New features and improvements to Trame's trade job management platform.
Ask ChatGPT what needs your attention, who owes you, or for a quote or an invoice. Turn an enquiry into a job or mark a job complete. Trame uses your saved customers and prices, works out the VAT and deposits, and shows you every line before anything is saved. Nothing is sent until you say so. To connect, open Plugins in ChatGPT, search for Trame and sign in. See how it works.
We rechecked the figures in our guides and free tools against official sources, updated them, and added more evidence, including the latest earnings data and government late payment figures.
Add a business phone and email under Settings → Company, and they appear on your quotes and invoices. Customer replies go to your business email. PDFs show the work address when the job has a site, and a quote or invoice tells you when its email bounced.
The automatic deposit invoice is now due the day your client accepts, as the quote says, and shows as sent only once its email has gone. If you use automatic reminders, a deposit gets a week before the first one, and deposits now go over to FreeAgent like any other issued invoice. With CIS switched on, a section called Materials starts as No CIS, so the deduction comes off labour only, and you can still switch it back. Assistant now handles day rates such as "3 days at £250 a day" and no longer asks again after you pick a client.
Add a site to a job when the work is not at your client's own address, such as a flat a landlord lets. Turn on "Work is at a different address" when you create the job, or add it from the job page later. Each client keeps their sites, with the occupier's name, phone and email, so you can pick the same address for the next job there. Jobs without a site work as before.
Keep separate quotes on one job. Revisions replace the current quote only when issued; superseded versions stay visible but cannot be accepted. Start invoices from accepted quotes or from scratch. When marking a job Paid, optionally mark its unpaid invoices as paid too, with a payment method and date.
After you issue a quote or invoice, Trame asks how you want to send it: by email, by link or on WhatsApp. If the email does not go through, you can try again or share the link instead.
Job profit now leaves out VAT if you are VAT registered, so it matches the margin in the quote editor. Quotes and invoices say "3 days" rather than "3 day", a job's Coming up list shows only visits still ahead, and on a phone the PDF button no longer covers the accept bar on a quote.
A 58-second video on the homepage follows one job from quote to paid, with a voice-over and captions.
Open Assistant from the top bar to find clients and jobs, check money owed, prepare or update draft quotes and invoices, and turn an enquiry into a job. Ask in your own words, such as "make an invoice for George". It finds the client and asks for any missing details. Attach a saved record to ask about that specific work, and return to earlier conversations from your history. You check and confirm changes before they are saved. See how to use Assistant.
Weighing Trame against Tradify, Powered Now or ServiceM8? The new comparison pages put the two side by side: prices as you actually pay them, tax coverage, trial terms. Every figure is checked against the other product's own site and dated, and each page says plainly when the other product is the better pick.
All 26 pages in the expenses A to Z now cover what you can claim, the records to keep, and a worked example in pounds, with every claim verified against HMRC's own guidance.
The CIS refund guide now walks a real worked example from deduction statements to the refund figure, explains reclaiming through Self Assessment step by step, and answers the question most subcontractors ask first: whether you need a refund company at all. (You don't.)
Upload one and Trame reads your company details, VAT number and bank details off it, so setting up is a check rather than a form. Signing up now also asks where you want to be paid, so your first invoice is ready to send.
The new help centre answers the how-do-I questions in plain, step-by-step articles: setting up a recurring job, taking a deposit, applying a CIS deduction or the VAT reverse charge on an invoice, connecting Stripe, exporting for your accountant, and plenty more.
Connect FreeAgent once and your books stay current without you copying anything across. Invoices go over as you issue them, with the lines and the VAT intact. Where a job has a deposit, the deposit and the final invoice are netted off, so the work is never counted twice. Expenses and payments follow as they happen, and CIS is withheld against labour rather than materials.
Trame now opens on a home screen built around your day. The money first: what you are owed, what is overdue, and what came in this month. Then what needs you, ranked: new enquiries, invoices going overdue, quotes with no reply and finished work with nothing issued, each with its next step one tap away. Jobs on site sit alongside, so you always know where the week stands.
On your phone, a new tab bar keeps Home, Jobs, Quotes and Invoices a thumb away, with a plus button in the middle for the moment work appears: start a job, quote or invoice, log an expense, or share your enquiry link with a customer on the spot.
Reports now shows money in and out by month, your pipeline, and where the spend goes. The owed-to-you list breaks down into overdue, not yet sent, and due later, and downloads as a CSV your accountant can use as a chase list.
The whole app has moved to the look we started on the website: calmer white surfaces, one list style, one button style, and documents that read the same whether they are a quote or an invoice. The editors got the most attention: tap any line to see the maths behind its price, tuck the details away behind a toggle, and rename a document right where its title sits. Every screen's loading state now matches what it loads into.
Your customers can now answer a quote either way. Declining takes one tap from the quote itself, with room to leave a note if they want to say why. You get an email as soon as they do.
When you hear back from a customer yourself, mark the quote rejected from the quote menu and choose what happens next: price it again, close the job, or leave it for now. Jobs can also be closed straight from the job page, and reopened later if the work comes back. Closed and paid jobs sit behind their own filters, so your jobs list stays on live work.
Every quote and invoice you send now arrives with a PDF attached to save or print. We have also refreshed the email and given both documents a matching layout.
The day rate calculator shows what tradespeople charge a day by trade, region and experience, with the sources behind every figure and what it leaves you after tax. Electricians, plumbers, gas engineers and carpenters to start, with more to come.
The self-employed tax calculator estimates your Income Tax, National Insurance and take-home pay as a sole trader from two figures. The full guide explains how self-employed tax works, why expenses cut your bill, and how much to set aside.
The CIS tax refund calculator estimates how much of your CIS deductions you could get back at the end of the tax year, from three figures. The full guide explains why refunds happen, how your expenses raise them, and how to claim through Self Assessment.
If you work under CIS, you can now apply the Construction Industry Scheme deduction to an invoice. Turn it on in Settings, and Trame takes the deduction off the amount due, shows it clearly for your customer, and your reports still show the full amount you earned. It is off by default, so nothing changes if you do not use it.
The reverse charge VAT checker tells you whether the VAT domestic reverse charge applies to a construction invoice, and gives you the exact wording to put on it. The full guide explains what the reverse charge is, when it applies, the end user rule that trips everyone up, and what to show on the invoice.
If you work under CIS and both you and your customer are VAT registered, you can now switch an invoice to the domestic reverse charge. Trame takes the VAT off the amount due, shows the VAT for your customer to account for, and adds the wording HMRC requires. Turn it on per invoice from the invoice editor. You need to be VAT registered for the option to appear.
We redesigned the whole website, from the homepage to the free tools. Lighter, cleaner, and easier to read.
The letter before action generator builds a formal letter before action for an unpaid invoice, with the right wording, deadline, and rules depending on whether the customer is an individual or a limited company.
You can now export your invoices and expenses as CSVs, scoped to a full tax year or a single quarter. Invoices export as income with deposits accounted for, and expenses are grouped by HMRC category with VAT. Expenses can also be exported in Xero, FreeAgent, or QuickBooks format, and receipt images can be included.
Improved company and account settings on mobile.
Connect your Stripe account. Every invoice you send will show a Pay button alongside your bank details, so customers can pay by card or Pay by Bank straight from the invoice. Payments go straight to your Stripe account, not ours.
You can now sign in to Trame with your Google account. If you already have an account with the same email address, the two are linked automatically the first time you sign in with Google. No separate account, no extra setup.
You can now add a client as either an Individual or a Business. Businesses have an optional Contact person field for the person you talk to inside the company. Existing clients are unchanged and treated as individuals. The option only appears on new clients or when you edit an existing one.
The quotes, invoices, enquiries, and jobs lists have been redesigned. Filters now live in a dropdown next to sort, rows sit in a single grouped list rather than separate cards, and the mobile layout reads cleanly without truncated titles. Invoice rows show one date that matches the invoice's state, instead of every date at once.
iPhone no longer zooms the page when you tap an input, the line-item autocomplete sits in the right place with the keyboard open, and the title field has its own row on mobile. On the quote editor, totals sit at the top of the summary on mobile, with deposit, notes, and margin collapsed below.
You can now set a payment timeframe directly on a quote and it carries through to the final invoice automatically.
For work that repeats on a schedule, like a weekly clean or a monthly maintenance visit, you can now set up a recurring job. Set the pattern once and Trame creates each job when it's due, with matching invoices generated automatically. Built for any trade with regular, repeat customers rather than one-off work.
Added Cleaner and a general Other option to the trade types, each with its own starter price book.
First-time setup was redesigned with a getting-started checklist and the option to import your existing data as you go.
When a quote includes a deposit, the final invoice now shows it deducted from the total automatically with a reference note. Accepted quotes also surface a one-click button to create the invoice.
Trame now has a full scheduling calendar. See your jobs laid out by week, day, or month, drag to reschedule, and click any empty slot to book in a job. Subscribe from Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook and your Trame schedule sits alongside everything else in your day.
Trame can now chase overdue invoices for you. It sends up to three reminders, standard, firm, then final, with the tone stepping up at the due date, plus 7 days, and plus 14 days. The invoice list shows how many times each one has been chased. Switch auto-reminders off in Settings if you'd rather do it yourself.
Quotes and invoices now have an issued step between draft and sent, so you can finalise a document without sending it straight away. Sharing is a single menu: email, copy link, or WhatsApp.
Import your existing customers from a CSV file. Trame auto-matches the columns and works with exports from Powered Now, Jobber, Tradify, or any spreadsheet.
Each customer now has their own page showing contact details, total invoiced, and what's outstanding. Every job, quote, and invoice for that customer is listed in one place with a full activity history.
While building a quote you can now see a private panel showing your cost, profit, and margin. It's only visible to you, never the customer. It turns amber when margin slips below 20% and red when it goes negative, so you can catch an underpriced quote before it goes out.
The Reports page now opens with the three numbers that matter most: money collected, money outstanding, and what's left after expenses. Below that, a cash flow chart and a category breakdown show where your money came from and went.
The dashboard now opens with a clear snapshot: active jobs, quotes out, enquiries waiting, and money outstanding. Each card takes you straight to that part of the app.
Log mileage trips and link them to a job, mark regular expenses as recurring so they're created automatically each period, and record a supplier on each expense. The expenses table also gained a date-range filter and sortable columns.
Launched two free tools, no account needed. The expense checker tells you whether you can claim a given expense, with real examples and HMRC-based guidance. The mileage calculator works out your HMRC mileage claim from your business miles and vehicle type.
Quotes and invoices now save automatically as you edit them. A Saving/Saved indicator in the toolbar confirms your work is safe.
You can now invite other people into your Trame account. They get their own login that joins your business straight away, with no separate setup. Everything created in Trame records who made it, so you can always see who sent which quote or logged which expense.
Every job now has its own page showing whether it actually made you money, pulling together what you charged and the expenses linked to it. The profit figure turns red the moment costs outrun revenue.
Trame can now track your business expenses. Snap a photo of a receipt and it reads the supplier, amount, and date for you, or type one in by hand. Each expense is sorted into the right HMRC category with VAT handled automatically. At quarter end, export everything as a CSV or a Xero file. Built to keep your books tidy and ready for Making Tax Digital.
Quick to set up. No card, no commitment.
