Plant & Equipment: run one live register of your kit

Add an item to the register

1. 1

   Open Plant & Equipment and select Add plant or equipment

   Owners and admins only. Asset number, name, category and ownership type are required. Everything else can be filled in later from the item's own page — open it and select Edit details.

2. 2

   Choose the ownership type

   Owned, hired, subcontractor-owned, client-owned or other. For hired kit you can record the supplier and hire reference here. To link subcontractor-owned kit to a company in your directory, open the item and select Edit details — the subcontractor list appears once ownership is set to subcontractor.

3. 3

   Save

   The item appears in the register immediately. It shows as "Requirements not configured" (grey) until you tell The Site Book what evidence it needs.

Configure what each item must have

Requirements are the contract an item is judged against. A requirement can be a piece of evidence to hold (for example a current LOLER examination certificate), a recurring physical inspection, or a service or maintenance record (for example a service every 12 months).

Requirements and intervals should reflect your equipment, risk assessment, manufacturer guidance and competent-person advice — The Site Book suggests nothing as a legal rule.

For a recurring physical check, use an inspection requirement and record the check against the item on its project. Certificates and examination reports still belong in evidence records.

1. 1

   Open the item and find the Requirements section

2. 2

   Select Add requirement

   Pick the kind (evidence, inspection, service or maintenance), give it a label, and — for evidence — the evidence type it is satisfied by. Set the warning window (default 30 days) and the interval in days for a recurring inspection, service or maintenance record.

3. 3

   Mark it mandatory or optional

   Only mandatory requirements can make an item non-compliant. Requirement changes are timestamped: renaming, changing the evidence type, making a rule optional or deactivating it later does not rewrite what governed an earlier project placement. Nothing is deleted.

Record a check against an inspection requirement

A completed Plant inspection satisfies only the inspection requirement selected when it was recorded. It does not reset another check on the same item, and an open or draft record does not count as completed.

1. 1

   Put the item on the project where the check happens

   The item must be On site or Quarantined. A planned, removed, rejected or cancelled placement cannot receive a new Plant inspection.

2. 2

   Open the item and select Record inspection beside the requirement

   This opens the project's Inspections page with the exact item and requirement selected. You can also open that page directly and choose an available Plant requirement under Inspection record. Owners, admins and assigned Site Supervisors can record site evidence there.

3. 3

   Save the record, then select Mark inspection complete

   Notes and any corrective actions stay attached to the project and item. The recurring deadline moves only when the inspection is complete; the next due date follows the interval you configured.

Upload and review evidence

Evidence is versioned: replacing a certificate creates a new record, and the old one is marked superseded only once the replacement is approved — so a certificate that is still valid keeps covering the item while its replacement is being reviewed, and survives a replacement you reject. The old file, dates and review decision stay in history. Only approved evidence counts towards a requirement.

1. 1

   Open the item and select Add evidence

   Choose the type, upload the file (PDF or photo), and record the issuer, reference and dates. If the document has no expiry, say so explicitly — a missing date is treated as unknown, never as valid forever.

2. 2

   Approve or reject it

   New uploads sit as awaiting review and show the item amber. An owner or admin approves the record (it now satisfies its requirement) or rejects it with a reason (the item goes red until an approved replacement exists).

3. 3

   Replace an expiring certificate

   Use Replace on the old record. The new upload supersedes it once approved, and the old version remains in the item's history.

Understand the compliance colours

Green — Compliant. Every mandatory requirement has current approved evidence and no check is overdue.

Amber — Attention needed. Something is expiring inside its warning window, awaiting review, or has unknown validity.

Red — Non-compliant. Mandatory evidence is missing, expired or rejected, a mandatory check is overdue, a safety-critical corrective action is open, or the item is quarantined or out of service.

Grey — Requirements not configured. Nothing has been asserted about this item yet, so it cannot be called compliant. Retired and archived items also show grey.

The summary strip at the top of the register counts each state across your whole fleet, and every colour chip filters the list when clicked.

Report a defect

A defect is reported against the item on the site it is on, so the record says which job it happened on and stays with both.

1. 1

   Open the item and select Report a defect

   Business and Site Control plans. Owners and admins report from the item's page; site supervisors report from the project's Plant on this site page. The button appears only while the item is assigned to a site.

2. 2

   Describe the fault and any immediate action taken

   Attach up to 10 photos, then add who is dealing with it and a due date if you have one. This creates a corrective action, which stays open on the item until it is closed.

3. 3

   Tick This is safety-critical if the item must not be used

   The item is quarantined immediately and its placement on the site is marked quarantined with it. It cannot be marked on site anywhere else, and only an owner or admin can return it to service. This is not optional — ticking safety-critical always quarantines.

4. 4

   For a fault that is not safety-critical, decide separately

   Leave the box unticked and the item stays in service with an open corrective action showing against it and in the Audit Pack. If it still stops the item being used, tick Take it out of use anyway.

5. 5

   Close the corrective action when the work is finished

   Open defects appear on the project's Plant on this site page and on the item's private register page, with the reported detail, responsible person and photos visible before anyone closes them. Owners, admins and the assigned site supervisor can select Mark done, or Cancel action when no corrective work is required. Cancelling requires a reason, and both outcomes stay in the item's history. A safety-critical action must be closed before an owner or admin can return the item to service.

Get told before something expires

The register emails a weekly summary so an expiry is something you plan around rather than discover on site.

1. 1

   Open Plant & Equipment and expand Reminder settings at the bottom of the page

   Business and Site Control plans. Only account owners and admins see this panel — it sets the reminders for the whole account.

2. 2

   Choose who receives the weekly summary

   It goes to the account owner every Monday. Switch on Also send to admins or Also send to site supervisors to widen it — a supervisor only receives the lines for the projects they are assigned to. These Plant controls are independent of the older Notification Alerts switch in Settings, which covers worker certificates, permits, subcontractor documents and ordinary weekly site inspections. Plant mail uses each recipient's alert email when one is stored, otherwise their login email.

3. 3

   Set how far ahead you want warning of an expiry

   Include upcoming expiries this far ahead accepts 7 to 90 days. This account-wide setting changes when weekly summaries mention an upcoming expiry; it does not change any date on any record, and it is not a statement about what the law requires — the intervals stay the ones you set on each requirement.

4. 4

   Keep Email the account owner immediately for serious problems switched on

   Sends the account owner an email straight away when an item is quarantined, a safety-critical defect is reported, an item is returned to service, or evidence is rejected — the things that should not wait for Monday.

What the weekly summary contains

The email only arrives when there is something to report, so an empty week is silence rather than an all-clear you learn to skim past.

Heading to a site while not compliant comes first — it is the only section you can still act on before the item arrives.

Then: Quarantined, Open safety-critical defects, Overdue corrective actions, Certificates expired, Mandatory evidence missing, Checks overdue, Certificates expiring soon, and Checks coming up. A non-critical action is never described as safety-critical just because its due date has passed.

Items showing grey are left out. Grey means nothing has been configured for that item yet, so there is no deadline to have missed — add its requirements and it will start appearing.

Retired and archived items are left out too.

The summary reports what your register holds. It is not an assessment of whether any item is safe to use — that stays the judgement of a competent person.

Retire or archive an item

1. 1

   Open the item and use Retire or Archive

   Both keep the complete history — evidence, reviews and events are never deleted.

2. 2

   Find them again later

   Retired and archived items are hidden from the default register view; use the status filter to bring them back.

Print and use QR labels

Owners and admins can print labels for one item, a selected group, or every active item. Retired and archived items are excluded. Each A4 label carries The Site Book name, a QR code, the asset number and asset name.

A label scan is public so an operator standing beside the machine does not need an account. Treat the page as current register information, not a declaration that the machine is safe: it deliberately shows no compliance colour and tells the operator to carry out their own pre-use checks. Quarantined and out-of-service items show a prominent DO NOT USE warning. After a downgrade, an existing printed label retains only this public-safe read; the private-record sign-in action is removed, and the label does not restore the private register, project routes, reminders or any write.

1. 1

   Open Plant & Equipment

   Select Print all QR labels to produce labels for the active register, or tick one or more rows and select Print selected labels. A single PDF run supports up to 480 labels; for a larger fleet, print it in selected batches.

2. 2

   Print the PDF on A4 label stock and attach each label

   Match the large asset number and name before attaching a label. The QR opens that item's live public status page.

3. 3

   Scan before use

   The operator sees the recorded operational status and any do-not-use warning. The page does not record a plant-linked check or defect report in this release. While the owning account is still on Business or Site Control, an account member can use Account member sign-in to open the item's private register record; that action is not shown after a downgrade.

Put an item on a site

1. 1

   Open the project and select the Plant tab (Business and Site Control)

   On a phone the tab lives in the project menu — tap the project name, then Plant. The page lists what is already on this site; items stay on your company register either way, so assigning one here records the period it spent on this project rather than moving it.

2. 2

   Select Assign an item, choose the item and save

   Owners and admins only. You can record a planned start date, where on site it will be, and the RAMS reference it works under. The placement starts as Planned — nothing is on site yet.

3. 3

   Walk it through to On site

   Submit for review hands it to whoever checks paperwork, then Approve for site or Reject (a reason is required, and it is kept). Once it physically arrives, select Mark on site. The Site Book refuses this last step if the item is quarantined, out of service, under repair, retired or archived — you can plan and approve a machine that is in the workshop, but it cannot be marked as standing on the site until it is back in service — and if the item is already on site somewhere else it tells you which project to remove it from first — one item can only be in one place.

4. 4

   Select Remove from site when it leaves

   A reason is required. The placement moves to Closed — removed, rejected or cancelled and stays there — it is the record of what was on site and when, so it is never deleted. If the same item comes back later, assign it again and a new period starts.

5. 5

   Archive the project only after checking its Plant list

   The archive confirmation explains that any open Plant assignment periods will be closed as Removed on the archive date. Remove items first when they actually left earlier. If you confirm, The Site Book uses one archive timestamp for every remaining period and preserves their events. Reactivating the project does not reopen closed Plant history.

Find what is out on site

1. 1

   On Plant & Equipment, select the On site chip

   Filters the register to items currently placed on a project. Select it again to clear. The compliance colour shown on a site page is the same one the register shows — an item cannot look ready on one screen and overdue on another.

2. 2

   Quarantine applies everywhere at once

   Quarantine an item from its own page in the register, not from a site. It is one physical item, so quarantining it marks it unsafe on whatever site it is standing on too. There is deliberately no site-level quarantine.

Import the register you already have

1. 1

   On Plant & Equipment, select Import existing register (Business and Site Control)

   Owners and admins only. Upload the .xlsx or .csv you already use — up to 1,000 rows and 10MB. A workbook with several sheets reads the first one; you can pick a different sheet after uploading.

2. 2

   Check the columns we guessed

   Every column is listed with a few of its own values, so you can tell a reference from a registration at a glance. Change anything we got wrong and set anything we left as Do not import. One source column can fill each field. Asset number (or the generate option), name, category and ownership are required before the import can run.

3. 3

   Choose what happens to items already on your register

   By default they are skipped and nothing on your register changes. Tick Update items that are already on the register only after checking the confirmation preview — matched on asset number alone. Only mapped, non-blank cells update an existing item, so ignored or empty cells never erase unrelated details. Ownership is the exception: changing it clears any former hire supplier, hire reference or subcontractor link that cannot apply to the new type. Operational status still changes through the register's audited status controls. There is no option to overwrite everything, on purpose.

4. 4

   Preview every row, then select Confirm and import

   The confirmation shows valid rows, warnings, invalid rows, duplicate candidates, ignored fields and any interpreted dates before it writes. Afterwards you get counts for created, updated, skipped and failed. If any rows failed, Download the rows that failed gives you a spreadsheet with the original spreadsheet row number and reason, so you can fix just those and import them again. Exact retries are safe even if a connection drops part-way through.

5. 5

   Dates and missing asset numbers

   A date like 04/05/26 is shown as 4 May before anything is added. An expiry or next-inspection column is preview-only: it does not invent certificate evidence or an inspection record without the supporting document or check. If some rows have no asset number, tick Generate asset numbers and The Site Book continues the account's PL- sequence; the numbers actually reserved are listed afterwards.

Export the register or a project's Plant history

1. 1

   Select Export on Plant & Equipment

   Downloads the complete company register as CSV in bounded batches, including current project/location, current compliance and reasons, next expiry, next inspection, every open corrective action, and created/updated dates.

2. 2

   Export a project's placement history from its Plant page

   The project CSV includes every placement period, not only items on site today. It carries the ownership and supplier snapshot, dates, location and RAMS reference, historical evidence coverage against the requirement versions that actually applied during that placement, inspection and failed-check counts, defect and quarantine counts, and the placement's final status. Requirement history starts when a version is first recorded; any earlier part of a placement is shown as unknown, and the export never applies today's settings backwards.

3. 3

   Your history remains exportable after a downgrade

   Plant changes stop below Business, but records are not deleted. If your account retains the data-export entitlement, the Business upgrade wall includes a link to export the stored Plant register. The full account data export also includes Plant assets and linked supplier names, current and historical requirement versions, evidence metadata and available files, placement history, events, Plant inspections and corrective actions. The Plant JSON names the stable archive path of every included photo and evidence file, so files with the same original name can still be matched to the right record. Missing, oversized or unsafe legacy file references are omitted and listed in the archive note rather than fetched from outside The Site Book's storage.