ElectricalBossPro Blog — Scheduling & Dispatch

Choosing Electrician Scheduling Software: What to Check Before You Switch

There is no shortage of scheduling software. Generic field-service software will happily put a job on a calendar. The big enterprise platforms will do everything, at a price and a level of setup that most small electrical shops do not want. Spreadsheets and paper cost nothing until the day they lose a job. Choosing well means knowing what an electrical company actually needs from a schedule, and checking for it before you commit.

Start With How You Work

The previous guide, Scheduling as a One-Van Electrician: Running Dispatch From Your Own Phone, showed that the same tools have to work for one van or five. Before looking at any software, write down how your company runs: how many vans, how you split service and install work, how many recurring customers you have, and how much of your work is commercial. Then check each option against that list.

1. A Board by Day and by Van

The core of scheduling is seeing every job by day, and filtering to one van's route. Check that you can assign jobs to a van and a day, move them easily, save the views you use most, and print a route sheet. If the board shows a calendar but not routes by van, it was built for appointments, not for vans on the road.

2. Routing From the Shop

A service van with ten stops needs a sensible order. Look for one-click auto-routing, such as Closest First and Furthest First from the shop, plus the ability to set the order by hand when a stop has to be first. Check that the tech's phone shows the same order as the office.

3. Recurring Visits That Come Due on Their Own

Yearly safety inspections, yearly generator maintenance and commercial lighting maintenance are steady income only if every visit happens. Check how the software handles recurring work. Does each visit come due on its own after a set number of days? Is there a map that shows every due and overdue visit, so you can group them by area? For what that looks like, see The Waiting List Map: Seeing Every Electrical Visit That Has Come Due.

4. Installs That Don't Swallow the Route

Panel upgrades, EV chargers and generator installs need their own days. Check that an approved estimate can become a scheduled job without retyping, with its line items and equipment details carried over, and that you can keep install days on their own van or their own days.

5. Electrical Details on the Job Card

A scheduled job is only half the story. When the tech arrives, do they see the main panel, subpanels, generator and transfer switch saved on the house, with brand, model, rating and location? Do access notes show up on every visit? Does a safety inspection checklist run on the phone? Generic software usually stops at an address and a notes box.

6. A Tech App Your Crew Will Use

Check that the tech app runs on the phones your techs already have, iPhone and Android, without special devices. In ElectricalBossPro it runs in the browser and installs to the home screen with no app store download. Look for the basics: route order, navigation, Start / Skip / Complete, photos, time clock and payment at completion.

7. Customer Texts and Crew GPS

Automatic on-the-way and arrived texts, night-before reminders the customer can choose, a live route map in the customer app, and two-way texting with the office. On the office side, crew GPS on the map so you know which van is closest to a new call. Check what the text allowance is and whether replies count. In ElectricalBossPro, plans include 500, 1,000 or 2,000 segments sent and received on Start, Pro and Crew.

8. Commercial Accounts

If you work for property managers, gyms or retail, check that one client can have many addresses, each with its own access notes and equipment, and that the client can get one monthly statement covering every address.

9. Price You Can Read

Look for plain pricing without per-feature add-ons for the scheduling basics. ElectricalBossPro plans are $59, $89 and $199 per month for Start, Pro and Crew, with scheduling and dispatch on every plan and a 14-day free trial with no credit card.

Try It on a Real Day

The best test of scheduling software is a real day. Click around the live demo, a fully stocked sample electrical company, then start a trial and run a day of your own work through it. To see everything scheduling and dispatch can do, and every guide in this series, visit the ElectricalBossPro electrician scheduling software page.