Frequently Asked Questions

Check out answers to some of our most commonly asked questions.

General

What can TrackTrade do for me?

TrackTrade exists to help you/your trades business save time, energy and money. It seeks to solve organisational and logistical problems that crop up naturally as businesses grow. We have seen these problems many times in the industry and they include:

• Long, unwieldy, unreliable physical paper trails making it hard to work with key client data and evidence of work done.
• Business communications done through not fit for purpose platforms like WhatsApp slowing down jobs organisation.
• Business data such as customer info kept on massive Excel sheets making it slow to find, process and add to.

TrackTrade tackles these issues in several ways:

• Digitising all your key info in one place makes it far easier to view and manage. Vital info becomes only a few clicks away. Who worked that job? How long were they on site? What is that client's address again? How is our schedule looking this week? We've got it all streamlined for you.
• Tailored for trades system. Unlike general solutions like Excel, TrackTrade is exclusively focused on the world of tradeswork and so we can do a better job delivering the right answers to specific problems.
• Everything done on the app is recorded in an audit trail. This means legitimate evidence of work done or not done and less time wasted trying to mediate when disagreements occur and payments withheld.
• Many types of evidence of Jobs done are supported. You can record signatures, before/after photos of the work done, important documents like RAMS, hours worked and more.

By solving these issues we look to free up your valuable resources to be better spent taking your business to new heights!

As a contractor, this just seems like extra work! Why should I bother?

We get that there will be a small learning curve and it can feel like a pointless disruption at first but we really believe TrackTrade benefits everyone involved, not just your employer.

With all the info streamlined into the app for you, that means can get on with your jobs quicker and more easily.

Also, your employer can save a great deal of resources with this system meaning they can spend more of them on finding new jobs for you meaning better job security.

I'm new and not sure how to get started.

Check out our TrackTrade Academy tutorials to get you up and running ASAP or for a quick refresher on the basics:

For Office Staff (office admins), see here.

For Field Staff (workers/contractors), see here.

I'm unsure what X means.

If you're looking for our definitions of TrackTrade terms then check out our Glossary.

I know of a company that could potentially benefit from TrackTrade, can I refer you to them?

Yes! Check out our referral program page for details. If a referral leads to a successful relationship then you could earn £300 in vouchers and save money on your software!

I need help understanding a feature of TrackTrade or troubleshooting an issue.

Please check out our new documentation for useful tutorials and reference material. Keep in mind that it is currently a work in progress.  If these don't solve your issue then please contact us at support@tracktrade.co.uk. Feedback on the docs and on articles you'd like to see are welcome too!

I have feedback about a feature, a bug, something else.

We love to hear all feedback about TrackTrade! Shoot us an email at support@tracktrade.co.uk.

Jobs

What exactly is a Job? How do I know it is a good fit for my needs?

The Job concept is at the core of TrackTrade.

To open a Job is you saying you have a specific chunk of work that needs done. The Job contains all information concerning and surrounding that work. Things like the work description, the Staff involved, the timescales, evidence of the work done, quotes and invoices, etc.

To close a Job means you have completed that work with your Office/Field Staff members and all financial concerns are sorted too.

We see a Job as a fairly flexible term covering any bite-sized block of work that takes between an hour and up to a few weeks so it should be useful in practically any scenario.

We feel it would not be as suitable for a months long project but there is nothing preventing this use-case. If you do want to manage a long term project through TrackTrade then consider breaking it down into smaller blocks and then creating the appropriate Jobs.

What is a Problem Job?

A Problem Job is a Job that has hit a snag! Don't worry, this is to be expected. This means there is now something blocking the Job that has been flagged up and noted on TrackTrade.

For example, your contractor has been sent on a Job but on arrival there has been no one on site to give them physical access so the contractor then flags this up on TrackTrade as a problem. The Office Staff agent then sees this pop up on their end allowing them to action the issue (perhaps in this case by directly contacting the Customer) to resolve it quickly and efficiently.

This also contributes to the overall audit trail so that future questions on what happened are answered instantly.

Technical

What devices does TrackTrade work on?

TrackTrade is a cloud-based web app so it should run on all modern devices such as phones, tablets, desktops and latops that have internet access. We recommend Chrome or Safari browsers for optimal experience.

Why isn't the app available on the Play Store/App Store?

Fair question! While we considered this during development, ultimately our research led us to the conclusion that our app would work best as a Progressive Web App. This allows us to code once and then have the app available on many kinds of devices in a clean way. This may change in the future but we are happy with this solution for now.