Electrical work is quoted more often than almost any other trade, priced from a mix of labour, materials and testing, and billed to a mix of householders, landlords, letting agents and main contractors who all pay differently. An app that treats every job as a call out and every customer as a card in front of you will not survive the month.
Quoting is the bit that pays
Price the job in parts rather than as one number. A quote broken into consumer unit, circuits, accessories, testing and certification is easier to defend, easier to vary and much easier to convert into an invoice at the end.
Put your assumptions on the document. Access, existing earthing arrangement, whether making good is included and what happens if the wiring behind the plaster is not what the survey suggested. Almost every dispute an electrician has is about something that was assumed rather than written.
Get acceptance in writing and timestamped. An emailed yes is fine, a button on the quote is better, and either beats a phone call neither of you can now describe the same way.
Invoicing an electrical job properly
If you are VAT registered, the invoice needs an invoice number, your VAT number, the supply date, the rate applied and the VAT amount. Domestic work at a reduced rate for certain energy saving measures has to show the rate it was charged at, not just the total.
Work for a VAT registered contractor in the construction chain usually falls under the domestic reverse charge, which means you do not charge VAT and the invoice must say the customer accounts for it. Any app you are considering should be able to produce that invoice. Take your accountant's view on which of your jobs it applies to.
Variations are where the money goes. The extra socket, the second visit because the boards were not up, the isolator nobody costed. If adding a line to a job mid week is awkward, it will not get added.
What to check in a trial
- Build a quote from saved line items rather than typing prices again
- Accept it and confirm the invoice carries the same lines and prices
- Produce a reverse charge invoice and read the wording
- Add a variation after the job is scheduled
- Take a card payment from the van on your own phone
- Send a statement to a letting agent with three open invoices
- Check what the unpaid list looks like at day 30 and day 60
Certificates are a separate problem
Electrical installation certificates, minor works certificates and EICRs are governed by BS 7671 and are usually produced in dedicated certification software approved by your scheme provider.
Very little general job management software issues compliant certificates, and you should be suspicious of anything that claims to without naming the standard and the scheme. Youzse does not issue them.
What job software should do is hold the certificate against the job and the customer so that a landlord asking for last year's EICR takes thirty seconds rather than a search through a van full of paperwork.
Where to go next
Youzse for electricians
What the quoting, invoicing and payment side looks like built for the trade.
Job management software for trades
The four things that decide whether a trades system earns its keep.
What to put on an invoice
VAT invoice requirements, including the reverse charge wording.
Youzse pricing
Plans from £19 a month with card payments at 2.5% plus 35p.
Keep reading
- Choosing software
Choosing an online booking system in the UK
What a UK small business should look for in an online booking system: whether it invoices as well as books, VAT handling, UK GDPR and card rates in pounds.
- Choosing software
What "no commission" actually means
Commission-free booking software is a crowded claim. What the word commission hides, the questions that expose it and how to compare the total you pay.
- Choosing software
Do you actually need booking software?
A straight answer for UK service businesses. When a paper diary is genuinely fine, the four signs you have outgrown it and whether software pays for itself.