What fire stopping software actually does
At its core, fire stopping software replaces the spreadsheet, the camera roll and the end-of-job scramble with one structured record per installation. You open the current construction drawing on a phone or tablet, drop a pin at the exact penetration, and the record captures the element and its fire rating, the services passing through, the product and the tested system it belongs to, before-during-after photographs, who installed it and when, and its current status. At handover, those records become the fire-stopping section of the building's fire safety information - the part of the golden thread that only the installer can supply.
One naming note. "Passive fire protection" is the wider family - fire stopping, fire doors, fire dampers, intumescent coating, board encasement. Some tools cover one trade and borrow the family name; if you carry more than one trade, check each is native to the tool rather than bolted on as a generic form.
The buyer's checklist: seven things to demand
- Offline capture, fully. Risers, basements and stair cores have no signal. The whole record - pin, fields, photos - must capture on the device and sync later. Test it in airplane mode before you sign anything.
- Pins on the live drawing revision. When a drawing is superseded, existing records must stay correctly mapped, not become orphans. Ask the supplier to show you a revision change, not describe one.
- A tamper-evident history. Anyone reviewing the record should be able to see every change, who made it and when - and be able to trust that nothing was quietly rewritten after the fact.
- Photo provenance that survives export. Metadata is stripped or edited in seconds with free tools. Evidence is stronger when the reference, location and capture time are burned into the image itself, where they survive a screenshot, a print, or a paste into someone else's report.
- Every trade you carry. Fire stopping, doors, dampers, coating, encasement - each with its own fields, not one generic form wearing five hats.
- Pricing you can read before you talk to anyone. If the price only exists on the other side of a demo call, budget for the price to depend on the call. Watch especially for per-record, per-pin or per-drawing charges - they quietly tax your busiest months.
- Your evidence out again. Exports and evidence packs you could hand to a client even if you stopped paying tomorrow. A record you cannot take with you is a record you rent.
Where spreadsheets and photo folders fall down
Most failed audits are not failed installations - they are good work captured badly. Spreadsheets get emailed into competing versions with no trail of who changed what. Photo folders hold hundreds of images nobody can tie to a specific seal on a specific revision. Handover packs get reconstructed from memory in the last week of the job. The fix is structural, not disciplinary: capture the record once, at the point of work, with the photo and the location attached by design. The golden thread guide covers what the law actually requires of those records.
How Assaya answers the checklist
Assaya is our answer to the seven demands above, built by working fire-stopping installers at Rockfirepro Ltd because the tools we tried failed the list. It is offline-first by design - records capture in full with no signal and sync when connection returns. Pins live on controlled drawing revisions. Every record keeps a hash-chained, tamper-evident history. Every evidence photo captured in the app carries its seal reference, location and UTC capture time burned into the image itself, so it stays readable after the photo leaves our system. All twelve fire protection trades are native - fire stopping, doors, dampers, intumescent coating, board encasement, cavity barriers, edge of slab, windows & glazing, fire & smoke curtains, shutters, fire-rated ceilings and extinguishers. The whole price list is published - no demo call first, and no per-drawing, per-pin or per-record charge. And your evidence exports cleanly, because we would demand the same.
It is UK-hosted in a London data centre, ICO-registered (ZC191719), Cyber Essentials certified, and pairs the field app with an admin console and a client-facing golden-thread portal. Switching from another system starts clean with your next job - how switching works explains why we do it that way.
One honest caveat
We are a vendor on this page, and you should treat every vendor's checklist - including this one - as an argument, not a verdict. That is why we also publish the ten questions to ask any supplier, with our own answers in public so you can hold us to the same standard we suggest you hold everyone else.
See fire-stopping records captured on site, pinned to the drawing and locked to a tamper-evident history - with the whole price list published and no demo to sit through first.
What is fire stopping software?
A system for recording passive fire protection work - penetration seals, cavity barriers, fire doors, dampers - as it is installed and inspected. Each record is pinned to a point on the construction drawing and carries the element and its fire rating, the services penetrating, the tested system used, photographs, the installer and date, and its current status, so the work can be verified and handed over as part of the building's fire safety information.
Is passive fire protection software the same thing as fire stopping software?
In practice, yes. The same category of tool is sold as fire stopping software, firestopping software, passive fire protection software and compartmentation software. Passive fire protection is the wider trade family - fire stopping, fire doors, fire dampers, intumescent coating, board encasement - so check that a tool actually covers the trades you carry rather than just the one in its name.
Can I not just use a spreadsheet and a photo folder?
You can start that way, and plenty do - but it is where records most often fail scrutiny. Spreadsheets drift into competing versions with no trail of who changed what, and loose photos cannot be tied back to a specific seal on a specific drawing revision. A purpose-built system captures the record once, at the point of work, with the photo, the location and the history attached by design.
Does fire stopping software have to work offline?
Treat it as non-negotiable. Fire stopping happens in risers, basements, plant rooms and stair cores - exactly the places with no signal. If the app cannot capture the full record on the device and sync later, operatives fall back to photos-and-memory, and the record quality collapses. Test any tool in airplane mode before you buy it.
What does fire stopping software cost?
Pricing models vary widely across the market - per user, per project, per module, and often only revealed after a sales call. Assaya publishes its whole price list at assaya.co.uk/pricing.html with no demo to sit through first, and charges no per-drawing, per-pin or per-record fees. Solo mode is free: no account, records held on your own device.
This page is general information about record-keeping software for passive fire protection, not legal or compliance advice. Confirm your specific duties with a competent person.