The Best Powered Now Alternatives in the UK with Real Stock Control (2026)

Powered Now earns its reputation on quoting, invoicing, and certificates. Where it leaves money on the table is in materials. It stores a price list and logs supplier receipts, but it never tells you what is sitting in the van, what a job used, or when to reorder. For a trader buying stock every week, that blind spot adds up.

If materials and stock are your biggest daily headache, this guide runs through the best Powered Now alternatives with real stock control, built for UK trade businesses in 2026. We compare seven platforms on inventory depth, pricing, mobile use, and UK compliance, and we are honest about where iTrade fits and where heavier systems pull ahead.

Stock is one of the messiest parts of trade admin. The Federation of Small Businesses has long flagged paperwork as a brake on growth, and a tool that turns stock guesswork into numbers you can bill, earns its keep.

What Powered Now Does Well, and Why Businesses Look for an Alternative

Credit where it is due. Powered Now is a UK-built app that suits mobile trades. It handles quotes and invoices from the site, carries more than 80 trade forms, including Gas Safe records and EICRs, calculates CIS, files Making Tax Digital returns, and keeps working offline in basements and plant rooms. Support sits in the UK, and most owners are running within an afternoon.

The gap opens on materials. Powered Now treats stock as a price catalogue and an expense log, not a live system. That holds up until you grow past a couple of vans. These are the limits trades tell us they hit:

• A price list, not livestock. You can store item prices, but the app does not track quantities on hand or reduce them as jobs use materials.

• No van or vehicle stock. There is no simple way to see what each engineer is carrying or to restock it from a report.

• No stock-usage or margin reporting. You cannot compare what a job used against what you quoted, so material margins stay hidden.

• No reorder alerts. Nothing warns you before you run out, so you either tie up cash in overstock or make an emergency trip to the merchant.

• Materials are hard to cost at scale. Logging supplier receipts after the fact is not the same as costing parts to a job as you go.

None of this makes Powered Now a weak app. It is a quoting and invoicing tool that stops short of stock control, which is why parts-heavy trades look elsewhere.

What to Look for in a Powered Now Alternative

Stock control means one thing to a solo electrician and another to a 20-van firm. Weigh these before you switch:

• Pricing model. Per-user pricing punishes growth. Check what a second or third field worker costs, and whether stock features sit behind a higher tier.

• Mobile app and offline mode. Your team lives on their phones. Materials should be addable on site, with or without signal, then synced to the office.

• Materials, stock, and job costing. This is the core: supplier price books, purchase orders, van stock, usage reports, reorder levels, and, at the top end, live quantities and stocktakes. Costing parts to each job turns stock into profit visibility.

• Quoting and invoicing. Priced quotes drawn from a live price book, converted to invoices without rekeying.

• Scheduling and dispatch. A shared calendar for office and field, so materials and labour land on the right job.

• UK compliance. Standard VAT, the CIS domestic reverse charge, and CIS deductions are non-negotiable for construction trades. UK-built or UK-focused tools handle these, and many overseas apps do not.

• Accounting integration. A clean link to Xero or QuickBooks so stock, invoices, and supplier bills reconcile without double entry.

• Support, onboarding, and migration. Someone to move your data across and answer the phone in your timezone.

The Best Powered Now Alternatives at a Glance

Here is how the leading Powered Now alternatives compare on the things that decide it. iTrade leads the table, then the field runs from warehouse-grade platforms to scalable mid-tier options.

Software	Best For	Starting Price	HQ
iTrade	Materials and margin control in one app	£29/field worker; office staff free	Global (UK-focused)
simPRO	Warehouse-grade, real-time inventory	Custom quote	Australia
AroFlo	Inventory plus asset management	Custom quote	Australia
Commusoft	Parts and assets for service contracts	Quote + onboarding fee	United Kingdom
Joblogic	Stock plus compliance for commercial work	Per-user quote	United Kingdom
Workever	Scalable stock for growing teams	From ~£23/user/mo	United Kingdom
BigChange	Stock plus fleet tracking and reporting	From ~£80/user/mo	United Kingdom

Prices are indicative. Confirm live figures with each vendor.

The Best Powered Now Alternatives in 2026

Here are the platforms worth shortlisting if stock control is the reason you are leaving Powered Now, starting with iTrade.

iTrade — Materials and Margin Control in One App

iTrade is built for trades that want stock done right without an enterprise price tag. Its materials management imports supplier price books, so quotes price themselves from live costs. You can set margin rules by supplier or category, build kitsets for jobs you repeat, and pull van restocking reports that show what each vehicle needs. 

Stock-usage reporting compares what a job consumed against what you quoted, so material margin stops being a guess. Every feature is included rather than locked to a higher tier; the app runs natively on iOS and Android and works offline, and it handles VAT and CIS with a clean link to Xero and QuickBooks.

Pricing is a flat £29 per field worker per month, with office admins and non-field managers free. To be straight about it, iTrade does not run a full real-time warehouse with multi-location live quantities and barcode stocktakes the way simPRO and AroFlo do.

If you hold central stock and need live counts across sites, those platforms go deeper. For most trades tracking van stock, materials, and margins, iTrade covers the ground at a fraction of the cost and setup.

Best for: Growing UK trade firms that want real materials control, predictable pricing, and a mobile-first app.

simPRO — Warehouse-Grade Inventory

simPRO is the heavyweight for parts-heavy contractors. It tracks real-time stock levels, sets minimum and maximum reorder points, transfers stock between storage locations, and runs full stocktakes with a barcode scanner.

Supplier catalogues sync so builds prices from current costs, and receiving a purchase order updates stock and pushes the supplier invoice to your accounts. Field staff adds materials on site from the app, with reporting for inventory forecasting.

The trade-off is weight. simPRO is an enterprise platform with custom-quoted pricing, implementation fees, and a setup that usually runs several weeks. Below roughly ten staff, the maths rarely works.

Best for: Larger, parts-heavy trades and commercial contractors that need warehouse-grade inventory.

AroFlo — Inventory and Asset Management for Maintenance

AroFlo pairs strong inventory with deep asset management, which suits facilities and maintenance work. Parts and inventory feed straight into job costing alongside labour and purchase orders, so profitability updates in real time.

It carries supplier invoices, recurring maintenance scheduling, and asset registers, and its takeoff integration pulls inventory items for accurate takeoffs. AroFlo rewards the effort you put into setup, and there is a learning curve.

A native mobile app arrived in 2023, though some workflows still lean on the office interface.

Best for: Asset-heavy maintenance and facilities operations running ongoing contracts.

Commusoft — Parts and Asset Tracking for Service Contracts

Commusoft is built for service and maintenance contractors, and thousands of them run on it.

It manages parts, holds asset registers against customer sites, and drives planned preventative maintenance with real-time job costing, dispatch, and self-service portals. Stock sits inside a wider contract-management system rather than bolted on.

Pricing is quote-based with an onboarding fee and usually a contract, so it is a considered a purchase.

Best for: Mid-sized service contractors running maintenance agreements across many sites.

Joblogic — Stock and Compliance for Commercial Operations

Joblogic connects back office, mobile workforce, and customers, with stock and parts management built in. It handles asset registers, certificates, and CIS, which makes it a fit for compliance-heavy commercial trades that also need to track materials across the office and field.

Pricing is quoted per user by feature. The interface is functional rather than sleek, so trial the app with your team first.

Best for: Compliance- and asset-heavy commercial operations that need stock alongside certification.

Workever — Scalable Stock and Asset Management

Workever is a modern UK all-rounder that scales from a sole trader to a growing team without much fuss. It offers drag-and-drop scheduling, a strong mobile app, proof-of-work capture, recurring jobs, and stock and asset management, with Xero and QuickBooks sync.

It is a sensible middle option between basic invoicing and enterprise complexity.

Pricing is per user, so keep an eye on the total as the team grows.

Best for: Small-to-mid UK teams wanting stock and asset management that grows with them.

BigChange — All-in-One with Stock, Fleet, and Business Intelligence

BigChange is a complete field service platform that layers inventory on top of live vehicle tracking, job cards, and business intelligence.

For established operations that want stock, fleet, and reporting in one system, it is a serious contender, though it sits at the premium end and is built for scale.

Best for: Established mid-size operations wanting stock plus fleet tracking and deep reporting.

Also Worth a Look

A few lighter options handle stock at a simpler level. Tradify adds basic stock and asset management on its Ultimate tier and is a clean, fast choice for sole traders and small teams; our Powered Now vs Tradify comparison covers that head-to-head in detail.

Fergus leans into job costing with simple stock control, and ServiceM8 is a polished iOS-first option with light asset tracking rather than true inventory.

How to Choose the Right Powered Now Alternative

Start with the problem in front of you, not the feature list:

• Start with your stock pain. If you tie up cash in overstock, lose van materials, or cannot see job margins, prioritise materials management and usage reporting. If you hold central stock, prioritise live quantities and stocktakes.

• Match it to your size. Sole traders and small teams rarely need warehouse inventory. Larger, parts-heavy firms do, and should budget for it.

• Confirm the UK essentials. VAT, CIS, certificates, and a real accounting link. Do not assume an overseas app handles the reverse charge.

• Check migration. Ask how your customers, price book, and history move across, and who does the work.

• Read the pricing closely. Per-user models and tier-locked stock features change the real cost. Compare like-for-like, see how iTrade stacks up against the field, and read our wider guide to job management software for UK tradesmen.

Why iTrade Is the Leading Powered Now Alternative for Stock Control

For most UK trades, iTrade balances real stock control with a tool the team will use every day:

• Materials and margin control built in. Supplier price-book imports, margin rules, kitsets, van restocking reports, and stock-usage reporting, so materials turn into profit you can see.

• Flat £29 per field worker, office staff free. No per-seat penalty for the people who never touch a job in the field.

• Every feature included. Stock, scheduling, quoting, invoicing, and compliance on one plan, not scattered across tiers.

• One native app, iOS and Android, offline. Add materials and update jobs on site, then sync when the signal returns.

• Real support and a free trial. UK-focused onboarding and a 30-day free trial, so you can test it on live jobs. See what the time saved is worth with our savings calculator.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Powered Now have stock control or inventory management?

Powered Now offers a product price list and supplier expense logging, but not live stock control. It does not track quantities on hand, update stock as jobs use materials, manage van stock, or send reorder alerts. Trades needing real inventory usually move to a platform built for materials, such as iTrade, simPRO, or AroFlo.

What is the best Powered Now alternative with real stock control?

It depends on size. Among Powered Now alternatives, iTrade suits most trades wanting materials and margin control in one affordable app, while simPRO and AroFlo offer warehouse-grade inventory for larger, parts-heavy firms. Commusoft and Joblogic fit service and compliance-heavy operations that track parts across many sites.

Which UK trade software has the best inventory management?

For deep, real-time warehouse inventory with stocktakes and reorder points, simPRO and AroFlo lead. For the practical materials control most trades need, iTrade is strong and far simpler to run. Match the depth of inventory to how much stock you hold.

Can I track van stock and materials against jobs?

Yes, with the right tool. iTrade produces van restocking reports and costs materials to each job, so you see usage and margin per job. simPRO and AroFlo also track materials on jobs and, at the top end, live stock across locations. Powered Now cannot do this beyond a price list.

Are these Powered Now alternatives suitable for VAT and CIS?

UK-built and UK-focused options handle it well. iTrade, Commusoft, Joblogic, and Workever support standard VAT and the CIS domestic reverse charge, and iTrade files with Making Tax Digital and links to Xero and QuickBooks. Always confirm CIS handling before switching, as many overseas apps miss the reverse charge.

Can I switch from Powered Now without losing my data?

Yes. Most platforms import your customers, price book, and job history, and better providers do the migration for you. iTrade includes onboarding and moves your data across, so you start with your records intact. Ask any shortlisted tool exactly what transfers and who handles the setup.

Ready to Take Real Control of Your Stock?

At iTrade, we built the materials side the way we wished ours worked when we were on the tools: price books that keep quotes honest, van restocking reports that end the emergency merchant runs, and stock-usage reporting that shows the margin on every job.

It sits alongside quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and full UK compliance, on one flat plan at £29 per field worker, with your office staff free.

If Powered Now has taken you as far as it can on stock, see the difference on your own jobs. Start a free 30-day trial, book a free consultation, or email us at support@itrade.net. We will move your data across and help you get stock under control.