Member Article

New software for trade businesses aims to significantly improve how UK contracting companies work

New desktop and mobile software, called Orthinc, aims to make day-to-day operations and administration much simpler and smarter for small and medium sized trade businesses, including electrical and plumbing companies.

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The software works by connecting a company’s office administrators with their field engineers so that jobs can be more easily managed.

The application has already been recognised by industry experts when it came runner up in the Electrical Times App of the Year Awards in late 2017.

Orthinc was especially praised for its ease of use. After sending job details to assigned engineers, it collects and stores important data from the field such as materials ordered, stock used and time spent on-site. This information is then displayed on one simple page and can be used for fast and accurate invoicing.

Simon Jackson, an early adopter of the software, said that the system was an invaluable asset to his business.

Since being approached by the Orthinc team one year ago to trial the software, I think it’s been moulded into the perfect tool for small and medium sized contracting companies. We use it every day to send our engineers out on jobs and receive information back from them. As well as improving our daily workflow, it has directly saved us time and money. For example, when seven invoices for parts went missing last month, Orthinc highlighted that we hadn’t charged our client for them which saved us around £3500. We would never go back to our old system, it’s changed the way we work.

The Orthinc team which is based in Bury, Greater Manchester, began developing the software over 18 months ago with the goal of helping to reduce contractors’ dependence on inefficient job management systems, such as complicated software, excel spreadsheets and order code books. Now, the team hope to go beyond that by providing the easiest, most accessible solution to job management. Orthinc lead designer, Kieran McIntyre said:

Time and money are the most important resources to contractors and poor processes can waste lots of both. Although software has attempted to provide a solution to this, none before Orthinc has really hit the nail on the head. For job management software to truly benefit contractors, it has to be genuinely easy to use – otherwise you are just giving them another hurdle to jump. Simplicity has been our main focus here at Orthinc. We’ve worked hard to make a system that can be picked up by anyone and used straight away, so that its benefits are instantly felt.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Connor McIntyre .