Getting started with TradesOps
The first ten minutes. Aimed at UK tradespeople who've just started their free trial and want to know what to set up before real customer enquiries start landing.
TradesOps is built around a simple loop: a customer sends you an enquiry, TradesOps drafts everything the customer will see, you approve it from Telegram or your desktop, and TradesOps handles the emails, invoices and reminders in the background. Before any of that works, you need to spend ten minutes setting up your business profile and pairing Telegram.
Step 1 — Fill in your business profile
Open your dashboard → Settings → the top section is called Business profile. Fill in:
- Business name — this is what customers see on every email and quote. It also becomes your public slug (the bit that appears in your enquiry URL).
- Trade vertical — Electrician, Plumber, Roofer, and so on. Used by IntelliQuote to pick sensible defaults.
- VAT registered — tick this if you charge VAT. When ticked, quotes and invoices show a VAT line.
- Contact email — where you'd like reply notifications to fall back to.
- Town and postcode outward — helps the AI understand where you work.
Hit Save. Your public enquiry link appears on the dashboard.
Step 2 — Pair your Telegram
Open Settings → Telegram and tap the pairing link on your phone. The TradesOps bot walks you through it. Once paired, every customer enquiry pings your Telegram with an AI-drafted summary and Approve / Decline buttons.
You can also do everything from the desktop. Telegram is optional — but if you're out on a job most days, it's what you'll actually use.
Full walkthrough: Pairing your Telegram.
Step 3 — Set your rates and payment schedule
Back in Settings:
- Hourly rate is optional. The AI uses it internally as a costing hint. Customers never see it on the quote.
- VAT rate — 20% is the UK default.
- Quote validity — how long a quote you send stays valid before the customer needs a fresh one. 30 days is normal.
- Payment schedule — pick your default preset: single payment on completion, 50/50 deposit + final, 25/25/50 deposit + interim + final, or custom. The AI proposes this on every new quote and you can adjust per job.
More on payment stages: Configurable payment stages.
Step 4 — Share your enquiry link
The link at the bottom of your dashboard looks like https://tradesops.uk/b/your-business/enquire. Put it on:
- Your website (button or link)
- Your Google Business Profile
- Your Facebook page
- The signature of the emails you already send
Every submission through that link ends up in your TradesOps enquiries with an AI summary attached. You choose whether to reply.
Step 5 — Test it works end-to-end
Open your enquiry link in a private browser window and submit a test enquiry to yourself. You should see the enquiry appear on the dashboard in a few seconds, and get a Telegram ping if you paired.
Approve it, follow the customer email link to book a slot, and you can walk the whole loop in about five minutes without any real customers involved.
What's next
If you get stuck at any point, email help@tradesops.uk.