Before Testing With Your PAT

Before you test with your PAT Tester, if you plan to use some of the extra features available in the SimplyPats software - please read the following carefully:

Please Note

Not all PAT Testers support the use of Comments Fields, please refer to your PAT Tester manual for further information.

It is a good idea to do some preliminary tests around your house or office and get used to using the SimplyPats software before testing on site.

Notes Fields

After you have tested an appliance, some PAT Tester give you the option of entering extra information, shown in blue below.

SimplyPats can then use this information in the program to help you calculate and invoice, retest dates and print more meaningful reports for your customer.

Example 1:
Notes 1 - KE
Notes 2 - 12
Notes 3 - P/B5/C
Notes 4 - INOPERATIVE - DISCARD

Example 2:
Repairing Code - P/B5/C
Comments - INOPERATIVE - DISCARD

Example 3:
User Code - KE

The examples above illustrate the extra notes fields used by some PAT Testers. On the Pat Settings Screen you can select what information you intend to store in each field prior to downloading from your PAT Tester.

Some PAT Testers do not have a forward slash / character on the keyboard so the charge and repair code must be separated by using the star character * as shown below:

Notes - P*B5*C

See - Using The Notes Fields

Appliance Name (Do not confuse this field with the "Appliance No" field)

When prompted by your PAT for the Appliance name, type in a full description or an abbreviation of the appliance you are testing, for instance you may have kettle to test, you could type in Kettle, or if you want to make use of SimplyPats ability to understand Abbreviations you could just type KE. Note: If you do decide to use Abbreviations instead of full descriptions in the Appliance Name field, you will need to check that any Abbreviations you will be using are listed in the "Maintain Abbreviations Table". You can always add new Abbreviations or change the ones that are already listed if you need to. See Maintain Abbreviations

When you download your data to SimplyPats you will see the letters KE under the appliance heading. If you now go to the "Tools" menu and choose "replace abbreviations", SimplyPats will now have replaced the letters KE with the word KETTLE. This will only need to be done if you have used Abbreviations.

SimplyPats does this by first looking in your abbreviation list (This can be found by going to the "Tools" menu and choosing "Maintain Abbreviations"). If SimplyPats finds the abbreviation in the left hand column, it will replace it with the word in the right hand column. You will also notice that you can ADD your own abbreviations, or even change the existing ones.

You also have the option to print out a list of your abbreviations.

Retest Period

Retest Period in Months. If you enter a value such as 12 (for a 12 monthly period before the appliance should be retested) SimplyPats will assume all the next tests will also be 12 monthly, until you enter a different value in this field.

Repairing Code

Test Charge and Repair codes, this is a combination of codes allowing you to say, how much you want to charge for the test, and up to 3 repairs you carried out when testing the appliance, e.g. replacing the fuse with the correct value.