The new Graham App from Graham Plumbers’ Merchant has been designed to help small heating and plumbing businesses with everything from product selection to digital record keeping. Here, Ian Kenny, Marketing Director at Graham, explains the idea behind the new app and how it can help businesses to be more profitable.

To maximise profits and cashflow, and deliver the best customer service, tradespeople need to minimise the amount of time spent on tasks such as ordering materials and parts or producing quotes and managing invoices. While essential to the success of the business, these are often time consuming and put pressure on the working hours of business owners.

Created in collaboration with tax digitalisation developers Powered Now, the Graham App offers a range of features that make life easier for heating and plumbing businesses. At the most basic level the app provides easy access to Graham product catalogues, including Trade Saver that details all the current offers on essential products. However, the app also allows tradespeople to create quotes, purchase orders and invoices as well as manage supplier invoices, log expenses and keep clear customer and supplier records.

Having properly laid-out and branded quotes and invoices is one of the simplest ways to project professionalism and foster trust from customers. However, we understand that sometimes the quote for a job needs to be sent to a customer quickly, so a basic version has to suffice. The Graham App makes the process of creating professional documents simple with 26 templates to choose from that can be customised with the company logo and marks of accreditation such as the Gas Safe Register. Because these documents can be created directly from the app using a smartphone or tablet it does not require you to be at a computer – ideal if you are out on the job all day.

With the Graham catalogues accessible directly from the app, the process of entering the costs into the quote is also simple. It is just a matter of selecting the required products and clicking to add them to the quote. Alternatively, product descriptions and prices can be entered manually as well as labour and additional costs. The completed quote can then be sent to the customer from the app with the option to receive notifications when it is opened and accepted. The quote can then be converted into a purchase order to be sent directly to the supplier for processing.

Furthermore, once the job is completed, an invoice can be created from the quote and emailed to the customer with the same notifications available for when it is opened. When payment is received the job can be marked as paid to provide a record of what is still outstanding. Because cash flow is so important to small businesses, having a simple overview of the customer invoices that still need to be paid is valuable and allows reminders to be sent where necessary. With the Graham App, supplier invoices can also be captured and managed as well as any expenses logged.

As the app allows all the financial details and documents to be kept in one easily accessible place it helps tradespeople to comply with the Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative introduced by the Government in April last year. MTD requires businesses to keep digital records of all jobs and invoicing as well as generate their tax returns from these records. The Graham App streamlines this process and minimises the amount of extra work required as each job, purchase, expense and invoice is stored digitally and can be accessed when needed. Crucially, the app is also available offline allowing users to access their documents at any time, even when they are without Internet access.

It is available for iOS and Android devices, as well as a desktop-based portal to allow you to access it in the way that is most convenient.

For small heating and plumbing businesses where time and resources are limited, streamlining processes such as quoting, invoicing and recording purchases and expenses is valuable. Also, with the need to meet the requirements of the Making Tax Digital initiative there is now even more incentive to adopt an approach that centralises all documents and information to allow easy access and reference. In developing the Graham App, we have considered what our customers require and ensured you have everything you could need all in one place.

To find out more and download the mobile version visit www.grahamplumbersapp.com.