Best Apps for Self-Employed Tradespeople

Nobody starts a trade business because they want to do paperwork. But it turns up anyway: quotes, invoices, receipts, mileage, chasing money, and a tax return in January.

There are three kinds of apps that help. Accounting apps handle the books. Job management apps handle the work. Mileage apps handle the driving. A few try to do more than one.

Here is what each of the main ones does.

Accounting apps

Xero. Built for small businesses in general rather than trades. Bookkeeping, invoicing, VAT, bank feeds. Widely used, so most accountants will already know it. Expenses and mileage come in above the entry plan, and project tracking with job costing only on the top one. A New Zealand company with a large UK operation.

QuickBooks. Bookkeeping, expenses, invoices and reports. The sole trader plans cover invoicing, receipts, mileage and Self Assessment. Project profitability sits on Plus, which Intuit sells to medium-sized businesses.

FreeAgent. Separate plans for sole traders, limited companies, partnerships and landlords, with mileage logged at HMRC's rates. Free if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or Ulster Bank, and free with Mettle if you make a transaction each month. Built in Edinburgh.

Job management apps

Tradify. Built for trades. Quotes, jobs, customers, invoices, and job costing that sets predicted costs against what the job actually cost (on the Pro plan and up).

Nule and Tradify side by side: Nule vs Tradify: Which App Is Best for Tradespeople?

Fergus. Aimed at businesses running a team: scheduling, timesheets, job cards, several jobs at once. Its reporting shows how a job is tracking against budget while the work is still going on. More than a sole trader usually needs.

Nule and Fergus side by side: Nule vs Fergus: Which App Is Best for Tradespeople?

Jobber. Similar ground for service businesses. Job costing sits on its higher plans, there is no UK site and it prices in US dollars, so check it fits before committing.

Mileage apps

Driversnote. Logs business journeys automatically. Prices in pounds and builds its records around HMRC's rules, though the company itself is Danish.

MileIQ. Does the same job. A US product with a UK price list.

Apps that cover more than one

Nule. Built for UK tradespeople, from sole traders to small limited companies. Quotes, jobs, clients and scheduling on one side; invoices, expenses, mileage, photo receipts and tax forecasting on the other. An accepted quote becomes a live job on its own, so the estimate is still there to compare against. End Job Insights show how a job turned out against the price you set; Business Insights show the patterns across all your jobs. Your accountant can see the records. Works offline. Making Tax Digital submissions are in beta and coming soon.

Which does what

A tick means the app does that thing, not that it does it best. The accounting apps have years of accounting behind them, and Fergus is built for teams in a way nothing else here is.

If one row is your whole problem, a specialist will go deeper than anything spanning all six.

But no specialist spans all six, and that is the trade. Nule is the newest name on the list, and it is built for one person doing all of it. One app from the quote to the tax, for a UK tradesperson.

How to choose

Most people pick an app and then work out what it is for. Do it the other way round.

If the books are your only problem — the work is under control, you just want the tax return to stop being a fortnight of your life — buy accounting software. That is what it is for and it is good at it.

If the diary is your only problem — you know the money is fine, you just cannot keep track of what is booked in — buy job management.

If it is both, which for most sole traders it is, you are choosing between running two apps or one that does both.

And whichever way you go, check which plan the answer sits on. Four of the apps here show you what a job made only on a bigger tier: Xero on its top plan, QuickBooks on Plus, Tradify on Pro, Jobber on Grow. Plenty of tradespeople are already paying for that answer and have never seen it.

Nule has one plan. Every row in the table above is in it, monthly or yearly, with nothing held back for a bigger tier.

One question first

What do you want to know that you cannot find out today?

Answer that, then buy the app that answers it.

Plan names, features and availability are as published by each company on 31 July 2026, and change often. Check the current details with the provider before you buy.