Heat pump installations are more complex than solar. The survey goes deeper. The design calculations are harder. The grant paperwork asks for more. The MCS standard for heat pumps, MIS 3005, asks for documents that the solar standards do not. Your software needs to handle all of it, and most current options were designed for solar first and heat pumps second.
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The UK installed over 60,000 MCS-certified heat pumps in 2025, the highest annual figure ever recorded. The total number of certified heat pump installations across the UK has now surpassed 250,000. Over 2,000 contractors are MCS-certified for heat pump installation, with 387 new businesses gaining certification in 2024 alone.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) is the primary financial driver. It gives grants of up to £7,500 for air-to-water, ground source, and water source heat pumps in residential properties. From April 2026, air-to-air heat pumps also qualify for a £2,500 grant. The 2025/26 BUS budget is £295 million, the largest annual allocation to date, and the scheme runs until 2028.
In Q1 2025, about three-quarters of heat pump installations were government-supported through BUS or other schemes. The grant is applied by the MCS-certified installer on the customer's behalf, meaning the installer manages the entire application, approval, and payment process. This creates a significant administrative workload on top of the technical installation.
Solar installation software focuses on roof assessment, panel layout, yield calculations, and electrical integration. Heat pump software needs an entirely different set of capabilities. The MCS compliance standard (MIS 3005) requires specific documentation.
Before specifying a heat pump, you need a room-by-room heat loss calculation for the property. This is not optional. MCS standard MIS 3005 requires that the system is designed to meet the calculated heat demand. The heat loss survey records how the building was built. The wall and roof insulation. The floor type. The windows. How air-tight it is. The temperature each room must reach.
Your software must do one of two things. Make these calculations itself. Or connect to a heat loss tool such as HeatPunk, or the design software of a manufacturer. The answers must then reach the system design and the customer documents. The heat loss calculation justifies the heat pump sizing. If your software cannot show that link, your MCS documentation is incomplete.
Unlike solar (which is typically a new addition), a heat pump replaces an existing heating system. The survey must record what is there now. The type and age of the boiler. The size and place of each radiator. The pipe diameter. The hot water cylinder, if there is one. The thermostats. This data determines whether existing radiators are adequate for the lower flow temperatures a heat pump operates at, or whether upgrades are needed.
Heat pumps operate most efficiently at lower flow temperatures than gas boilers. This often means existing radiators need to be upsized, or underfloor heating installed. Your design must name the emitters for each room. It must show that the system will give enough heat at the design flow temperature. This level of detail goes far beyond what solar design software handles.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant process adds a parallel administrative workflow to every eligible installation. Your software needs to track:
You may do 15 to 20 heat pump installations a month. That means 15 to 20 BUS vouchers at once, each at a different stage. Applied for, approved, installed, or paid. A spreadsheet works until it does not. One missed voucher expiry date and you lose £7,500.
The MCS heat pump installation standard (MIS 3005) requires specific documentation beyond what the solar standard demands. That includes the Compliance Certificate. It is a checklist that confirms you installed the heating system to MCS standards. It also records the main facts about the system. It also includes the heat loss calculation as a required deliverable, not just good practice.
Your software must do four things. Make the heat loss calculation, or link to it. Write the Compliance Certificate, with the right fields filled. Make the commissioning record for a heat pump, which needs flow rates, temperature differences and the refrigerant charge. Build the handover pack, with maintenance advice for a heat pump.
A heat pump site survey is substantially more involved than a solar survey. Your survey forms must record everything below. They must be ordered so that nobody misses a field, and the data must go straight into the design.
This is 30 to 50 data points per survey, plus 15 to 25 photographs. If your surveyor captures this on paper or in a generic notes app, the data has to be transcribed later. Your software can give the surveyor a form on a tablet or a telephone. The data is then recorded once, and the design stage has it at once.
After the survey, the design process works through several steps that need to connect.
The quotation is where the BUS grant directly affects the customer's decision. A £12,000 heat pump installation with a £7,500 BUS grant costs the customer £4,500. Your quoting system needs to show the full cost, the grant deduction, and the net payable clearly. It also needs to handle the 0% VAT on domestic energy-saving materials, which applies to heat pump installations.
Most of the dedicated renewable energy software platforms were built for solar. Heat pump support has been added as the market has grown, but it is often less mature.
Payaca supports heat pump proposals and integrates with HeatPunk for design, which is a strong combination. However, the platform's core strength is still solar workflows. Heat pump-specific features (BUS grant tracking, emitter schedules, Compliance Certificate generation) may require workarounds or manual processes depending on the complexity of your installations.
Generic field service tools (Jobber, SimPRO, Commusoft) have no understanding of heat loss calculations, BUS grant processes, or MCS MIS 3005 documentation requirements. You can schedule an installation and invoice it, but everything heat pump-specific happens outside the system.
Manufacturer design tools come from Daikin, Mitsubishi, Vaillant and others. They design and size a system well, for their own equipment. They are design tools, and not tools to run a business. The output feeds your technical documentation but not your quoting, scheduling, or compliance workflows.
The result is familiar: heat pump installers run even more fragmented software stacks than solar installers. Most installers run four things at once. A design tool, such as HeatPunk or manufacturer software. A CRM or project tool, such as Payaca, Jobber or a spreadsheet. An accounts package, such as Xero or QuickBooks. Their own hand-worked steps for BUS grants and MCS documents.
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Follow one heat loss figure through the job. The surveyor measures it. The design tool holds it. The quote repeats it. The Compliance Certificate states it again. The handover pack prints it once more.
It is the same number, and it exists as five separate copies in five separate tools. That is why somebody types it at every join. One late change to a radiator can then leave four documents disagreeing. An MCS audit finds exactly that.
On engage.re a property, a room, a heat loss figure, an emitter, a certificate and a grant are declared once, with permanent identifiers. The figure on the certificate is the figure the surveyor recorded, because it is the same record. A design tool can read and write it, and every use is logged.
Every installer we build for shares that foundation. We explain it in bespoke software for a whole sector. We describe the market it creates in what does an interoperable software market look like.
A bespoke system for a heat pump installation business can handle the entire workflow in one place. The survey data feeds the design. The design feeds the quote. The quote feeds the project plan. The project plan triggers the BUS grant application. The installation triggers the commissioning workflow. The commissioning data generates the Compliance Certificate and the handover pack. The completed installation updates the warranty register and the BUS grant payment tracker.
Every step produces data that the next step uses. Nothing is re-entered. Nothing is copied between systems. And every document MCS or Ofgem requires is generated from data that already exists in the system.
For a heat pump installer, the business case for bespoke is often stronger than for solar. The per-installation documentation burden is heavier. The BUS grant tracking adds a parallel administrative workflow. The survey is more complex. And the financial stakes are higher, because a single missed BUS voucher expiry costs £7,500.
A system of your own can cover the whole job. Leads, ordered surveys and a link to the design tool. Quotes that handle a BUS grant. The project, the MIS 3005 documents and the warranties. It usually costs £12,000 to £25,000 as a single build. An installer doing 15 heat pump installations a month gets that back within two years. Compare it with what several subscription tools cost together.