The verdict in three sentences
For a commercial refrigeration and air conditioning contractor with 18 engineers and 1,200 installations under contract, dedicated F-gas register software costs EUR 25,000 to 55,000 excluding VAT depending on scope, with a 3 to 5 month project. It pays back through the end of double data entry on intervention records, roughly 6 hours a week saved in the office, and through reliable leak check scheduling as required by EU Regulation 2024/573 and the UK F-gas regime. The decisive criterion is native generation of the intervention record from the field (the CERFA 15497 form in France, the F-gas record sheet in the UK), linked to cylinder tracking and a year-end report ready for the certification body.
The obligations the software must cover in 2026
The new EU fluorinated gas regulation, in force since March 2024, tightened the phase-down and placing-on-market bans without changing the core logic: every intervention on a circuit containing refrigerant must be recorded, and every system above 5 tonnes CO2 equivalent must be leak checked periodically. Great Britain keeps the same 5, 50 and 500 t CO2e thresholds under its retained F-gas rules. For a fleet of 1,200 installations, the challenge is volume: several thousand records a year, different check intervals per system and a cylinder stock spread across 18 vans.
| Obligation | Reference | What the software automates |
|---|---|---|
| Company certification | French Environment Code art. R543-99 / UK company F-gas certificate | Expiry alerts, link to certified engineers |
| Record for every intervention | CERFA 15497 (France), F-gas log (UK) | Mobile entry, operator signature, PDF archived for at least 5 years |
| Leak checks from 5 t CO2e | EU Regulation 2024/573, UK F-gas rules | Charge converted to t CO2e from the refrigerant GWP |
| 12, 6 or 3 month intervals | Thresholds 5, 50 and 500 t CO2e | Automatic scheduling, interval doubled with a permanent leak detection system |
| Permanent leak detection from 500 t CO2e | EU Regulation 2024/573 | Annual detector check and alarm traceability |
| Refrigerant tracking per container | Operator register | Supplier receipts, charges, recoveries, cylinder returns |
| Annual declaration | French decree of 29 February 2016 / customer reporting in the UK | Quantities charged, recovered and transferred per refrigerant |
During an inspection, the company must produce a system's history within minutes: nominal charge, refrigerant, check dates, leaks found and repairs. With scanned paper records, that search often takes half a day.
What custom refrigeration software costs
The ranges below are 2026 estimates for a contractor with 15 to 25 engineers. They include design, development, field testing with two or three pilot engineers and migration from Excel.
| Module | 2026 range (EUR excl. VAT) | Indicative lead time |
|---|---|---|
| Installation and equipment base, t CO2e calculation from GWP | 4,000 to 8,000 | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Offline mobile engineer app and intervention record | 7,000 to 14,000 | 4 to 6 weeks |
| Leak check and contract scheduling | 4,000 to 9,000 | 3 weeks |
| Refrigerant stock per cylinder and per van | 3,500 to 7,500 | 2 weeks |
| Annual report and exports for the certification body | 2,500 to 5,500 | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Accounting and invoicing connectors (Sage, Xero, Pennylane) | 2,000 to 6,000 | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Customer portal: certificates, history, breakdown requests | 2,000 to 5,000 | 2 weeks |
| Total project | 25,000 to 55,000 | 3 to 5 months |
Add EU or UK hosting and ongoing maintenance at EUR 300 to 700 a month depending on the support level. The next table compares realistic options over three years for 18 field users.
| Option | 3-year cost (EUR excl. VAT) | Strengths | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Generic SaaS CMMS, EUR 45 to 70 per user per month | 29,000 to 45,000 | Live within weeks | Refrigerant register often an add-on, records hard to customise |
| Off-the-shelf refrigeration software, EUR 60 to 95 per user per month | 39,000 to 62,000 | Compliance out of the box | Hard to adapt to your contracts, rates and approval flows |
| Custom software, project plus maintenance | 36,000 to 80,000 | Mirrors your processes, you own code and data | 3 to 5 month project, needs an internal lead |
| Excel and paper logbooks | No licence | No investment | About 6 hours a week of re-keying, high inspection risk |
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Custom software makes sense when your maintenance contracts have their own rules (fixed fees per capacity, on-call duty, response time penalties) or when you want records, stock and invoicing connected without re-keying. For a small firm with 3 to 5 engineers, an off-the-shelf tool is usually the better choice.
Mini case study
Thomas runs a commercial refrigeration and air conditioning firm in Nantes: 18 engineers, 1,200 installations under contract, about 4,200 interventions a year. His assistant re-keys paper records 6 hours a week, at EUR 32 fully loaded per hour over 46 weeks, i.e. EUR 8,832 a year. Engineers lose an average of 5 minutes per job filling in the logbook and photographing it: 350 hours a year at EUR 45 loaded, i.e. EUR 15,750.
Gross annual gain: EUR 24,582. Thomas chooses a EUR 38,000 project with EUR 6,000 a year of maintenance. Net gain: EUR 18,582 a year, payback in about 25 months, before counting missed leak checks, fined up to EUR 1,500 per offence in France, or visit invoices that now go out the same day. A UK contractor of the same size gets similar figures in GBP.
FAQ
Can the software produce the intervention record directly on a tablet? Yes, the record is completed on site, signed by the equipment operator and generated as a PDF matching the official template. It is archived for at least 5 years and emailed to the customer less than a minute after signature.
How is the 5 t CO2e threshold calculated? The software multiplies the charge in kilograms by the refrigerant GWP. For example, 1.3 kg of R404A (GWP 3,922) equals 5.1 t CO2e and triggers an annual check, whereas it takes 7.4 kg of R32 (GWP 675) to reach the same threshold.
Does the app work in cold rooms or basements with no signal? Yes, it works offline and syncs records as soon as the network returns. On our projects, more than 98% of records are synced within an hour of the job.
How long does it take to migrate 1,200 installations from Excel? Allow 2 to 3 weeks, including one week of data cleaning. Typically 90 to 95% of rows import automatically and your internal lead fixes the rest with us.
Where is the data hosted? With a provider in the EU or the UK, with daily backups kept for 30 days and GDPR compliance. You own both the data and the code, so there is no vendor lock-in.
Let's scope your project. Send us your number of engineers, installations and contract templates: we will price a scope between EUR 25,000 and 55,000 with a 3 to 5 month plan. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
