The site office in everyone's pocket.

The number changes. The sign should not.

Every site has a sign somewhere with a phone number on it that is one number out of date. It was right when it was printed. Then the office line changed, or the out-of-hours mobile moved to a different warden, and nobody was going to re-print a sign bolted to a gate over a phone number.

So the number stays wrong, and the people it inconveniences most are the ones least able to do anything about it: a berth holder at half nine at night, a delivery driver at the wrong entrance, a guest arriving after the office has shut.

A code does not go out of date, because the details are not on it. The sign carries a QR that points at a profile you control, and the profile is what changes. Print it once and change the number as often as you like.

Out of hours is when it actually matters

Nobody scans a sign at eleven in the morning when the office is open and somebody is standing behind the desk. They scan it when there is nobody to ask. That is the moment the card has to be right, and it is also the moment a wrong number costs the most.

One profile can carry the daytime line, the out-of-hours number, the directions to the correct entrance and whatever else somebody standing in the dark actually needs, clearly separated so they know which to ring. A map pin that points at the gate rather than the postcode, because the postcode is what sends deliveries to the farm next door.

And it works the other way. Somebody who scans it can send their own name and number back to you in the same two taps, so an enquiry that arrives out of hours reaches the office in the morning instead of drifting off.

The gate, the pontoon, the facilities block and the noticeboard

A card is in one pocket. A site is not a pocket. The same profile goes onto whatever the place actually needs. A weatherproof metal sign on the gate, made to stay outside. A lighter display board at the entrance, or on a stand at a boat show. A counter stand on the office desk next to the kettle.

The part worth knowing is that every item in a run can carry a different code, at no extra cost. Twenty signs is not twenty copies of the same sign. The gate can point at arrivals information, the pontoon at the harbourmaster, the facilities block at fault reporting and the noticeboard at events, and each one counts its own scans so you can see which of them anybody actually uses.

Signs start from £22 (A4), boards from £12 (A5) and counter stands from £19 (A5), printed and posted inside 7–10 working days, and 7–10 working days, UK delivery £10.19 per order and free over £100 of printed items because a run of A1 signs does not travel like a counter stand. See the range and the sizes →

One card for the gate and the number

The question that comes up on almost every site is whether one card can open the barrier and carry the contact details, so nobody is issued a fob and a card. Sometimes it can, and what decides it is not the card: it is what the reader on the gatepost listens for. Older proximity systems run at 125 kHz and cannot hear a card a phone can read, while newer systems run at 13.56 MHz, which is the same band as the NFC in every modern phone.

Finding out which you have takes about five minutes and is worth doing before anybody orders anything. How to tell what your gate reads, and what to ask your access provider.

Season staff, and what happens in October

Seasonal teams are why most site signage ends up wrong. A card printed with a warden’s name is out of date the day they leave, and there is always a stack of them left in a drawer.

The way round it is to put the card on a profile the site owns and name it for the job rather than the person. “North Gate warden”, not a name. When the warden changes you point that card at the new profile: same card, same code, same sign on the gate, nothing reprinted.

One thing to be clear about, because it is a real boundary rather than a detail. That works for cards sitting on profiles the site owns. A card that belongs to a teammate’s own account is theirs, and stays theirs when they leave. If you want the card to survive the person, it has to be issued on a site profile from the start.

What it costs, and what it does not

The profile, the QR, the lead capture and the analytics are free, on a free account, with no card details taken. You can put a code on the noticeboard this afternoon without spending anything.

Cards are a one-off from £24. Printed signage is priced per item. Nothing renews unless you ask it to, which matters more on a site than most places: a subscription that quietly lapses over winter and takes your signage down with it is exactly the failure this is built not to have. Full pricing →