Backflow Testing Software for Annual Certification Rounds
Annual tests generated per device, results recorded at the assembly, and retests tracked to the deadline that matters.
The device has a date, and the date is a deadline
Backflow prevention assemblies are tested on a cycle set by a water authority, not by a customer. Miss it and the customer is out of compliance, which makes the schedule the product rather than an internal convenience.
Test results belong to the assembly, not to the day
A test produces numbers: differential pressure, check valve readings, relief valve opening point. They are meaningful as a record for that device over years, and useless as a page in a folder of Tuesday's work.
Failures turn one visit into three
A failed test is not the end of the job. It is a repair, a retest and a certificate, each with its own timing, and the sequence is where compliance work quietly falls apart.
Certificates, customers and the paperwork that follows
Every test ends in a document that someone else needs: the customer, the water authority, sometimes a property manager. Producing it from the record of the test rather than retyping it is where an afternoon a week goes back into the business.
Start with the Free Plan
No time limits. Get full access to core features and upgrade when you're ready.
Read the full guide to running backflow testing rounds
Compliance work is a scheduling business with a legal deadline attached
Backflow testing is unusual among field trades: the customer is not the one who decides when the work happens. A water authority sets the interval, the device falls out of compliance when it passes, and the consequence lands on the customer rather than on the contractor who forgot to book it.
That makes the annual round the whole business. A testing firm with two thousand devices under management is running a calendar, and the quality of that calendar decides both revenue and whether customers stay.
Why the device is the record
Sites hold many assemblies
A hospital, a factory or a large commercial building can have dozens, each with its own hazard level, location and history. A job raised against the address tells the tester nothing useful about what they are walking into.
Readings matter in sequence
A relief valve that opens a little lower each year is failing slowly. Seen once, it passes. Seen across three tests, it is a replacement that should be budgeted rather than an emergency next spring.
Devices outlive customers
Tenants change, property managers change, companies are sold. The assembly stays on the wall, and its test history should stay with it rather than with whoever was paying the invoice three years ago.
The failure sequence, and where firms lose money
A pass is one visit. A failure is three or four, spread over weeks, usually with a parts order sitting in the middle of them. Each handover between those steps is a place where a device can quietly stop being tracked, and the device does not know it has fallen out of the system.
The cost of that is not the lost fee. It is a customer who discovers at an inspection that a device they believed was certified is not, and who blames the firm that tested it. Keeping repairs and retests as open jobs against the device, visible until closed, is the whole point of putting this trade on software.
Routing the round
Testing is high volume and low value per job, which makes travel the dominant cost. A round planned by deadline alone sends testers across a city; a round planned by deadline and geography together fits more tests into the same day without anything falling past its date.
This is the least glamorous benefit available and usually the largest. One extra test per tester per day, across a season, is a measurable amount of revenue from the same headcount.
What this does not do
Shifton Field Service schedules the round, holds the device history, captures the test on site and turns the result into hours, invoices and reports. One or two testers pay nothing, permanently, for the round, the app, test forms and reporting, while invoicing, inventory, location control and the customer portal are charged modules.
It does not certify testers, it does not file with a water authority and it does not decide what a jurisdiction requires. Those obligations sit with the regulator and the certified tester, and the right use of this is to make sure the work and its evidence exist when they are asked for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can tests be generated per device rather than per customer?
Yes. Each assembly carries its own annual cycle, location, make and model, so a site with six devices produces six jobs with six deadlines rather than one visit somebody has to remember the scope of.
How are gauge readings recorded?
In the mobile app at the assembly. The readings stay attached to that device's history, so the tester attending next year sees the sequence rather than a single set of numbers.
What happens when a device fails?
The repair and the retest can be raised from the test itself while the tester is still on site, and both stay visible until they are closed. Devices awaiting a retest are the thing this is designed not to lose.
How does a tester record a device in a basement?
On the phone, offline. Gauge readings, photographs and the test record are captured at the assembly and sync later, which is why basements and pits do not interrupt a round.
Does it submit certificates to the water authority?
No. It holds the test record and the evidence behind it. Submission routes, certificate formats and tester certification requirements are set by your local authority, and they vary enough that no single system can stand in for them.
Can we see everything due in the next month?
Devices approaching their deadline are visible as upcoming jobs, which is how a testing round is planned by geography instead of by whoever phoned to ask.
What does a one or two tester business pay?
One or two testers costs nothing on an ongoing basis, including the round, the app, test forms and reports. The modules that are charged for are invoicing, inventory, location control and the customer portal.
Ready to transform your field operations?
Join thousands of field service companies that trust Shifton to run smarter every day.