The Date the Examiner Writes Down
British rules on lifting equipment do not give you an interval to type into a scheduler. They give you a floor of six or twelve months, two events that bring the date forward, and a next-due date that a named person writes into a signed report — which is three different things, and a recurring task is none of them.
Ask most asset systems how they handle a statutory inspection and you will be shown a recurring reminder. Set the interval, pick a day, get an email. It is a reasonable answer to a question nobody asked, because the interval is the part of this obligation that matters least.
The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 are worth reading in the original, because they are short and they are unusually specific about a thing software habitually gets wrong: where the next due date comes from.
Three cadences, not one
For lifting equipment exposed to conditions causing deterioration liable to result in dangerous situations, regulation 9(3) requires a thorough examination at least every 6 months where the equipment lifts people or is an accessory for lifting, at least every 12 months otherwise — or in accordance with an examination scheme, which is a third option and not a fallback.
And then, joined by an and rather than an or, a fourth requirement: a thorough examination each time exceptional circumstances liable to jeopardise the safety of the equipment have occurred. Separately again, regulation 9(3)(b) contemplates inspection by a competent person at suitable intervals between thorough examinations — a different act, on a different cadence, producing a different document.
Four words that are not interchangeable
The term What it is doing in the Regulations
Thorough examination The statutory event
Carried out at the interval, under a scheme, or after exceptional circumstances. Produces a written report with prescribed contents.
Inspection The thing in between
At suitable intervals between thorough examinations, so deterioration can be detected in good time. Produces a record, not a report.
Examination scheme An alternative to the interval
A named third option alongside six and twelve months, which means a system that only understands fixed intervals cannot express one of the three lawful cadences.
Exceptional circumstances The event that overrides the interval
Something liable to jeopardise safety having occurred. It does not extend the deadline or reset it — it adds an examination.
Two of these four produce documents with different retention rules, and none of the four is a calendar reminder.
The next due date is written by a person, not computed by a rule
This is the part that decides what kind of software this is. Schedule 1 sets out what a report of thorough examination must contain, and paragraph 8(d) is the latest date by which the next thorough examination must be carried out. Not the interval. The date. Recorded by the examiner, in a document authenticated by their signature or equally secure means, alongside their name, address and qualifications.
Paragraph 7(a) goes further and makes the report say which of the four grounds this examination was on — the six-month interval, the twelve-month interval, an examination scheme, or exceptional circumstances. The document is self-describing about its own authority.
The interval is a floor. The date is a judgement. Software that stores the floor and computes the date has inverted the obligation.
So the shape you need is not a scheduler. It is a document that arrives from outside, carries the next due date as a value, and supersedes its predecessor. The system's job is to hold it, surface the date somebody else decided, and refuse the equipment when the date passes.
What our register does, stated plainly
We should be direct about this, because the module looks more capable here than it is. There is no maintenance module in this product. No servicing records, no work orders, no examination concept and no next-due date on an asset — the closest dates it holds are a purchase date, a warranty expiry, and a last-verified stamp that records that somebody confirmed the thing exists and is where it should be. That last one is emphatically not an inspection, and we have written about the field that is missing and about the evidence that has to travel with equipment leaving your yard, which is regulation 9(4)'s requirement in UK words.
What is more interesting, and is the reason this is a separate article, is that the machinery for a recurring obligation does exist in this product. It is in the projects module, on tasks, and it has four properties that are worth knowing before anybody suggests using it for this.
A repeating unit of work
A task can recur daily, weekly or monthly with an interval, so six months is expressible as monthly with an interval of six.
An end to the series
A recurrence can be given a date past which no further occurrence is created.
A next date measured from when the work was actually done
The successor shifts from the previous occurrence's planned dates, so a series keeps its original cadence whether or not the examination happened on the day.
A series that continues when nobody ticks it
The successor is created when the current occurrence is completed, so a series that stops being closed off stops producing occurrences.
A link from that work to the asset it is about
Recurring tasks live in the projects module and carry no reference to an asset, so the two halves cannot be reported together.
The fourth of those is the one that disqualifies it as a control rather than merely limiting it. A statutory examination cadence whose continued existence depends on somebody closing off last time's occurrence is a reminder system that goes quiet exactly when attention has lapsed — which is the only circumstance in which you needed it.
Two events we already record, and act on in neither direction
Here is where it gets frustrating in a productive way. Regulation 9(2)(b) requires a thorough examination after assembly at a new site or in a new location, where safety depends on installation conditions. Regulation 9(3)(a)(iv) requires one after exceptional circumstances liable to jeopardise safety.
Our asset register records a relocation as a first-class movement, with the person, the destination and the moment. It records damage as a first-class movement too, with a status change that sticks. Those are the two triggers, and we already capture both — as history, and as a state, and not as anything that alters an obligation. What the movement set proves and what it does not is an argument we have made before; this is the narrower point that two of those eight actions are the exact events a statute keys an examination requirement to.
One thing that is already the right shape, arrived at for the wrong reason
Regulation 10(3) says an employer notified of a defect must ensure the equipment is not used before the defect is rectified. In our register, an asset marked damaged cannot be checked out — the action is refused by state, with a reason, in the web launcher, the mobile payload and the service itself. That was built because custody logic needs it, not because of any regulation, and it happens to be the enforcement shape this rule describes. We would rather point at it and say where it came from than describe it as a compliance feature.
Where the report goes, and how long it lives
Two more details that no asset register we have looked at models, ours included, and both are about the document rather than the equipment.
The report goes to the employer and to any person from whom the equipment was hired or leased. And where the examiner finds a defect involving an existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury, a copy goes to the relevant enforcing authority as soon as practicable. Our register knows whether an asset is owned, leased or borrowed — it is a field, with three values — and holds no identity for the counterparty in the second and third cases. So the flag that tells you a report is owed to somebody else exists, and the somebody else does not.
Retention is the other one, and it is a lovely piece of drafting. The information in a periodic examination report is kept available until the next report is made, or two years, whichever is later. That is a retention rule keyed on the existence of a successor document rather than on a span of time — so a document's life depends on whether its replacement has arrived. Every retention rule in our product is a number of days. Not one of them is shaped like that, and it is worth knowing which shape your obligations are before you assume a retention setting can express them.
Five questions, and the second one is the one that separates products
Where does the next inspection date come from?
What you will probably hear
An interval you configure, plus a reminder.
How to read it
Fine for a service plan and wrong for this. The date is a value in a report that somebody signed. Ask whether the field is an input the examiner's document fills, or an output the software calculates.
If I mark a machine damaged, what happens to its inspection schedule?
What you will probably hear
Almost always nothing, and usually a pause while they think about it.
How to read it
This is the diagnostic question. An event that adds an examination is the hardest part of the obligation to model and the easiest to leave out, because the calendar keeps looking correct. Ours does nothing, and we say so.
Can the cadence be a scheme rather than a fixed interval?
What you will probably hear
A description of a custom interval.
How to read it
A custom interval is still an interval. A scheme is a document about a specific machine. If the system can only hold a number of months, one of the three lawful cadences has nowhere to live.
Who else gets a copy of the report?
What you will probably hear
A list of internal users and roles.
How to read it
Ask about the lessor and the enforcing authority — parties outside your organization entirely. Most asset systems have no concept of a document owed to a third party, and knowing that before you buy is cheaper than discovering it during an inspection.
How long do you keep the report, and what ends that period?
What you will probably hear
A retention setting in days or years.
How to read it
Compare it against the rule that actually binds you. A period that ends when a successor arrives cannot be expressed as a number of days, and a system that only offers days will quietly delete the current record of an examination.
What AWRA OpsHub does today
- An asset register with the identifying particulars a report has to quote — serial number, model, manufacturer, category, purchase date and asset code — so identifying the equipment in a document is a lookup rather than a hunt.
- Relocation and damage recorded as movements, each with the person who did it, the moment, and a status that sticks to the asset afterwards.
- Use refused by state. An asset marked damaged cannot be checked out, with the reason given, and the same rule applies on the web, on mobile and in the service that performs the movement.
- Ownership recorded as owned, leased or borrowed, so the assets whose paperwork involves somebody else are already a filter.
- Custom fields on assets and custodians, so a last-examined date can be captured today — as a value that is stored and read by nothing, which is the honest version of that sentence.
- Documents attached to the asset itself, through the same vault the rest of the product uses — with a classification on each file, every view and download logged, and the two asset permissions deciding who can read them. So a signed report lives with the equipment it describes rather than in a folder somebody has to know about.
- A signature and a condition photo captured at the moment equipment changes hands, held against that movement rather than against the asset, so the state it was in when it left is evidence and not a recollection.
More we can add to your workspace
- A next-examination date on the asset, filled from the report rather than computed from an interval, so the date a competent person wrote down is the date the system holds — and can refuse the equipment on.
- An examination scheme as a cadence in its own right, alongside a fixed interval, for the equipment whose regime is a document about that machine.
- An event that brings an examination forward. Damage and relocation are already recorded; connecting either of them to a due date is the build.
- A counterparty on a leased or borrowed asset, so the lessor a report is owed to is a party in the system rather than a value in a field.
- A retention rule that ends when its successor arrives, rather than after a number of days, for a document whose life is defined by the next one.
- A maintenance and examination history as a module, which is the thing all five of the above eventually want to live in.
Where we point you to a specialist
- We will not tell you which of your assets these Regulations reach. Regulation 9(3) turns on whether something is lifting equipment or an accessory for lifting and on whether it is exposed to conditions causing deterioration liable to result in dangerous situations. That is a judgement for your safety adviser about your equipment in your conditions, and a vendor answering it in a dropdown would be doing something worse than guessing.
- We will not decide who may carry out an examination, and we will not build anything that lets the system stand in for that person. The next-due date, the defect finding and the judgement that equipment is safe to operate come from a competent person who signs for them. Our proper job is to hold what they wrote, put it in front of the people who need it, and refuse the equipment when the date they set has passed.
The third item is the smallest and would change the most: the two triggering events are recorded already, so connecting either of them to a due date is wiring rather than a new concept. The first is a column, a form field and a refusal rule. The last is where all of them belong eventually, and it is a module rather than a week — worth scoping properly rather than growing one field at a time.
What we can build for the United Kingdom on top of the standard product
Everything listed above as something we can add describes what ships in the standard product today — it is a starting point for the United Kingdom, not a limit on what AWRA OpsHub can do there. Kenya's eTIMS integration and its maintained payroll engine are in the product because Kenyan clients needed them and commissioned them; neither appeared by itself. The same door is open here. If tax on the purchase side, a nine-box VAT return, transmission to HMRC, a bank or mobile money feed, a statutory return format, a rule specific to how your operation runs, or a link to a system you already have is what stands between you and a decision, tell us and we will scope it as a build — written spec, timeline and price — before you commit to anything.
The three builds, and they only work in this order
Tax on the purchase side first: a rate and a tax type held against a purchase order and an expense, not just an amount, because an amount with no rate cannot tell a recoverable input from a blocked one. Then a VAT return assembled from it — the sales-side boxes are already answerable from data we hold, and it is the input-tax boxes that need the schema change underneath them. Only then transmission through HMRC's interface under Making Tax Digital, with the authorisation and testing that requires. Quoted in that order because the reverse order is how vendors end up with a filing button over figures nobody can trace, and the digital-link rule is precisely a rule about traceability.
Banks and payments
Faster Payments, Bacs direct debits and Open Banking statement feeds wired into the Payments Register, so money in and out reconciles against the documents rather than being re-keyed from a bank screen.
The operational work, which is what most commissions actually are
An extra approval stage in a chain that does not match the standard one, a custom field set on employees or assets that only your sector needs, an expiry that has to block an order rather than send an email, a report your board asks for in a shape nothing produces, or a scanner or weighbridge feeding the goods-in door. These are the commissions we are asked for most often and the smallest ones we quote — and unlike a revenue-authority pipeline, none of them waits on a regulator.
Payroll and statutory returns
A UK payroll engine with PAYE tables, National Insurance, Real Time Information submissions and pension auto-enrolment assessment computed on live employee records. None of it exists today; labour cost attribution to projects and cost centres does.
Systems you already run
The accounting package, CRM, online store or custom database you intend to keep — connected through our API so a fact is entered once and appears everywhere it is needed.
How it works: you describe the requirement, we return a written scope, timeline and cost, and once agreed it is built into your environment and maintained as part of the product. No roadmap slide, and no pretending in a demo that something exists when it does not.
Tell us what you need integratedThe short version
If a statutory examination regime binds your equipment, the question to ask about any asset system is not whether it can hold an interval and send a reminder. Almost all of them can. Ask where the next due date comes from — because in these Regulations it comes from a person, in a signed document, alongside a statement of which of four grounds the examination was on. Then ask what happens when a machine is damaged or moved, because those are the two events that add an examination and neither of them looks like a date. Ours records both events, refuses to let a damaged asset out, and holds no examination date at all. That is a smaller answer than a compliance module and a more accurate one than a recurring reminder.
See the asset register
Identifying particulars on every asset, relocation and damage recorded as movements with the person and the moment, use refused by state, and attachments that live with the equipment.
Explore asset trackingFrequently asked questions
Does your system schedule statutory inspections?
No. There is no maintenance module, no examination concept and no next-due date on an asset — the dates it holds are a purchase date, a warranty expiry and a last-verified stamp that records that somebody confirmed the asset exists and is where it should be. A recurring-work engine does exist in the projects module, and we would not recommend borrowing it for this: it creates the next occurrence when the current one is completed, so a series that stops being ticked stops producing occurrences, and it carries no link to an asset.
Why does it matter whether the date is computed or recorded?
Because under these Regulations the next due date is a value in the report of thorough examination — Schedule 1 paragraph 8(d), the latest date by which the next examination must be carried out — set by the competent person who signed the report. A system that computes the date from an interval will disagree with the document whenever the examiner set something shorter, and it will disagree silently. The field you want is an input, not an output.
We record damage on our assets. Is that enough?
It is the raw material and not the control. Regulation 9(3)(a)(iv) requires a thorough examination each time exceptional circumstances liable to jeopardise safety have occurred, and that requirement sits alongside the interval rather than replacing it. Recording the damage tells you it happened; nothing in our product turns that record into an obligation with a date on it. Connecting the two is the smallest of the builds in the ledger above, precisely because the event is already captured.
Can we keep the examination report in the system?
Yes — attachments live on the asset, so a signed report can sit with the equipment it describes. Two things it will not do: the next-due date inside that report stays inside it rather than becoming a date the system can act on, and the retention rule these Regulations use for a periodic report is "until the next report is made, or two years, whichever is later", which is keyed on a successor document. Every retention rule we have is a number of days, so that particular shape cannot be expressed today.
Does this apply outside Great Britain?
We are not going to say. What we read is the current consolidated text of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 as published by the National Archives, and we checked that none of its amendments touches the provisions quoted here. Northern Ireland has its own instrument, which we have not read, and other jurisdictions have their own regimes with different intervals, different documents and different retention rules. Whether any of them reaches your equipment is a question for your safety adviser.
