Systems that run field service businesses
Field service businesses run on a system that was built for one office and its vans: the jobs and the engineers' diaries, the contracts and certificates, the app in the engineer's hand, or the yard's bookings and weighbridge. Solve With Software takes those systems over and modernises them in stages, so the office keeps the screen it knows while the engineers, the customers and the accounts get connected to it, and AI reads the job requests, old certificates and tip invoices that someone keys in today. The pages below describe the kinds of system we see, in both their generations, and what modernising each brings.
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Where the vans go
Heating, electrical, fire and refrigeration engineers, compliance contractors working for housing providers, schools and care homes, and skip and waste yards run systems like these in every part of the UK. Nearer home they work out of Colchester, Chelmsford and Ipswich and cover Essex and Suffolk by van, from Southend up to the Suffolk coast. Each has a system at the centre of the office that was built for the way that one business works, and each has the same question about it: how do we move it forward without stopping the vans?
Colchester is home, and the vans can be based anywhere in the UK. The work is remote wherever the office is, and on-site across Essex, Suffolk and London when the system needs it. The regional page says how the local side works.
The same office system, built twice
The Old Guard was written between the early 2000s and about 2013. The job diary grew from an Access database into a .NET Windows program; the contracts and certificates system is Access with Crystal certificates and a workbook of reminders; the skip yard runs a Visual Basic 6 booking screen wired to the weighbridge. The first engineers' apps came a little later, wrapped in PhoneGap or Cordova between 2012 and 2017.
The New Legacy is the same system built from about 2016 by an agency or a freelancer, as a browser diary with a React Native app, or in Power Apps or Zoho Creator by an office manager who wanted the paper gone. Since 2023 some firms have tried again with an AI builder and stalled before offline working or the Sage link.
Many service firms run a bought job management app for the engineers and keep a homegrown system for the contracts, the certificates or the yard. The join between the two is where these systems usually get stuck.
What modernising them gives the office
Three things, whichever system it is. The engineer's phone gets connected to it: the job sheet, the certificate, the transfer note and the customer's signature arrive in the office while the van is still on site, so the invoice goes the same day and the paper stops. The office gets one record instead of two: the due list without the spreadsheet beside it, the booking without being keyed twice, the app and the office system free to change without waiting on each other. And the questions that used to take a week get answered from a screen: the housing provider's audit, the insurer's questionnaire, the margin on last week's skips. Once the system is safe to change, AI takes the reading and the matching off the desk too: the job request drafted from the facilities manager's email, the old certificate read into the asset register, the tip's invoice matched to its weighbridge tickets. Each system page works out the time that gives back at its own job volumes.
None of it needs the old program switched off. Each piece goes in beside it, on the same data, and the office stops opening the old screen when the new one is better.
Systems in field services
One page per kind of system: the Old Guard version, the New Legacy version, what modernising it brings and where AI helps.
The job sheet and diary system that runs your engineers
- The Old Guard
- Written between 2004 and 2014 by a contractor or a local firm, in Access and then .NET over SQL Server, on a Windows server in the office.
- The New Legacy
- Put online between 2016 and 2022 by an agency or a freelancer in React, Node or .NET Core with an engineers' app, or in Power Apps or Bubble.
- Where AI helps
- Job requests read from the inbox and drafted for the scheduler to check, typically giving the office one to three hours of keying back a day.
The planned maintenance system that keeps your customers compliant
- The Old Guard
- Started between 2005 and 2012 as an Access database, with Crystal certificates and an Excel workbook of reminders, on the office PCs.
- The New Legacy
- Built between 2016 and 2022 by a freelancer or agency in PHP or React with a tablet visit form, or in Zoho Creator or Power Apps.
- Where AI helps
- Each certificate checked against the asset record before it issues, which at 30 to 100 visits a day typically hands the admin back most of a morning.
The app your engineers work from
- The Old Guard
- Built between 2012 and 2017 by an agency, as web code wrapped in PhoneGap, Cordova or Ionic or as a native pair, on the phones already in the vans.
- The New Legacy
- Built between 2018 and 2022 by an agency in React Native on its own Node API, or in Power Apps or FlutterFlow, with the store accounts in its name.
- Where AI helps
- The data plate read from a photo so the engineer confirms the serial instead of typing it, typically an hour or two a day back across the team.
The system that runs your skip hire yard
- The Old Guard
- Written in VB6 over SQL Server by a contractor from the early 2000s to about 2012, wired to the weighbridge from a server in the yard office.
- The New Legacy
- Built between 2016 and 2022 by a local agency in PHP or React with a drivers' app, or in Zoho Creator or Bubble, and never wired to the weighbridge.
- Where AI helps
- Tip invoices matched line by line to weighbridge tickets, so a day or more of month-end matching typically comes down to a couple of hours.
Questions
What people ask before they book.
Do the vans stop while the system is modernised?
No. The old system keeps running and each new piece goes in beside it on the same data, so the diary, the due list or the booking screen stays open throughout. The office switches to a new screen when it is better than the old one, and the old program is retired when nothing depends on it.
Our system holds rules nobody has written down. Do they survive?
They are the first thing the assessment looks for. The rate card, the certificate anniversary rule, the council permit notice days and the customers whose PO number is enough are found in the code, the reports and the spreadsheet with the people who use them, and written down. The old code stays as the reference until the new screens match it, and the history moves across as it is.
Is there anything AI could do for a system like ours?
Yes, once the system is safe to change, and in the paperwork rather than the scheduling. On systems like these it reads what already arrives in writing or in a photo, the job request email, the engineer's notes, the data plate on a boiler, the tip's invoice, and drafts the job, the report or the match for someone to check rather than type. It also answers the office's questions from the records, such as which sites on a contract still have a remedial outstanding. It comes after the first stage, because nothing new can be added safely to a system nobody can change, and the assessment maps where it would pay back on the system as it stands.
What does it cost, and how soon is there something to show for it?
The assessment is from £395 + VAT, with an exact price before you commit. It produces a report with costed options and a fixed price for each, and the first stage usually has something working within about six weeks, with each stage after that priced before you commit to it. The report is yours. Take it to us, another developer, or nobody.
Our system is not one of the four on this page. Is it the same kind of work?
Usually. The four pages describe the shapes that come up most often in field service businesses, and the system in the office is often a mix of them: a job diary with a certificates module, or a yard system with a drivers' app added later. The free consultation is where that gets worked out, and the assessment is sized on what is there.
Start with a free consultation
An hour on your system, online or by phone. From there we size the assessment, from £395 + VAT, and give you an exact price before you commit.
Want the numbers first? See how pricing works.
Written by Marc Allington, founder. .