https://tradeyoke.net/blog/tag/product What's new in TradeYoke and why we built it that way. en-gb https://tradeyoke.net/blog/stop-no-shows-appointment-reminder-texts https://tradeyoke.net/blog/stop-no-shows-appointment-reminder-texts Fri, 25 Sep 2026 03:33:16 GMT A missed appointment costs a trade business the travel time, the slot another customer could have had, and the awkward call to rebook. Here's what actually cuts no-shows, and how TradeYoke automates it. Carl Randall Messaging Guides Product https://tradeyoke.net/blog/invoices-and-texts-in-welsh https://tradeyoke.net/blog/invoices-and-texts-in-welsh Thu, 24 Sep 2026 02:33:16 GMT TradeYoke's message templates — every quote, invoice, receipt and text — now ship in English, Spanish, Welsh, German, Portuguese and French. Here's why that matters for a Welsh-speaking customer base, and exactly how the language your business posts in is chosen. TradeYoke team Messaging Product Guides https://tradeyoke.net/blog/website-for-a-window-cleaning-or-gardening-business https://tradeyoke.net/blog/website-for-a-window-cleaning-or-gardening-business Thu, 24 Sep 2026 02:33:16 GMT Most window cleaning and gardening businesses grow by word of mouth and a van sign — until the phone stops being the fastest way for a new customer to book. Here's when a website earns its keep, and what to put on it. Carl Randall Guides Window cleaning Gardening Product https://tradeyoke.net/blog/automatic-invoicing-and-pay-now-links https://tradeyoke.net/blog/automatic-invoicing-and-pay-now-links Wed, 23 Sep 2026 01:33:16 GMT TradeYoke can now raise and send a window cleaning, gardening or scaffolding invoice the moment the job's marked done, and every invoice carries a Pay now button — on the email, the PDF and the customer's own account page. 💷 Late payment costs UK small businesses real money in time and cash flow — HMRC's Making Tax Digital rules aside, an invoice that isn't raised on the day it's earned is an invoice that takes longer to collect. The fix that works, for every trade we've watched, is the same: shorten the gap between the job finishing and the ask to pay. ### What you can do about it today, TradeYoke or not Quick answer: raise the invoice the same day, put a way to pay by card on it, and stop sending an invoice that just states a total with no button to act on. ### Five habits that get you paid faster, whatever you use - ✓ Invoice same-day, not same-week — The longer the gap between the job and the invoice, the less the customer remembers why they're paying — and the easier it is for you to forget to send it at all. - ✓ Put a way to pay ON the invoice — A PDF with a bank sort code buried in the footer asks the customer to do the work of paying. A button that already knows the amount does not. - ✓ Make the link work more than once — A pay link that dies after a day just means a second, more awkward, message a week later. - ✓ Decide your default, and stick to it — Card payments by default with a manual option for the regulars who prefer bank transfer beats deciding case by case, tired, at 9pm. - ✓ Keep a debt book, even a rough one — Knowing who owes what and for how long is the difference between chasing early and chasing embarrassingly late. ### How TradeYoke does it: the job invoices itself Quick answer: turn on automatic invoicing for window cleaning, gardening or scaffolding and a job raises and emails its own invoice the moment it's marked done — off by default, with a per-customer override. TradeYoke's invoicing sits on an immutable ledger, so every invoice, payment and adjustment is a permanent entry rather than a field someone can quietly edit. On top of that ledger, a completed job can now raise its own invoice and send it — for window cleaning, gardening and scaffolding — the moment it's marked done. It's off by default for the whole business, so nothing changes until you decide it should, and it's off (or on) per customer too, for the accounts where a blanket rule is the wrong call — the regular who's always invoiced monthly, say, or the landlord who wants one statement for six properties. [Image: An invoice raised from a completed job, with the Pay now link already attached] ### Pay now, wherever the customer is looking Quick answer: a Pay now button now appears on the invoice email, on the PDF itself, and on the customer's own portal page — always for exactly what's still owed, and the link stays live. Getting the invoice out is only half of it; the other half is not making the customer hunt for a way to pay it. TradeYoke now puts a Pay now button in three places a customer is actually likely to be looking: the email the invoice arrives in, the PDF document itself (so it still works if they've saved or forwarded it), and their own portal page if you've set one up. Whichever one they tap, it charges exactly what's still owed — not the original total if part of it's already been paid — and a copied link keeps working, rather than quietly expiring after a day. You can turn Pay now off tenant-wide, or set an individual customer to always or never see it, for the accounts you'd rather handled by bank transfer. ### A Stripe set-up that doesn't need a technical co-founder Quick answer: Connect with Stripe now asks for one thing at a time and needs only your secret key to get going — no webhook key hunting required to start taking card payments. Card payments run through your own Stripe account — TradeYoke never holds your money — and the connection screen has been simplified so it shows only the next thing you actually need to do, with everything else ticked off or tucked away. If the connection ever gets into a stuck, technical-looking state, TradeYoke now clears it automatically and invites you to reconnect with a plain message instead of showing you a raw error. **Whose Stripe account is it?** Yours. You connect your own Stripe account in settings, and payouts go straight to your bank on Stripe's normal schedule — TradeYoke is never in the middle of your money. **Which jobs can invoice themselves?** Window cleaning, gardening and scaffolding today. It's off by default for the whole business and can be switched on — or overridden for one customer — in settings. **Does Pay now work without an online account?** Yes. Neither the pay link nor the customer portal need the customer to create a login or download anything. **Can I still take bank transfer or cash?** Yes — manual payments are recorded against the invoice the same way as card payments, and the ledger treats them the same for your reports. Related: Invoicing & payments · Customer portal · Getting paid · The who-owes-me morning report ### Stop chasing your own invoices 30 days of Essentials free, no card required. Import your customers and see the next invoice send itself. [Start your free trial](https://app.tradeyoke.net/signup) ]]> TradeYoke team Payments Guides Product https://tradeyoke.net/blog/how-to-plan-a-window-cleaning-round https://tradeyoke.net/blog/how-to-plan-a-window-cleaning-round Sun, 20 Sep 2026 23:33:16 GMT A round that looks full on paper can still waste an hour of driving if it isn't planned properly. Here's what actually makes a window cleaning round efficient, what dedicated round-planning tools get right, and how TradeYoke's Plan my day automates the decide-order-go routine every morning. Carl Randall Window cleaning Guides Product https://tradeyoke.net/blog/keeping-a-lone-working-tradesperson-safe https://tradeyoke.net/blog/keeping-a-lone-working-tradesperson-safe Sun, 20 Sep 2026 23:33:16 GMT A scaffolder on their own on a roof, an electrician alone in a plant room, a solar installer working a rural site — lone working is normal in these trades. Here's what genuinely reduces the risk, and how TradeYoke gives the office real visibility without a box wired into the van. Carl Randall Compliance Product Guides https://tradeyoke.net/blog/why-offline-first-matters-for-trades https://tradeyoke.net/blog/why-offline-first-matters-for-trades Tue, 18 Aug 2026 21:15:11 GMT Every field app claims to 'work on mobile'. Very few keep working when the signal drops behind a house, in a basement or halfway up a valley. Here's why we built TradeYoke the other way round. Carl Randall Product Mobile https://tradeyoke.net/blog/offline-first-why-it-matters https://tradeyoke.net/blog/offline-first-why-it-matters Thu, 21 May 2026 08:15:11 GMT Signal drops in basements, plant rooms and country lanes. An app that keeps working there, and syncs honestly when the signal returns, is the one you'll actually use. Offline is not a mode. It is the ordinary condition of a working day, and the app should be built for the ordinary condition. — TradeYoke ### Why the web app is different, and why we say so TradeYoke runs on web, iOS, Android and Windows from one codebase. The installed apps, on the phone and on a Windows laptop, are offline-first in the sense above: local store, queued changes, sync with conflict rules. The web app in a browser is the always-online office front door. It is where the office plans the week, sends the invoices and reads the reports, and it assumes a connection. We say that plainly because "works offline" on a website usually means very little, and because the split is deliberate. The phone is where the signal drops, so the phone is where offline lives. The platform page sets out what each surface does. > ✅ Offline mobile is included in every TradeYoke plan, including Free. It is not an add-on, because a phone app that stops in a basement is not a phone app. ### What it looks like on a wet Tuesday A window cleaner working a rural round loses signal at the third stop and does not notice. The stop is marked done, the customer pays cash and it is recorded against the visit, the next customer's gate is locked so the visit is skipped with a note, and the rain sets in at stop nine. The undone stops are moved to Thursday in one go, as described in the rain days post. None of that needed a connection. When the van reaches the main road, the queue sends: the done, the cash, the skip, the carry-over. The office sees the round's state, the owed figure updates, and the "we're coming Thursday" texts can go out. The cleaner did not think about signal once. [Image: Plan my day on the phone: the morning decisions are made once and sent to the phone, so the day runs from the local copy.] ### How we built it, briefly Every change is a small, self-describing operation with its own id, so sending it twice does nothing and sending it late still works. Each record carries a version tag; a change made against an old version is detected, not silently applied. The phone pulls a feed of what changed on the server since it last asked, rather than re-downloading everything. Conflict rules are declared per kind of change, and the ones that cannot be resolved automatically are surfaced to a person. That is the substance behind the marketing phrase. It applies to every trade on the trades page, because the sync layer does not know or care whether the record is a window cleaning visit or a gardening one. The live monitoring described in the tracking post rides on the same connection logic. ### How to test any app's offline claim - ✓ Put the phone in flight mode before opening the app — If it will not open, the claim is about cached pages, not work. - ✓ Mark a job done, take a photo, record a cash payment — All three, with no signal. Then book the next visit. - ✓ Change the same job from another device — Then turn the signal back on and see which change survives, and whether the app tells you. - ✓ Close the app, reopen it, still offline — The queued changes should still be there. - ✓ Reconnect and check the office view — Everything should arrive, in order, once. ### Questions people ask **Does the app work with no signal all day?** Yes, on the phone and installed apps. The day's data is on the device, changes queue on the device, and the queue sends when a connection is available, whether that is at the next stop or back at the yard that evening. **What if the phone dies before it syncs?** The queue is stored on the device, not in memory, so it survives the app being closed or the phone being restarted. Charge it and reconnect and the changes send. If the phone is lost, unsynced changes on it are lost with it, which is a reason to let it sync at the next opportunity rather than at the end of the week. **Does the web app work offline?** No, and we say so. The browser app is the always-online office surface for planning, invoicing and reporting. Offline lives in the installed apps on iOS, Android and Windows, which is where the signal actually drops. **Does offline cost extra?** No. Offline mobile on all four platforms is part of every plan, Free included, and plans are per business rather than per user. See the pricing page for the four plans. ### Take the round somewhere with no signal and see TradeYoke's phone apps work offline and sync honestly when the signal returns, on every plan. Start a 30-day trial of Essentials with no card. [Start your free trial](https://app.tradeyoke.net/signup) ]]> Carl Randall Mobile Product https://tradeyoke.net/blog/van-tracking-without-the-hardware https://tradeyoke.net/blog/van-tracking-without-the-hardware Sat, 16 May 2026 10:15:11 GMT You do not need a box wired into the van to know where the team is. The app on the phone is the tracker, and the map shows customers, jobs, vehicles and people together. 💡 Send the on-the-way text from the visit, not from a personal phone. It goes from your business number or address, it is recorded on the customer's record, and the reply comes back to the office, not to whoever happened to be driving. ### Privacy with the team: tracking people, not vans A box in the van tracks a vehicle. An app on a phone tracks a person, and that difference is where trust is won or lost. The Information Commissioner's Office publishes guidance on monitoring workers, and the principles are straightforward: be clear about what is collected and why, collect it only when it is needed, and tell people before you start. In practice that means tracking during the working day, for the purposes above, and saying so in writing. The team should know what the map shows, who can see it, and that it is off when they are not at work. Covert tracking is a fast way to lose good people and a slow way to lose an employment tribunal. Check the ICO's guidance and, if you employ people, your HR adviser before you switch anything on. [Employment practices and data protection: monitoring workers](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/employment/monitoring-workers/): The Information Commissioner's Office guidance for employers on monitoring, including location tracking: lawful basis, transparency and proportionality. ### Before you switch tracking on - ✓ Write down why — Dispatch, customer updates and safety are good reasons. Curiosity is not. - ✓ Tell the team, in writing, before it starts — What is collected, when, who sees it, and that it is scoped to the working day. - ✓ Give the map to the people it helps — A team that can see each other on the map understands what the office sees. - ✓ Keep it to working hours — The app is the tracker while the app is at work. - ✓ Review it after a month — Ask the team what it has been used for, and whether that matched what you said. ### When hardware still makes sense An app on a phone is not the answer to everything. If you need to recover a stolen van at three in the morning, a hidden hardware tracker with its own battery is the tool. If you want driver behaviour data for an insurance policy, or you need to track plant and trailers that never have a phone with them, the same applies. And a worker without a company phone is not on the map at all. For a business of two to fifteen people whose questions are the three above, the phone is enough, and the saving is the fitting cost and a fee per vehicle every month. It is honest to say the app solves dispatch and customer updates rather than theft recovery. ### App on the phone or a box in the van? | Need | Phone app | Fitted hardware | |---|---|---| | Where is the team right now | Yes | Yes | | Nearest person to a callout | Yes | Yes, if one person per van | | On-the-way texts to the customer | Yes, from the visit | Not usually | | Stolen vehicle recovery | No | Yes | | Driver behaviour for insurers | No | Yes | | Plant and trailers | No | Yes | | Cost | Included in Ultimate | Fitting plus a fee per vehicle | ### Where it lives in TradeYoke Live monitoring is part of the Ultimate plan, which is per business rather than per vehicle or per user; every plan is on the pricing page. The map runs on the web for the office and on the phone for the team, from the same data and the same connection logic described in the offline-first post. Because it is one map across every trade, a business running two trades sees both crews together, which is one of the small reasons one account for two trades works. See also: keeping a lone-working tradesperson safe [Image: The same map on the phone, so the team sees what the office sees.] ### Questions people ask **Does it drain the phone battery?** Location sharing while the app is at work uses some battery, as any navigation app does. It is scoped to the working day rather than running permanently, and a van charger removes the question for most teams. Test it for a week before deciding. **Can a team member turn it off?** It is their phone, so yes. The app makes clear when location is being shared, and tracking is tied to the working day. The right approach is an agreement about when it is on, written down, rather than a technical lock nobody trusts. **Is it worth it for a one-person business?** Less so for the map, more so for the on-the-way texts, which a sole trader benefits from as much as anyone. Texting customers is part of Essentials and every plan above it; the live map is Ultimate. **Do I need the Ultimate plan?** Live monitoring is in Ultimate, with your own website and the customer portal. Essentials includes the diary, customers, branded quotes and invoices, reminders, emailing and texting customers, and offline mobile. The 30-day trial is Essentials with no card, so the live map is something you switch on by choosing Ultimate. ### Put the team on the map this afternoon TradeYoke's live monitoring uses the app as the tracker, with on-the-way texts sent from the visit. Start a 30-day trial of Essentials with no card. [Start your free trial](https://app.tradeyoke.net/signup) ]]> Carl Randall Product https://tradeyoke.net/blog/two-trades-one-account https://tradeyoke.net/blog/two-trades-one-account Mon, 11 May 2026 12:15:11 GMT Plenty of trade businesses do two things: windows and gutters, gardens and fencing, solar and the electrics. One account, one diary, one customer list, one invoice run. The diary knows when, who, where and which trade. It does not need to know what a conservatory roof is. — TradeYoke ### One customer list, two kinds of job The customer record is generic. It holds the name, the addresses, the notes, the documents, the communications history and the balance. Jobs attached to it are trade-specific. So a customer who has windows cleaned every four weeks and the garden done fortnightly in summer has one record, two recurring series, one balance and one place where both are visible. That matters most for money. The morning 'who owes me' email lists her once, with everything owed, and the customer portal shows her everything in one place to pay. Reminders and receipts go from one business identity, so she never gets two texts from two names on the same afternoon. A spreadsheet of customers imports once, with duplicate detection, as described in the move-over-in-an-afternoon post. [Image: One customer list across trades, with distance, balance and owing status, so the gardening customer and the window cleaning customer are the same row when they are the same person.] ### Projects: when a job needs more than one trade Some work is not two jobs for one customer but one piece of work with two trades on it. A solar installation with the electrical certification. A roof repair with the scaffold that makes it possible. That is what projects are for: a customer, a site, a status and the trades involved, with the visits from each trade on the diary and the quotes and invoices raised from the project. Projects came out of the scaffolding pilot, where almost every site carries another trade. The inspection discipline that goes with it is in the seven-day inspections post. ### Compatible trades: what works together today Window cleaning and gardening are live and have shared accounts since the start. Scaffolding, electricians, plumbers and gas, and solar installers are in pilot with real businesses, and the pilots include combinations, because that is how those businesses are shaped. The trades page has a page for each. ### Common pairings on one account | First trade | Second trade | What is shared | Status | |---|---|---|---| | Window cleaning | Gardening | Customers, diary, rounds, invoices, owed report | Live | | Solar installer | Electrician | Customer, project, certificates, handover pack | In pilot | | Scaffolding | Any site trade | Project, site, visits, documents, team | In pilot | | Plumber and gas | Electrician | Landlord portfolio, certificate expiries, agent contacts | In pilot | > 💡 Start with one trade and add the second when the first is running. Each trade can be switched on or off in settings, and the customers and diary you already have carry straight over. ### What stays separate Each trade has its own settings tab: its prices, its paperwork, its defaults and whether the guided job wizard is on for it. Each trade's certificates and documents are its own. Team members can be marked with the trades they work in, so the window cleaning crew and the gardening crew are distinct on the register even when they overlap on Fridays. Reports show the whole business and the value of each round, and the accountant CSVs cover the business as one; how two trades appear on your tax return is a question for your accountant. The Squeegee Rush arcade game, for what it is worth, belongs to the window cleaning module and stays there. The gardeners have asked. [Business records if you're self-employed](https://www.gov.uk/self-employed-records): What HMRC expects a self-employed business to keep: records of sales and income, expenses, VAT and PAYE where they apply, for the business as a whole. ### What it costs Plans are per business. Free is £0, Essentials is £19 a month, Premium is £39 a month and Ultimate is £55 a month, and none of them is multiplied by trades or by users. A window cleaning and gardening business pays the same as a window cleaning business. Pilot trades are priced with the pilot businesses while the pilots run. The pricing page has the detail, and the 30-day trial of Essentials lets you run every trade you need. ### Adding a second trade to an existing account - ✓ Switch the trade on in settings — It appears as a tab and in the job wizard's trade picker. - ✓ Set its prices and paperwork — In its own settings tab; the first trade is untouched. - ✓ Mark which team members work in it — On the team register, so the diary and Plan my day assign the right people. - ✓ Book the first job against an existing customer — No new customer record; the job is the new thing. - ✓ Check the owed report the next morning — One list, both trades, one balance per customer. ### Questions people ask **Do I pay twice for two trades?** No. Plans are per business. Every plan covers every trade on the account, and users are not charged separately either. **Can I switch a trade off again?** Yes. Trades are switched on and off in settings. Switching one off hides its screens and its entry in the job wizard; the customers and the history stay where they are. **Will my window cleaning customers see that I do gardening?** Only if you tell them. Invoices, texts and emails carry your one business identity. Many businesses use the customer list to offer the second trade to the first trade's customers, which is the cheapest marketing there is. **Can one person be in one trade only?** Yes. The team register records which trades each person works in, and the diary respects it when assigning. A person can be in both. ### One account, every trade you do TradeYoke runs compatible trades on one diary, one customer list and one invoice run, at one price per business. Start a 30-day trial of Essentials with no card. [Start your free trial](https://app.tradeyoke.net/signup) ]]> Carl Randall Product Guides