Electrician management software is the search a shop makes when the problem has changed from managing jobs to managing the people who do them. With one truck the owner knows everything. With four, the questions are different: who is where, who holds which licence, how long a panel change really takes each electrician, and whether everyone is quoting from the same book. The software that answers those is job management with the crew view switched on, and the crew view is what this page is about.
The schedule is per electrician, with the licence on it
A crew schedule has to know who is a licensed journeyman, who is an apprentice who cannot be sent alone, and who has the lift on the truck for the lighting job. Software that stores those against the person and refuses to drop a licensed job on an apprentice's board prevents both the reshuffle and the inspection failure. It also lets each electrician see their own day on the phone, so the calls to ask what is next stop.
Time on the task is the number that prices the book
A flat rate book is only right if its standard times are right, and the standard times are only known if actual times are recorded. Management software that clocks the electrician in and out of each task on the phone gives the owner the real time against the book time, per person and per task. That report says which tasks are under-priced and which electricians need training, and a paper timesheet cannot produce it.
One price book on every phone
The customer should hear the same price from any electrician the shop sends. Management software publishes the book to the field so estimates are built by tapping tasks, and the approved estimate becomes the work order and the invoice with the number unchanged. The price book, residential price list and cost calculator tools on this site are the free version of the book; the paid product keeps the records the estimates attach to.
The labor the software is managing
The crew is the shop's largest cost and its scarcest input, and it is licensed labor that cannot be replaced quickly. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' occupational outlook for electricians, cited below, describes the trade's employment picture nationally and is the public reference for the labor market a shop is scheduling into. Software does not change that market; it makes sure the licensed hours the shop does have are billed.
Questions people ask about electrician management software
How is this different from electrician job management software?
Same product family. Management software is job management with the crew features in use: per-electrician schedules, licences and skills, task time tracking and per-person reporting. Most vendors include them in the same plan.
Should electricians clock per task or per day?
Per task if the shop prices flat rate. Per-day time gives you the payroll; per-task time tells you whether the book is right, and the book is where the margin lives.
When does a shop need this?
When the owner can no longer see every job in a day. For most electrical shops that is the second or third truck, and it shows up as a scheduling problem before anyone calls it a management one.