a records system is expected to carry: structured, current information about what was built and by whom, kept for the life of the building rather than the life of the contract.
Building Regulations and Regulation 38
Fire safety information has to be handed to the responsible person at completion. In practice this is the handover pack: the drawings, the certificates, the commissioning results and the fire strategy information for what was actually installed rather than what was designed.
Building services: gas, refrigerant and BS 7671
A firm carrying mechanical and electrical work sits under further regimes: Gas Safe registration and the annual check under regulation 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, the retained UK F-Gas Regulation with refrigerant charge, leak checks and logbooks per asset, and BS 7671 for electrical installation and inspection. See M&E and building services for how these are handled in detail.
PUWER 1998, LOLER 1998 and the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989
Work equipment must be suitable, maintained and inspected where safety depends on its condition. Anything that lifts people needs a thorough examination at least every six months. Temporary electrical installations and portable equipment need testing evidence that identifies the individual item, which is why a quantity on a line is not enough.
Accreditation and prequalification
Constructionline, CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS and the Common Assessment Standard all audit the same underlying evidence: policies, competence records, equipment inspection, accident reporting and the checks you run on your own supply chain. ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 sit alongside them. The work of an audit is almost entirely retrieval, which is a records problem rather than a safety one.
On the record
Questions construction firms ask
The questions main contractors and building services firms actually raise on a demonstration, answered on the record. Open one to read the response.
VariationsCan a variation be papered on the day it is agreed?+
Yes. The supervisor raises it on the phone where the work is agreed, with the instruction, a dated photograph and the name of the person who asked. The value flows into the next application rather than being rebuilt from memory. What has already been billed is tracked, which stops the same extra being claimed twice. How variations work.
ApplicationsCan it produce an application and carry the notice dates?+
Yes. The application is built from work already valued on the job, so measured items, day works and approved variations arrive priced rather than retyped. Retention is stated and carried. The Construction Act payment mechanism is printed into every subcontract order as terms, and the resulting dates are carried forward. The commercial judgement on each notice stays with your quantity surveyor.
Supply chainHow does it stop an uninsured subcontractor working on site?+
Each subcontractor is a record carrying insurance, CIS verification, accreditation, RAMS and right to work, with expiry dates watched on one page. The firm keeps its own documents current through the subcontractor portal, so a renewal arrives without an email chase. The order states the cover levels required, filled from the policies on record, so the requirement and the evidence sit in one document.
Site safetyCan subcontract and agency operatives sign our method statements?+
Yes, at no extra cost. Method statements are signed on the phone at the gate by the operative doing the work, against a version that freezes on submission. Subcontract operatives and agency labour sign the same register as your own people. Permits and near miss reporting sit on the same job, so the principal contractor record is in one place.
DisputesWill the records stand up in an adjudication?+
A record carries weight because it was made at the time, by the person who was there, and has not been edited since. Diary entries, photographs, signatures and instructions are dated and attributed as they are captured. Method statements freeze at the version submitted, and every document the platform sends is logged. The contemporaneous record exists for every job, not only the ones that go wrong.
CostCan we see what a job is costing while it is still live?+
Yes. Cost control takes labour at each person's dated cost rate, plus materials, plant and subcontract as they post. The position moves with the job rather than landing six weeks after it finishes. The programme view plots the value expected each week against what has been billed, for one job or across the board.
CISDoes it handle CIS?+
Yes. Verification and status sit on the subcontractor record, with verification before payment rather than after it, and the deduction follows from the status held. CIS works to HMRC tax months and closes into a CIS300 return pack, which your accounts package files. The domestic reverse charge is built in as well.
AccountsDoes it replace Sage or Xero?+
It works alongside them. Your accounts package stays, and Unibuild runs the job, the labour, the compliance and the subcontract up to it. Unibuild syncs with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage 50, and approved supplier invoices and credit notes can be emailed into your bookkeeping capture inbox. Each record is flagged as sent so nothing goes twice, and data also exports as CSV, XML or JSON.
Two businessesWe do contracting and maintenance. One account or two?+
One. Contract work goes through estimating, subcontract orders, variations, applications and retention. Maintenance runs on planned service frequencies against client assets and reactive calls. Both post to the same job costing, so you can see which half makes money. Construction and fit-out and M&E and building services go deeper on each half.
AdoptionWill site staff actually use it?+
Yes, when what you ask of them is small. Grant an operative three things on the phone: clock in, sign a method statement and book materials or day works to a job. Everything else stays with the office and the supervisors. Permissions are set per person, and the clock-in is a QR scan at the gate: two taps, gloves on.
The marketWhat software do UK main contractors use?+
Most run a combination: an accounts package, a spreadsheet for applications and the cost position, a folder for certificates and insurances, and WhatsApp for the day to day. Above that sit heavyweight commercial suites for large main contractors, project tools without the money, and trades apps built for domestic work. Unibuild holds subcontract orders, variations and applications against the job. See how Unibuild compares.
PricingHow is it priced?+
Per business, not per person. Users are unlimited, so site staff, supervisors, the commercial team, the directors and your subcontractors all sit on the same price. One figure per firm covers everything, sized to the business, quoted in writing and fixed for three years.
RolloutDo we have to move everything across at once?+
No. Most contractors start with what costs them most, commonly the subcontract and its paperwork, or the month end, and add modules once the first is habit. Live jobs, clients, drawings, open documents, subcontractor registers and retention balances are brought across for you. Most firms go live in about two weeks, in phases.
Half an hour, on your own jobs and your own supply chain. Bring a live contract and the month end that goes wrong, and we will set it up in front of you. Unlimited users, never per seat, and fourteen days to try it without a card.
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