ProLast reviewed 28 May 2026 · 4 min read

When a customer books your scaffold

When a customer books a scaffold online, your booking page asks the right questions, you capture the using-party email at accept, and TradeBooked auto-creates the scaffold record plus its erection and strike events so the lifecycle starts cleanly.

What customers see when they book

Customers book a scaffold from your TradeBooked booking page just like any other service. They pick a slot, answer the questions you set (lifts, type, access, postcode), and confirm.

If you take deposits, they pay one at this point. If you do not, the booking lands in your diary as a pending acceptance for you to confirm.

Why the using party matters

On a scaffold, the customer (who ordered it) is often different from the trade actually using it. A homeowner might order a scaffold for a roofer; the roofer is the using party.

TradeBooked treats these as distinct people:

The customer pays and gets the invoice
The using party signs the handover, gets the handover certificate, and gets the pre-strike "need it longer?" nudge

Capturing the using-party email at accept is what makes the rest of the scaffold workflow work properly.

Before you start

You will need a TradeBooked account on the Pro or Autopilot plan with trade type set to Scaffolder, and a customer booking ready for you to accept.

Setup steps are in your dashboard

This is a Pro feature. Sign in on a Pro plan to see the step-by-step setup for your number.

Common questions

What if I do not know the using party at accept?

For trade-to-trade work the contractor name is usually known up front. For homeowner-led jobs, the homeowner is often both customer and using party. If the using party is genuinely unknown, enter the customer's details for now and update later before you log the handover.

Why does the system block handover when there is no recipient?

A handover certificate has to go somewhere. Without an email on either the using party or the customer, there is no one to send it to and no audit trail of receipt, so TradeBooked refuses to ship it.

Do customers see the scaffold lifecycle events?

No. The internal lifecycle events (Survey, Erection, Inspection, Strike) live on your calendar only. Customers and the using party see the booking confirmation and, once erected, the public /s/<token> view.

What plan do I need?

The scaffold booking and lifecycle flow are on the Pro and Autopilot plans.