ElectricalBossPro Blog — Commercial Accounts

Choosing Commercial Electrical Software: What to Check Before You Take On a Big Account

The best time to sort out your software is before the big account arrives, not after. Once a property manager has handed you forty addresses and expects one bill in four weeks, there is no time to discover that your system can only send one invoice per job. This guide is a checklist for small electrical shops thinking about commercial work, whether you are looking at new software or checking the one you already have.

Start With How You Organize Accounts

Organizing accounts with tags and custom fields is covered in Tags, Custom Fields and Reports for Commercial Electrician Accounts. Before any of that, the software needs the right basic structure.

Check: can one client have many addresses? This is the foundation. A property manager, chain or ownership group should be one client, with each building, unit or store as an address under it. Each address should keep its own notes, equipment and history. If every address has to be a separate customer, commercial work will get messy fast.

Check: can you import a list? Managers send spreadsheets. CSV import that places addresses on the map automatically saves hours of typing.

Billing That Fits the Account

Check: can one account get one monthly statement? Commercial accounts want one bill covering every address, with each line labeled by location. Software that can only produce one invoice per job will bury the account's accounting office.

Check: can billing differ by client? Your homeowners still want to pay per job with a card on file. You need both styles at once, set per client, not one style for the whole company.

Also look for line items and sales tax on every invoice, online payment for the account, and past-due follow-up that runs on its own.

Recurring Work and Scheduling

Check: can you set recurring plans by days between visits? Relamping every 14 or 30 days and yearly inspections at 365 days should come due on their own, without a spreadsheet.

Check: can you see what is due on a map? A map of due and overdue visits makes it easy to group nearby buildings into routes. ElectricalBossPro's Waiting List colors pins not due yet, due now or overdue past a 7-day grace.

Check: does it handle commercial and residential on one board? A dispatch board by van and day, with auto-routing, manual route order, van filters and saved views, lets you run both kinds of work without two systems.

What the Tech Needs on Site

Check: are access notes on the address and on the job card? Electrical room keys, front desk check-ins and building hours need to show on the tech's phone every visit, behind each tech's own login.

Check: can you record equipment per building? Look for panels, subpanels, meter bases and disconnects with brand, model, serial, rating, phase and location. Three-phase service should be recordable like anything else. Equipment should show on the job card and update from the job.

Check: does the tech app run on the phones your techs already have? A browser-based app that installs to the home screen on iPhone and Android, with no app store, keeps things simple.

Reporting Back to the Account

Check: can techs take before-and-after photos on the job? Commercial accounts rarely see the work, so photos matter.

Check: is there an inspection checklist and a printable report? A checklist with readings, a condition and written recommendations, printed as an Electrical Safety Inspection report, gives owners something they can read.

Check: can you text managers? Two-way texting from the office and automatic on-the-way and arrived alerts keep managers in the loop. Check what text allowance is included, too.

Estimates and Requests

Check: can accounts approve estimates online? And does the approved estimate become the scheduled job, with line items carried over? Automatic follow-up emails help estimates move.

Check: can managers request service easily? Texting, a customer app and a website request form all help managers send you work.

Price and Trial

Check: what does it cost, and is commercial billing extra? The big enterprise platforms are built for much larger companies than a few-van shop, and with any software it is worth asking whether features like monthly account billing cost extra. ElectricalBossPro plans are $59, $89 or $199 per month, and monthly account billing works on every plan.

Check: can you try it with your own data first? A 14-day free trial with no credit card lets you set up a real account, import its addresses and see what the first statement would look like. You can also click around a fully stocked sample electrical company in the live demo with no signup.

Ready Before the Call

The shops that win big commercial accounts are often the ones who were ready before the call came. Run through this checklist, fix the gaps, and the next property manager who calls will find a shop that already works the way they do. If you are starting from the beginning, the series opens with Commercial Electrical Software: The Complete Guide to Property Manager, Retail and Office Accounts, and the features are summarized on the commercial electrical software page.