Card readers for gas engineers: how to take card payments

Customers increasingly expect to pay by card on the day rather than waiting for an invoice to arrive. For a gas engineer, being able to take a card payment on completion is now less a nice-to-have and more what people assume you can do. The good news is that setting it up takes an afternoon, and the difference it makes to cash flow is out of proportion to the effort.

What card readers and payment options work on site?

• A portable card reader you carry with you and tap or insert the customer's card into. Small, cheap to buy, and familiar to every customer.
• A payment link or request sent to the customer's phone or email, which they pay from their own device. Nothing to carry, and it works for remote payments too, like deposits taken before you order a boiler.
• Job software that sends a card payment request from the invoice itself and records the payment against the job automatically, so the books reconcile themselves.
• Many phones can now act as the card reader directly through the provider's app, which means one less thing living in the van door.

What do card payments cost?

A percentage of each transaction, typically, with the exact rate depending on the provider, the card type and sometimes your volume; some providers also charge for the reader itself or a monthly fee. Rates change often enough that any figure printed here would age badly, so compare current pricing directly. What matters is the whole picture: a slightly higher rate with next-day settlement and no monthly fee can beat a cheaper headline rate that holds your money longer. Weigh the fee against what invoicing actually costs you now, in unpaid hours of chasing and in jobs paid weeks late.

Can you add a surcharge for paying by card?

Not for consumers. Since January 2018 it has been illegal in the UK to charge consumers extra for paying by credit or debit card, so the fee is a cost of doing business, priced into your rates like fuel and insurance. You can still set a sensible minimum job value or price your work to absorb the fees; you just cannot add a line that says card fee to a homeowner's bill.

How quickly does the money arrive?

It varies by provider: next working day is common, some settle faster for a fee, and some hold funds longer when an account is new. Check the settlement terms before you sign up, because the entire point of taking cards is shortening the distance between finishing the work and having the money. A provider that pays out in a day turns a completed job into cleared funds before you have unloaded the van.

Why does paying on the doorstep matter so much?

Because the moment the customer is happiest is the moment you finish. An invoice sent later arrives after the glow has faded, joins a pile, and gets paid when it gets paid; meanwhile you have bought the materials and done the work, so you are the one providing the credit. Taking payment on completion removes the chase entirely. No reminder emails, no awkward calls, no aged debtors column. For a small business, the difference between paid-on-the-day and paid-in-three-weeks is the difference between calm and overdraft.

How should card payments fit your record keeping?

Every card payment should land against a job and an invoice, not float in a provider's app waiting to be matched up at tax time. This is worth getting right now rather than later: Making Tax Digital reached sole traders with gross income over £50,000 in April 2026, which means digital records and quarterly updates to HMRC, with lower income bands following. Manifold closes the loop on the doorstep: quote the job, convert it to an invoice on completion, take the card payment there and then, and the payment is recorded against the job in the digital records MTD expects. The customer pays once and the paperwork happens as a side effect.