EICR and gas certs: how to spend less time on paperwork

Certificates are the bit nobody got into the trade for. EICRs, gas safety records, minor works — important, unavoidable, and a proper drag when you are filling them in from scratch at the end of a long day. A few habits make them far less painful.

Capture the detail on the job

The information for a cert is freshest the moment you are stood at the board or the appliance. Jot the readings and details there and then, rather than trying to remember them back in the van.

Work from the job record

If the customer, address and job details are already saved, half the cert is filled before you start. Re-typing the same address and name onto every document is wasted time.

Standardise your common certs

You do the same few certificate types again and again. A consistent way of filling each one — same order, same defaults — turns a fiddly job into a quick one.

Keep them findable

A cert you cannot find is almost as bad as one you never did. Store them against the job and the customer, so when someone rings two years later for a copy it is thirty seconds, not an evening.

Or fill them from the job

TradePA pulls cert details straight from the job you just did — EICR, gas safety, boiler service and more — so you are not typing them from scratch. See it for electricians.