ElectricalBossPro Blog — Electrical Contractor Software

The First Week on Electrical Contractor Software, Day by Day

The first week on new software is when most of the learning happens. Nobody remembers a training video; they remember the first time a job did not show up on their phone and someone had to figure out why. Knowing what each day usually brings makes the week calmer for the office and the crew.

Day One: The First Route

By now the setup in Setting Up Electrical Contractor Software in the Order That Saves Rework is done: service list, plans, customers, techs and vans. Day one is the first real route.

The office opens the dispatch board, puts each call on a van and a day, and auto-routes each van from the shop. Techs sign in with the company login and their PIN and see their calls in route order. Expect a few questions: where the navigation button is, how to find the equipment notes, what Skip does. Keep your phone on.

At the end of the day, look at the board. Every job should be Complete or Skipped with a note. If any are still open, find out why. That habit, that every job ends with a status, is the most important one to build this week.

Day Two: The First Payments

By the second day, invoices from day one are out. Customers with cards on file were charged when the tech tapped Complete. Customers without cards got invoices they can pay online in the customer app.

Check a few invoices closely. Are the prices right? Is sales tax right? Did the tech add something on site that needed a line from the service list? If a service is missing from the list, add it now. Small fixes this week save repeated fixes for months.

Day Three: The First Inspection

Somewhere in the first week, a yearly safety inspection or generator maintenance visit comes up. It is a good test of the system. The tech opens the job, sees the equipment on the card, works through the safety inspection checklist, enters readings, picks a condition and writes recommendations.

In the office, open the job and print the Electrical Safety Inspection report. Read it the way the homeowner will. If the recommendations are written in shorthand, talk to the tech now, while it is the first one and not the fiftieth. More in Printing an Electrical Safety Inspection Report the Homeowner Can Keep.

Day Four: Equipment Starts Filling In

By midweek, techs have been to a few dozen houses. Many of those houses had no equipment on record after the import. Ask techs to add what they saw: the main panel with its brand and rating, the generator, the EV charger, location and access notes. Changes made on a job flow back to the house.

It feels like extra work in week one. By month three, most of your regular houses will have their equipment on record, and new jobs will fill in from the house with the From House picker.

Day Five: Customers Notice

By the end of the week, customers start noticing. On-the-way and arrived texts went out automatically. Some customers chose a reminder the night before or an alert when they are next. A few replied by text, and the office answered through two-way texting. Someone may have requested a service through the customer app or signed up for a plan.

Watch Form Responses too. A website request or sign-up may have come in. A sign-up converts to a client in one click, with the card captured on sign-up already on file.

The Weekend: Look Back

At the end of the first week, take half an hour to look back. What questions did techs ask more than once? Those need a quick talk on Monday. What did the office have to fix by hand? That points to setup gaps such as missing services, wrong prices or a plan that was not attached to a customer. Which customers called asking where the tech was? Check their alert choices.

Then pull the work order pads from the vans if you have not already. Running two systems past the first week is how shops end up back on paper.

After Week One

Week two is quieter. Techs know the screen. The office knows the board. The Waiting List starts showing due visits from the plans you attached. Invoices go out on completion and cards get charged. By week three, the new way usually just feels like the way the shop runs.

If you are still in the free trial, week one is also your best test. Run real calls, send real invoices and see whether the office is calmer on Friday than it was on Monday. For the whole system, go back to the ElectricalBossPro electrical contractor software page.