ElectricalBossPro Blog — Estimates & Quotes

Electrical Estimate Software: The Complete Guide to Quoting, Online Approval and Turning Estimates Into Jobs

Every electrical company lives on two kinds of work. There is the service call that gets booked and run the same week, and there is the bigger job that starts with a quote: a panel upgrade, an EV charger in the garage, a whole-house generator, a room full of recessed lighting or a rewire of an older home. The second kind is where most of the money is, and it is also where most of the paperwork piles up.

This guide walks through how estimates work in ElectricalBossPro from the first request to the scheduled job, and links out to the more detailed guides in this series along the way.

Why Quoting Deserves Its Own Software

Plenty of electricians write quotes in a word processor or a spreadsheet, export a PDF, and email it. That works until the homeowner calls back three weeks later. By then nobody remembers which version went out, whether the surge protector was included, or what size panel was quoted. Then the job gets scheduled by retyping the quote into a calendar, and the install van shows up with a note that just says “panel job.”

Estimate software fixes that by keeping the quote tied to the customer, the property and the job it turns into. The overview of how all of this fits together is on the ElectricalBossPro electrical estimate software page. The rest of this guide goes step by step.

Step One: Your Own Service List and Your Own Prices

Every estimate in ElectricalBossPro is built from a service list you set up. That list is whatever you sell. A typical residential shop might start with:

• Service call and troubleshooting
• Outlet and GFCI replacement, breaker replacement
• Ceiling fan and light fixture installs
• Recessed lighting, priced per fixture
• Dedicated circuits, priced per circuit
• Smoke detectors and whole-house surge protectors
• EV charger installs, panel upgrades and generator installs
• Rewires, priced per square foot

ElectricalBossPro does not hand you a price list. You know your market, your labor and your overhead, and the prices are yours. A shop might set a $99 service call, a $165 GFCI replacement and a $1,295 EV charger install, while the shop across town charges something different. When you change a price on the list, new estimates use it. The details are in Building Electrical Estimates From Your Own Service List.

Step Two: Measurements on the Property

Some electrical work is priced by the job, and some is priced by the size of the house or the number of things in it. ElectricalBossPro keeps measurements on each property: square feet, fixtures and circuits. A service can be priced off one of those numbers.

That is what makes a per-square-foot rewire quick to quote. Save 1,850 square feet on the property once, set your rewire up as a per-square-foot service, and the estimate does the multiplication. The same goes for a lighting job priced per fixture, or circuit work priced per circuit. When the walkthrough finds a different number, you correct the property and every later estimate at that address starts from the right figure.

Step Three: Equipment Details That Carry Onto the Job

An electrical quote is often about a specific piece of equipment: a new 200-amp main panel, a Level 2 charger, a generator with a transfer switch. ElectricalBossPro lets you fill in equipment details on the estimate, such as brand, model number, rating in amps or kW, phase or fuel type, and the location at the house.

When the estimate becomes a job, those details come with it. The tech sees them on the job card, and when the job is done, the equipment is saved on the house. Next year, when that customer calls about a breaker or a generator maintenance visit, the office already knows what is installed and where. That is covered in Equipment Details on the Estimate: How the Panel, Charger or Generator Carries Onto the Job.

Step Four: Online Approval and Follow-Ups

Once the estimate is ready, the homeowner gets it and can approve it online from a phone or computer. Nothing to print, sign, scan or mail back. A homeowner deciding on a panel upgrade can read every line at their own kitchen table and tap approve when they are ready.

Not everyone answers right away. Estimate follow-up emails go to customers who have not responded yet, so the quote stays in front of them instead of sinking under a week of other mail. For questions that need a quick answer, two-way texting from the office lets you reply without phone tag.

If you like to offer choices, put each one on the estimate as its own line item: a standard panel upgrade, the same upgrade with a whole-house surge protector, and a version that adds a dedicated circuit for a future charger. Separate lines with separate prices make the difference plain.

Step Five: The Approved Estimate Becomes the Job

This is the step that saves the most time. When a customer approves, the estimate becomes the scheduled job with the same services, prices and equipment details. Nobody retypes it. The office puts it on a van and a day on the dispatch board, and the tech sees it in the tech app in route order, with the equipment and access notes on the card.

When the tech taps Complete, the invoice is created from the job and a card on file can be charged. The estimate, the job and the invoice all describe the same work in the same words, which is exactly what you want when a customer asks what they paid for.

Where Quote Requests Come From

Estimates do not start from nothing. In ElectricalBossPro, requests come in a few ways:

• Your website. The request form on your site sends submissions into Form Responses, ready for someone in the office to call back or quote.
• Sign-ups. A sign-up form for something like a yearly generator maintenance plan captures a card and lands in Form Responses too. One click converts a sign-up into a client.
• Safety inspections. When a tech completes the safety inspection checklist and writes recommendations, those recommendations are right there on the job for the office to quote.
• Customer photos. A homeowner who texts a picture of a scorched outlet or an old panel gives you enough to decide whether to quote now or send someone to look.
• The customer app. Existing customers can request service from the app on their phone.

Templates for the Jobs You Quote Every Week

If you install a lot of EV chargers, the estimate for one probably looks a lot like the last. Estimate templates let you save a standard quote and start the next one from it, then adjust for the house in front of you. A charger template, a panel upgrade template and a generator install template cover a big share of the bigger work most residential shops quote.

Getting Started

The fastest way to see all of this is the live demo, a fully stocked sample electrical company you can click around in with no signup. Look at a property with its measurements and equipment, open an estimate, and follow it through to a scheduled job. When you are ready, set up your own service list first, add a few properties, and send your next real quote through the system instead of a PDF. To see how estimates fit with dispatch, the tech app and billing, head back to the ElectricalBossPro electrical estimate software page.