Beyond quoting, look for five things: site-survey forms with photos, certificate and test-result forms you can sign on site, a handover pack built from the same job record, scheduling for survey and install visits, and an export of everything. AI helps most with survey summaries and customer wording, never with test readings or sign-off.
Search results for this topic are dominated by installer apps from charger makers and charge-point platforms, which solve a different problem from the one a small firm has. The checklist below is neutral: it works whichever charger brands you fit, and it separates what a general job app can do from what only a commissioning app can.
Two kinds of software, and why an installer needs both
A commissioning app is built around a charger or a platform. One platform's help article describes four steps: create a location with its main fuse limit and an optional energy-management setting, add each station by manufacturer and model, enter each station's ID, phase rotation and maximum power, then type in the customer's email so the app generates a location report and a handover document. Another platform's installer page says you can configure chargers before you are on site, update firmware where the brand allows it and hand the site over by email or QR code.
Job software does something else. It books the survey, holds the customer and the quote, issues your own forms, tracks the parts and chases the deposit, and it covers every job, including a charger brand no commissioning app supports. You will usually need both layers, and the skill is making sure the second holds a copy of what the first produces.
Two neutral points from vendor pages are worth knowing before you pick a charger ecosystem:
- Free to you can mean paid by the owner. One installer page says the platform is free and its smart charging is paid per socket by the owner. That may be fair, but your customer should hear about it at quote stage rather than from a later invoice.
- Open protocols are not the same as open settings. A charge-point software vendor's own buyer guidance warns that a charger may support an open protocol and still lock important behaviour inside the manufacturer's app, and suggests asking which settings can only be changed there. If you fit several brands, you will carry several apps, which is a good reason to keep the job record in one place.
Five jobs your job software must do beyond the quote
1. Site-survey forms that insist on photos
A survey form should capture the same facts on every visit: mounting location, a photo of the main electrical panel (the consumer unit or distribution board), the supply type, the earthing arrangement, the cable route and its length, the wall type, the signal strength at the mounting point and where the car will park. The useful features are required fields and required photos, so a survey cannot be submitted without a picture of the panel, and offline use, because garages and meter cupboards have poor signal. Test it by building your form in half an hour and completing it on a phone in flight mode.
The EV charger site survey checklist lists the fields in detail; the point here is whether your software can hold them.
Here is a slip, invented but plausible, that a required-photo rule would have prevented. A survey notes "garage on the left, short run" and records no photo of the route. The quote assumes 8 metres of cable. On install day the run has to go round an outbuilding and measures 20 metres, so the installer either absorbs the extra 12 metres of cable and the labour or has an awkward conversation with the customer. A form that refuses to submit without a photo of the route, and a field for measured length, turns that guess into a number before the quote goes out.
2. Certificates and test results you can sign on site
Ask whether the app generates the certificate layout your scheme or inspection body requires, or lets you attach your own PDF and complete it, then store it against the job. You want signature capture, certificate numbering, a stored PDF the customer receives by email, and a record that shows when a signed document was changed. Test it with a dummy certificate: complete it, open the PDF on another device and check units, decimals and dates. If you need a wider view of certificate apps, the electrical certification apps checklist covers them and the electrical installation certificate tutorial explains what AI can draft and what you must sign.
3. A commissioning record you can search a year later
Record the charger model, serial number, firmware version, current limit, load-balancing setting, commissioning date and photos of the label and the finished work. Customers ring a year later with the serial number or a fault code, and a firm that can find the record in ten seconds looks organised. Asset or custom fields do the job: test by searching for a serial number you entered last week.
4. A handover pack the job record assembles
The pack normally contains the certificates, the commissioning record, a customer guide, warranty details, your contact details and a few photos. One job-software vendor's EV workflow guide counts rebuilding the handover pack from emails after the job among the usual problems, which is the thing to test: does the software build the pack from the job record, or do you re-create it from a pile of attachments? Time it on a real install.
A filled-in pack for one example install might hold seven items: the signed certificate as a PDF; the commissioning record (model, serial number, firmware version, current limit, load-balancing setting, date); a one-page customer guide; the warranty registration confirmation; three photos (the charger label, the panel and the finished run); your contact sheet with the fault procedure; and a sign-off page the customer confirms on a phone. If the software cannot assemble most of those from the job record in a few clicks, it has not removed the evening paperwork.
5. Scheduling and aftercare in the same system
A good setup books a survey, an install and a follow-up call in sequence, reserves the charger and parts, shows who is qualified to do which visit, and links any later fault job to the original install. Test that last link: raise a fault job on a past install and see whether the original certificate and serial number appear. If you handle grants or rebates, add one more rule. One grant scheme's installer guidance, for example, asks for photos clear enough to verify each charger's model and serial number and treats work installed before approval as ineligible, so read the rules of every scheme you claim through. Build an "approval received" field into the job template, and make it a gate before the install can be booked.
To picture the sequence, here is one job as the calendar should hold it: survey on Tuesday, quote sent on Wednesday, deposit received on Friday, parts reserved on Monday, install on Thursday with two people booked for five hours, a follow-up call a week later and a 30-day check message. Each step has a named owner, and the follow-up call and message are created automatically when the install is marked complete. If your software cannot create those later steps for you, someone will forget them in a busy month.
What a small firm can do with a general job app
You may not need a niche product. A general job app can cover surveys, certificates and handover if its forms are flexible. The table shows what the vendors' own pages said in October 2026.
| Option | What it gives for EV paperwork | Price on its page | Watch-outs |
|---|---|---|---|
| ServiceM8, Growing plan | Electronic forms you build from a Word template or buy in a form store, with photo, signature, date, choice, text and number questions; PDF output saved to the job diary. Checklists, photos and an AI writing helper on every plan | $79 a month on the USD page, unlimited users, up to 150 jobs a month. Free plan has purchased forms only. 14-day trial | Forms and certificates need Growing or higher. Asset management shows as a Growing feature in the pricing table but as an add-on on its feature page, so confirm |
| Tradify | Job photos and files on Pro and Plus; job templates and costing on Pro; AI tools (SmartWrite, and SmartRead for bills) on Plus | $47, $51 and $61 per user a month for Lite, Pro and Plus. 14-day trial | Its pricing page mentions an enquiry form and branded online documents, but no survey forms, checklists or certificates, so ask before assuming |
| Forms tool plus folder | Survey and handover forms, signatures, PDFs, one shared folder per job | Jotform Starter free (5 forms, 100 submissions a month, 500 stored); Bronze $39 a month for 1,000 submissions | Google Forms file upload needs the respondent to sign in with Google, which suits you filling it in but not a customer sending photos |
Two practical points. First, the ServiceM8 forms page lists certificates of compliance and inspection reports as examples, so the structure suits your work, but whether a form reproduces the exact layout your scheme requires is for you to test. Second, a three-person firm on ServiceM8 pays one flat fee, while on Tradify's Pro plan the same three people cost $153 a month, so user count changes the comparison.
Both apps now carry some AI of their own. ServiceM8's pricing page lists an AI writing helper on every plan (ten assists a day on Free, unlimited on paid plans) and an Office Agent from Starter, with a Pro version at $39 a month; Tradify keeps SmartWrite and SmartRead on Plus. The writing tools draft job notes and customer messages inside the job record, which saves copying text between windows, but the rule is the same as for a chat assistant: the tool drafts the words, and your instruments supply the readings.
For jobs where photo evidence is heavy, a dedicated photo app can sit beside either route; the construction photo app tutorial compares them and what their AI adds.
Paperwork minutes: the sum that decides
Quotes are only the first of the jobs software saves time on. Take a hypothetical three-person firm that fits 14 chargers a month and does 20 surveys, six of which never become installs. Here are the paperwork minutes per task, first by hand, then in a job app with forms (all invented, so measure your own):
| Task | Count a month | By hand (min each) | In a job app (min each) | By hand total | App total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Survey write-up with photos | 20 | 25 | 12 | 500 | 240 |
| Certificate and test record | 14 | 20 | 12 | 280 | 168 |
| Commissioning record | 14 | 10 | 6 | 140 | 84 |
| Handover pack | 14 | 30 | 8 | 420 | 112 |
| Total | 1,340 | 604 |
That is a saving of 736 minutes, or 12.3 hours a month. At $40 an hour of owner or office time, the saving is about $491 a month against a $79 plan, so roughly $412 net. The same sum with Tradify at $153 for three users and a separate forms tool at $39 gives $192 a month and a net near $299, which is still positive but smaller. The sums are only as good as your minutes, so the trial below exists to measure them.
The forms-tool route has a limit worth calculating. Twenty surveys, 14 certificates, 14 commissioning records and 14 handover sign-offs make 62 submissions a month, inside Jotform's free 100 but filling the 500 stored in about eight months. Plan to export and clear them before the limit bites.
Where AI helps in an installer's week
AI earns a place in four jobs, all of them words rather than measurements, and one rule covers every one: you read the output before it leaves the building.
Turning survey notes into a summary and a gap list
Paste your typed notes and the list of photos you took, and ask for a customer-ready summary, a list of what is missing, and points for the electrician to decide. Do not paste addresses or full names.
Below are my site-survey notes and the list of photos taken.
1. Summarise what was found in plain English for the customer, in 5 sentences.
2. List information that is missing or unclear (for example a photo not listed).
3. List anything the electrician should decide, without deciding it yourself.
Use only the notes. Do not state capacities, cable sizes or suitability.
Notes: [paste]. Photos: [list].A sample result lists a photo of the panel, a note that the cable run is "about 18 m" without saying how it was measured, a note that the signal at the mounting point is poor, and that no photo of the earthing arrangement was taken. It then adds: "The existing panel has spare capacity." That last line is not in the notes, and it is exactly the kind of sentence that causes trouble. Delete it, and note that the gap list has done its job by catching the missing earthing photo before the customer is told a price.
A handover guide copied from the manual, not invented
Customers want a one-page guide: how to start and stop a charge, what the status lights mean, how to set up the app and who to call. Paste the relevant manual extract and the job facts, and instruct: "Use only this extract. Copy any safety statement word for word. Mark anything not in the extract as 'check the manual'." A typical slip is a confident figure, such as how fast the car will charge, that is not in the manual at all. Strike it, and read every instruction against the manual before the pack goes out.
A sample extract of what comes back: "To start a charge, plug in the cable and the unit begins automatically. A steady green light means ready. A flashing red light means a fault: check the manual. The unit charges your car in about 30 minutes." The first three sentences might trace to the manual. The last has no source and depends on the car, the supply and the unit, so it goes. The test is simple: every sentence in the guide should be traceable to a page number.
A completeness check before you sign
Paste the text of a completed form and ask for blanks, missing units and inconsistent dates, adding "do not suggest values". A sample reply: "The insulation resistance reading has no unit. The test date is earlier than the install date. The signature date is blank." You fix those yourself, from your instruments and your diary. This is the AI use I would start with, because it only reports what is on the page.
First questions for a fault report
When a customer messages that the charger is not working, an assistant can turn the message into the questions you need answered before sending someone: what the status light shows, whether the app shows the unit as online, whether anything else lost power, whether the unit looks damaged. Write your own safety line once ("If you see damage or smell burning, stop using it and call me") and paste it into the prompt so the assistant repeats your wording rather than inventing advice.
A fortnight's test on one real install
Run any candidate on one live job, from survey to handover, and score it:
- Days 1 to 2: build the survey form and complete it offline at a real site. Pass: required photos enforced, nothing lost on reconnect.
- Days 3 to 5: set up the certificate and the commissioning record. Pass: a dummy certificate opens correctly on another device and shows when it was signed.
- Days 6 to 10: run the live install, timing each paperwork task. Pass: your minutes sit near the figures you assumed in the sum above.
- Days 11 to 12: build the handover pack and send it to yourself. Pass: assembled from the job record in under ten minutes.
- Day 13: raise a fault job against the install. Pass: the serial number and certificate appear without searching.
- Day 14: export everything and open it elsewhere. Pass: photos, forms and customer details come out in usable formats.
If the vendor's trial is shorter, ask for an extension in writing before you start. A supplier unwilling to extend a trial for a real job is telling you how flexible support will be.
Questions to send every vendor
- Can I build my own survey and certificate forms, and can I attach my scheme's official form instead?
- Does it work offline, and what happens to a half-completed form if the signal drops?
- Can a signed document be altered afterwards, and is the change recorded?
- Can I export every job, photo, form and customer record, and who owns that data if I leave?
- What does the AI feature see, such as photos or only text, and is my content used to train a model?
- How is it priced: per user, per job, with AI credits or add-ons, and what changes at renewal?
- Which charger brands does the commissioning side support, and what happens for a brand it does not?
- What are the support hours, and what is the usual reply time?
Put the answers in a grid with one column per vendor, and read any unanswered question as a no. A supplier that cannot explain how to leave with your data has already told you what leaving would be like.
Questions installers ask before choosing software
Do I still need the charger maker's installer app if I buy job software?
Usually yes, whenever the charger needs its maker's app for commissioning, firmware or warranty registration. The two do different jobs. Let the maker's app configure the unit, then put the serial number, settings, photos and any exported report into your job record, so the whole install lives in one place.
Can a general job app produce the certificates I need?
It can store, complete, sign and send forms and PDFs. Whether its template matches the layout your scheme or inspection body requires is something to test with a dummy certificate. If it does not match, attach the official form to the job and complete that, using the app as the filing and sending system.
Is it safe to use AI on test results and certificates?
Not for the readings. Test values must come from your instruments and your own record, and the signature is yours. AI can check a completed form for blanks, missing units and inconsistent dates, and it can rewrite notes for customers. Never ask it to suggest, fill in or round a reading.
What is the cheapest way for a one-van installer to start?
A phone, a free forms plan, a shared folder and a spreadsheet. Jotform's free plan allows 5 forms and 100 submissions a month, which covers about 30 installs if each needs a survey, certificate and handover form. Time your paperwork for a month, and move to a job app when minutes per job are the problem.
Further reads
- Solar Installer Software: CRM, Design and Tracking, and Where AI Helps — Installer software compared, from CRM to project tracking.
- Seven Best AI Tools for Electricians, From Calls to Certificates — Seven AI tools for electricians, calls to certificates.
- Compliance Calendar: Track Licences, Insurance and Certificates — Tracking licences, insurance and certificate renewals.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: ServiceM8 pricing and feature pages (USD) and Tradify pricing page, read October 2026; a charge-point platform's installer page and buyer guidance; an installer-app help article; a job-software vendor's EV charging workflow guide. Vendor pages are self-reported marketing, so test every claim on your own jobs.