Getting started

From first call to the crew’s first week

There is nothing to download and no app store to search. Costworks runs in the browser — the office on a computer, the crew on their phones — so getting going is a conversation, a code, and an afternoon.

Talk to us I have an access code

Six steps

How a firm gets going

Two of these are ours, and four are yours. None of them needs anybody to install anything, and the last four can be done in a single sitting.

STEP 01Together

Talk to us

Tell us how your week works: the paper sheet, the job numbers, the overtime and the nights away. You get a straight answer on whether Costworks fits.

STEP 02Us

We send you an access code

Ten letters and numbers, just for your firm. It works once and lasts fourteen days, and it comes with a link that fills it in for you.

STEP 03You

Set up your company

Three short steps in the app: the code, your company and your week start day, then your email and a password. You are the owner, and you are signed in.

STEP 04You

Jobs, people and rates

Check the pay rules — the defaults are a starting point, not a policy — then add your clients, jobs, people and their rates. We can bring an existing job register across for you.

STEP 05You

Invite the crew

Each person gets an email with a link to choose their own password; it works once and lasts seven days. Anybody without an email address gets a one-time password instead.

STEP 06The crew

On the home screen

The crew open app.costworks.co.uk on their phones and add it to the home screen. From then on it opens like any other app, and stays signed in.

Step three, close up

Your company, set up in three short steps

The access code opens the set-up in the app itself. By the end of it your firm exists, with sensible defaults already in place, and you are signed in as its owner.

  • Default pay rules, ready for you to check: overtime past twelve hours in a day at time and a half, Sunday and worked bank holidays at double time.
  • Units of measure for materials, and a job-number sequence that starts at 0000 each year.
  • Bank holidays for England and Wales, already loaded.
1

Your access code

Typed in, or filled in from the link we sent. It is checked before anything else.

2

Your company and you

The company’s name, the day your payroll week starts, and your own name and email.

3

Confirm, and choose a password

A six-digit code arrives by email and lasts fifteen minutes. Type it in, choose your password, and you are in.

Already have a code?

Set up your company now

Type the access code we sent you and we will take you straight to step one of the set-up, with the code filled in.

No code yet? Talk to us and we will send you one. Already set up? Sign in.

My week in the Costworks app on a phone, opened from the home screen: the week's total, each day with its jobs and hours, and a Send week to the office button.

For the crew

No download — just add it to the home screen

Costworks runs in the phone’s own browser, on iPhone and Android alike. Add it to the home screen once and it opens with its own icon, like any other app.

  1. Open Safari and go to app.costworks.co.uk.
  2. Tap the Share button — the square with an arrow pointing up.
  3. Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.
  4. Tap Add. Costworks is now on your home screen.

Tick “Keep me signed in on this device” on your own phone. Open Costworks at least once every few weeks and you will not be asked for your password again. On a shared phone, leave it unticked.

Before you start

What you will want to hand

None of it has to be perfect on day one, and everything can be added or changed later.

  • The jobs you are working on, with their numbers if you already have them — or your whole job register, and we can bring it across.
  • Your clients, the firms those jobs are for.
  • Everybody who logs hours, with an email address where they have one.
  • Each person’s hourly rate and the date it started, or that they are salaried.
  • Your overtime rules: after how many hours in a day or a week, and what Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays pay.
  • The day your payroll week starts, and each person’s holiday entitlement for the year.
  • The materials you want recorded against jobs, and the unit each is measured in.
  • A stay-away amount for nights away from home, if you pay one.

Step-by-step guides in the help centre

Start with a conversation

Tell us how your week works, and we will tell you honestly whether Costworks fits it.

Talk to us Ask for a quote