Resources for trade businesses
Practical, no-fluff guides on quoting, scheduling, invoicing, recurring work and site safety, written for the people running the office and the van.
How to quote a trade job without underpricing yourself
A practical guide to quoting trade jobs: pricing labour, materials, travel and margin, building a reusable price list, and turning the quote into a job.
Dispatch scheduling 101: planning your crewโs week
How a dispatch board turns a pile of jobs into a plan: one board over many calendars, matching jโฆ
Recurring and repeat jobs: running maintenance contracts profitably
Why recurring work is so valuable, how to template a repeat job, schedule the series forward, prโฆ
Get paid faster: invoicing habits for trade businesses
Cut the gap between finishing a job and getting paid: invoice on completion from the field, makeโฆ
SWMS explained: a plain-English guide for trades
What a Safe Work Method Statement is, when you need one, what goes in it, and how to keep signedโฆ
Moving from spreadsheets to job management software
Signs you have outgrown the spreadsheet, what you gain from purpose-built job management, how toโฆ
Job costing for trades: did that job actually make money?
How to capture labour, materials and overhead against each job, compare quoted versus actual, anโฆ
Your first hire: employee or subcontractor?
The signs you are ready to take someone on, the trade-offs between an employee and a subcontractโฆ
A site safety starter checklist for small trade jobs
A practical, plain-English starting point for keeping small jobs safe: assess the site, control โฆ
Weighing up your options?
See how SKEDS compares with other job management tools, fairly, then decide with a free trial.