Guide
Certificates and forms: which trade apps include them
Updated
For a lot of trades this is the whole decision. If the paperwork does not come out of the app, the app has not replaced anything.
The tier trap
Certificates are the classic upsell in this market, and the pattern is consistent enough to plan around. On Tradify, forms and certificates start at the Pro tier (£37 per user per month), not Lite (£34). On Powered Now, they start at Professional (£32), not Business (£28), with automated certificate reminders.
On Joblogic, Electronic Forms are in the Standard plan but the custom form builder is held back to Enterprise. Budget from the tier that has your paperwork in it, not from the headline. Choosing between the two per-user apps with the widest gap in contract terms? See Tradify vs Joblogic.
What each supplier says it produces
- Gas Engineer Software
- The most specific of the eight. Gas records and certificates including CP12 landlord gas safety records, oil records and certificates, job sheets, full certificate history on every plan, an AI certificate validator that checks for missing zeros and misplaced decimal points, and air source heat pump records listed as coming soon.
- Tradify
- Forms and certificates as a named feature, with separate pages for oil and gas safety certificates and electrical safety certificates. Compliance certificates are listed in the Pro plan's feature list.
- Powered Now
- Digital forms and certificates from Professional, with automated certificate reminders, plus drawings and annotations on Premium.
- ServiceM8
- Electronic forms described as completing any kind of report, procedure or certificate on site and generating it as a professional PDF.
- Okappy
- Standard templates and check sheets on every plan, with custom templates, custom check sheets and daily check sheets on the higher tiers.
- Joblogic
- Electronic Forms (Standard) on the entry plan; its industry pages name gas certificates and F gas compliance for heating and HVAC work.
- YourTradebase
- Not named on the pricing page we read. The product is presented as quotes, scheduling, invoices and card payments, which for a builder or decorator may be the whole job.
- Fergus
- Job cards are the named on-site document. The plan comparison does not name UK trade certificates.
Every description is what the supplier states on its own pages, read on 15 August 2026. A named feature is not a guarantee that the output matches the certificate body's current template, which changes independently of the software.
Two questions that settle it in a demo
- Ask them to produce the exact certificate you issue most often, filled in, as a PDF, on a phone, in front of you. Not a screenshot from a slide.
- Ask what happens when the certificate template changes: whether the supplier updates it, whether you rebuild it, and whether your old ones stay readable in their original form.
Keep the old ones
Whatever you choose, work out where the last few years of certificates live and how to get them out. Retention periods are set by the scheme or customer contract, not your software supplier. The moment you need an old one, you have already left the previous system. Ask what an export looks like before you migrate, not after.