Fire safety inspection software: turn routine checks into evidence
A fire risk assessment is a set of promises: these doors will hold smoke, this alarm will be heard, these routes will be clear, these people know what to do.
Fire safety inspection software exists to prove those promises are being kept (the weekly call-point test, the fire door walk, the emergency lighting flick test, the termly drill), each one recorded, dated, attributed and retrievable the day someone asks. And someone will ask: since October 2023, the Fire Safety Order (as amended by the Building Safety Act) requires every responsible person to record their fire risk assessment in full, in writing, whatever the size of the premises. A written assessment resting on unrecorded checks is a promise with no proof.
The FRA is the promise. Inspections are the proof.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 is deliberately outcome-based: the responsible person must take appropriate precautions, informed by the risk assessment, and, under Article 17, keep fire safety measures maintained in efficient working order. In practice that resolves into a rhythm of recurring checks, most of them done by your own site team, some by competent persons under contract.
The failure mode is rarely that checks don't happen. It's that they happen and leave no trace: the caretaker tests a call point every Friday and notes it nowhere a fire officer would accept; the fire door walk happens "when there's time" and its findings live in a head full of other jobs. When the audit (or, worse, the incident investigation) comes, the school has done the work and cannot prove it.
Inspection software closes that gap at the moment of the check, on a phone, in the corridor: tap through the checklist, photograph the propped-open door, and the failed item becomes a tracked work order with a priority and an owner before the walk is even finished. That last step is the one to insist on: an inspection that ends in a PDF is filing; an inspection that raises its own jobs is management. It's how InspectProof, EstateProof's inspection module, is built.
The regime the software must hold
These are the recurring fire safety checks behind a school's FRA. Every row should exist in the system on day one, pre-scheduled at these frequencies, if you're building fire safety schedules from blank templates, you've bought a to-do list.
| Check | Rhythm | Done by | The evidence that must exist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire alarm call-point test | Weekly, rotating call points | Site team | Which point, result, date, tester |
| Fire alarm service | Six-monthly | Competent person | Service certificate on the record |
| Fire door inspection | Six-monthly by a competent person; regular route walk-checks between | Both | Per-door condition, photos of defects, actions raised |
| Emergency lighting | Monthly function test; annual full-duration test | Site team + contractor | Test log per circuit, annual certificate |
| Extinguishers | Monthly visual; annual service | Site team + contractor | Check log, service labels and certificate |
| Evacuation drill | Commonly at least once a term, varied by time and scenario | School | Date, duration, observations, actions |
| Fire risk assessment | Recorded in writing (mandatory since Oct 2023); reviewed regularly and after significant change | Responsible person / assessor | The written FRA plus the review trail |
The workload is bigger than most schools price in: a secondary school can easily hold a hundred-plus fire doors. Run your own numbers through our free fire door inspection calculator, or see the whole compliance year mapped out in the school compliance calendar.
How to choose fire safety inspection software
Eight questions that sort inspection tools from filing cabinets with apps attached.
Does a failed check become an action automatically?
The propped fire door should be a job with a photo, a priority and an owner before you reach the end of the corridor.
Does it work on a phone, offline?
Plant rooms, basements and stairwells are where fire checks happen and where signal isn't. The mobile workflow deserves scrutiny of its own: see our guide to building inspection apps.
Is the statutory schedule built in?
Weekly call points, six-monthly doors, monthly lighting: scheduled at the right frequencies and rolling forward on completion, not built from blank templates.
Is the evidence retrievable by date, on demand?
"Show me your last six months of fire door checks" should be a two-minute answer, not a two-day trawl.
Do contractor visits land in the same record?
The alarm service certificate belongs on the same timeline as the weekly tests it sits between, not in a separate folder maintained by hope.
Can every member of staff report a fire safety fault?
The wedge under the fire door gets reported by whoever sees it. If reporting takes a login they don't have, it doesn't get reported.
Does it cover the rest of compliance too?
Fire is one register among many: asbestos, water, gas, electrical. A fire-only tool is another silo; our guide to school compliance software covers the full set.
Where do the records live?
Fire safety records are legal evidence. EstateProof writes them into your own Microsoft 365 tenant, so they outlive any contract with us: a commitment worth asking every vendor to match in writing.
When the fire officer visits
Fire and rescue authorities audit schools, and the responsible person's protection is the record. Digital records are accepted, nothing in the Fire Safety Order prescribes paper, provided they are complete, dated, attributable and producible on demand.
That is precisely what an inspection trail kept on the job records in your own SharePoint gives you: every check, photo, defect and completed action, attributed and dated, filterable by building and by date. And because EstateProof writes it all into your own Microsoft 365 tenant, there's no vendor export to negotiate and no subscription holding your evidence hostage: the records were always yours. Put that question to everyone on your shortlist, and see how the answers compare with Every and iAM Compliant.
What does it cost?
Published, per site per year, ex VAT, unlimited users, banded 1 to 3, 4 to 10 and 11+ sites. Digital inspections are a Gold feature; Silver runs the schedules and fault reporting underneath them.
Silver From £650 per site per year
FMProof: fault reporting, work orders, planned and statutory maintenance schedules (including fire alarm and lighting frequencies), site team app, contractor portal and leadership dashboard.
Gold From £1,150 per site per year
Adds InspectProof: the digital inspection walks, failed-check-to-job automation, AI email and photo triage, and the safety screen. The tier this page is about.
Platinum From £1,650 per site per year
Adds GovernanceProof: board packs, e-signed approvals and policy publishing, on the same records as the estate.
Per site per year, ex VAT, at the 11+ band; smaller estates pay more per site. Price your estate in 30 seconds, or see EstateProof configured for multi-academy trusts and schools.
Questions buyers actually ask
Do schools legally have to use fire safety software?
No: the law requires the outcomes, not the tool: appropriate precautions, maintained fire safety measures, and since October 2023 a fire risk assessment recorded in full. What software changes is your ability to prove those outcomes: checks captured at the point of work, failures turned into tracked actions, and the whole trail retrievable when an auditor or fire officer asks.
How often do fire doors need inspecting in a school?
Six-monthly inspection by a competent person is the widely adopted benchmark (BS 9999), with regular walk-checks of doors on escape routes in between; many schools do these weekly. The real question is workload: a secondary school can easily hold a hundred or more fire doors. Our free fire door calculator puts numbers on it.
Who can do the weekly fire alarm test?
Your own site team: it is a one-call-point functional test, rotating the point each week so every device is covered over time, logged with the point tested and the result. The six-monthly service is different: that needs a competent person under contract, and the certificate belongs in the same record as the weekly tests it sits between.
Will the fire service accept digital records?
Yes. Neither the Fire Safety Order nor its guidance prescribes a format: what matters is that records are complete, dated, attributable and available on demand. A timestamped digital check with a photo and a named tester is stronger evidence than a tick on a clipboard sheet, provided you can produce it when asked.
What happens when a check finds a problem?
In EstateProof, the failed item becomes a work order on the spot (photo attached, priority set, assigned to the site team or a contractor) and it stays visible until closed, on the school's dashboard and the trust's. That loop, from failure to fix to evidence of the fix, is the entire point of doing inspections digitally.
Walk a fire inspection in the live demo
Thirty minutes, no hard sell, or open the demo right now and run a fire safety walk yourself, no sign-in needed. Call 020 4558 7729 or email info@estateproof.co.uk.