Quoting and invoicing software for UK builders and tradespeople

Updated 14 November 2026

What good quoting and invoicing software should do

For a UK builder, electrician, plumber or similar trade, the quote-to-cash path usually looks like this:

1. Price the work, with labour, materials and any other costs you want the customer to see.
2. Send a professional quote the customer can actually open and accept, not a document that dies in an inbox.
3. If you need a deposit before you order materials or book the start date, request it on the quote and take it cleanly.
4. When the work is done, send the invoice, with the deposit already credited.
5. Let the customer pay online, and keep a record of what was paid and what is still outstanding.

An invoicing app that cannot do the quote, or a quoting app that cannot take a payment, leaves a gap you will fill with another tool or with manual work. That is why it is worth looking at quoting, acceptance, deposits, invoicing and payments as one sequence, not as five separate features.

How quoting and invoicing works in BuildX

Quotes and invoices are included on every BuildX plan, including Solo.

You raise a quote from the job, send it, and give the customer a link to view, accept and pay. The quote can request a deposit. The customer can pay that deposit online, and it carries over to the final invoice, so you are not left reconciling a separate payment by hand.

When you invoice, the customer gets a link to view and pay. Each business connects its own Stripe account. Customers can then pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. The money goes to your Stripe account, Stripe’s standard fees apply, and BuildX takes no cut.

Everything to the customer is sent by email. There is no SMS billing or text-message add-on.

Deposits, not progress invoicing

Deposits are built in: a quote can request one, the customer can pay it online, and it carries over to the final invoice.

Progress invoicing — billing a job in planned stages as work proceeds — is not built. If your work is typically billed in several staged invoices against one contract, you should not choose BuildX on the promise that this already exists. For many smaller building and maintenance jobs, a deposit plus a final invoice is enough. Be honest with yourself about which of those you actually need.

Seeing whether the job paid

A quote is only useful if the price still makes sense once the work is done. Every BuildX plan shows per-job costing. Each job has a profit panel: the amount invoiced, minus labour (worked out from clocked time at each person’s hourly or day rate), minus materials and other costs.

There is also a materials finder, and reusable kits (a price book) can be entered by hand. There is no import of an existing price list, and no import of quotes or customers from another system, so you should allow time to set those up if you already have a long list.

On the Company plan, the Reports page adds a business-wide view, including paid revenue over the last 6 months, profitability across all jobs, and top clients.

Getting the numbers to your accountant

BuildX does not sync with Xero, Sage, QuickBooks or other accounting software. You can download invoices, payments and timesheets as spreadsheet (CSV) files and pass them to your accountant.

That is a real limitation if you want invoices to appear in your accounts package automatically. It is a workable setup if you or your accountant are happy to work from a regular CSV export. There is no export yet of the quotes themselves, or of the customer list.

What else sits around the quote and invoice

Because quotes and invoices live on the job, the rest of the job record is there when you need it: photos and files, checklists, site forms, time, and a five-day weather forecast for jobs that have a location. BuildX also includes 14 ready-made site and customer documents, including variation orders and a customer completion sign-off. That sign-off is a customer agreement, not a regulated certificate.

BuildX works in the browser on phones, tablets and computers, and can be added to a phone’s home screen. There is no app-store app and no offline mode. You can see jobs in Google, Apple or Outlook calendars through a private, one-way calendar link that updates every few hours.

For the wider job-management picture, see job management software for UK tradespeople.

Plans and prices

Prices exclude VAT. Every plan includes quotes, invoices, deposits, customer payment links and online card payments. Every plan has a 14-day free trial, with no card needed to start.