ElectricalBossPro Blog — Electrical Contractor Software

Electrical Estimates in Software: From Your Service List to an Approved, Scheduled Job

A lot of electrical work is sold before it is done. Panel upgrades, EV charger installs, generator installs, recessed lighting, a rewire. Each starts with an estimate, and each estimate is a chance to win the job or lose it to a slow follow-up. Software makes the estimate faster to build, easier to approve and impossible to forget.

Estimates Start With a Conversation

Alerts and texts keep your existing customers informed, as covered in Night Before, Next Stop, Arrived: Customer Alerts From Electrical Contractor Software. When those customers want bigger work, the estimate is next.

Estimates come from many places: a phone call, a website request form, a recommendation on a safety inspection report, or a tech who noticed something on a service call. Wherever it starts, the estimate is built on the customer and address in the system, so it is connected to the house and its equipment from the first line.

That connection matters later. When the customer calls back in a month and asks about “that quote for the charger,” the office finds it on the customer's record in seconds, sees what was proposed and what equipment is already at the house, and answers the question without hunting through email or a folder on someone's desk.

Built From Your Service List

In ElectricalBossPro, estimates are built from your own service list. Whatever you sell, you set it up once with your price, and every estimate pulls from it. A typical residential list might include:

• Service call and troubleshooting
• Outlets, GFCI outlets and breakers
• Ceiling fans, light fixtures and recessed lighting
• Dedicated circuits
• Smoke detectors and surge protectors
• EV charger installs, such as a $1,295 install
• Panel upgrades and generator installs
• Rewires priced per square foot

Building the list well is the most important setup step for estimates. See Building the Service List That Every Electrical Estimate and Invoice Pulls From.

Equipment on the Estimate

Larger electrical estimates usually involve equipment. A panel upgrade replaces a panel. A generator install adds a generator and a transfer switch or interlock. An EV charger install adds a charger.

Equipment details can be filled in on the estimate: brand, model, rating and anything else you know. When the estimate is approved and becomes the job, those details carry onto it. When the job is completed, the change flows back to the house. The estimate, the job and the house all tell the same story.

Online Approval

The customer gets the estimate and approves it online. No printing, signing, scanning or mailing. A homeowner who is comparing quotes can approve yours at 9pm from the couch, and you will see it in the morning.

When an estimate is approved, it becomes the scheduled job. Nobody retypes the line items or the equipment. The office puts the job on a van and a day on the dispatch board, and the tech sees the approved work on the phone. When the tech taps Complete, the invoice is built from the same lines.

Follow-Up and Templates

Many estimates do not get a yes or no. They just sit. Estimate follow-up emails go out to customers who have not answered, so a quote does not die because someone forgot to call back. The customer gets a polite nudge, and you get a second chance at the job.

Estimate templates save time on the work you quote often. If you build a lot of EV charger estimates or panel upgrade estimates, set up a template with the usual lines and adjust for each house instead of starting from blank every time.

Pricing Off the Property

Some electrical work is priced off the house itself. A rewire priced per square foot, or lighting priced per fixture, needs the measurement. Each property can hold measurements such as square feet, fixtures and circuits, and services can be priced off them. Enter the measurement once on the property, and estimates for that address use it.

That is especially useful for property managers with many similar units, where the same service at different addresses comes out at the right price for each one.

From Quote to Paid

The full path looks like this: the estimate is built from your service list, equipment is noted, the customer approves online, the approved estimate becomes the scheduled job, the tech completes it on the phone, the invoice is created from the same lines, and the card on file can be charged. Every step uses the step before it.

For a small shop, that means fewer estimates lost in a pile and less retyping between the quote and the invoice. To see how estimates fit with dispatch, billing and the rest, go to the electrical contractor software overview.