Invoicing Software for Electricians

Electrical work falls into three billing models that don't fit a single invoice template. A residential service call—tripped breaker, dead outlet, flickering lights—needs a trip charge, diagnostic fee, and repair labor billed as distinct line items. A 200-amp panel upgrade requires a flat-rate or T&M quote that covers the main breaker, bus bar, branch circuits, grounding electrode conductor, and permit fees. New-construction rough-in and trim-out bills by the project phase, often against a draw schedule tied to the general contractor's payment terms.

Billed handles all three models in one system. Service calls use a template with trip charge, hourly diagnostic, and per-item repair pricing. Panel upgrades and rewires use a scope-based template with material line items for wire gauge, breaker amperage, and panel brand. New construction invoices reference the project schedule so rough-in, top-out, and trim payments align with the GC's draw requests.

Forcing residential service work into a project-billing template—or quoting a 400-amp commercial service upgrade using a service-call format—creates confusion for the client and extra work for your office. Matching the invoice structure to the job type means the client sees pricing in the format they expected when they approved the estimate.

Copper wire pricing moves with commodity markets. A 250-foot roll of 6/3 NM-B that cost $189 last quarter might run $214 today. Panel prices from Eaton, Square D, and Siemens shift with manufacturing backlogs. If your flat-rate pricing book is six months old, your invoiced material cost might not cover what you actually paid at the supply house.

Billed lets you set markup percentages per material category—wire and cable, panels and disconnects, breakers, lighting fixtures, receptacles and switches, conduit and fittings. When you log a material purchase against a job, the invoiced price reflects your actual cost plus the markup rate for that category. A 30% markup on a $1,200 Eaton CH panel is $360 in gross margin. A $1,200 panel invoiced at last year's flat rate of $1,400 leaves you $160 short of the same margin.

For jobs where the customer supplies fixtures or specialty equipment, Billed separates customer-supplied materials from contractor-supplied items on the invoice. This prevents disputes where a homeowner questions why they are being charged markup on a chandelier they bought themselves, while ensuring your markup on contractor-supplied wire, connectors, and boxes is clearly documented.

Almost every electrical job beyond a simple repair requires a permit. Panel upgrades, new circuits, service changes, and any work that alters the branch circuit layout need a permit pulled from the local building department. Permit fees vary by jurisdiction—$75 for a basic residential permit in one county, $350 for a commercial tenant improvement in the next. Inspections are mandatory, and a failed rough-in or final inspection means a re-inspection fee and return trip that someone has to pay for.

Billed itemizes permit application fees, inspection scheduling fees, and re-inspection charges as separate line items with notes referencing the jurisdiction and permit number. When a homeowner asks why their panel upgrade invoice includes $280 in permit and inspection fees, the documentation shows exactly which fees came from the building department and which came from your labor.

For NEC code-compliance upgrades—bringing an older home's wiring up to current National Electrical Code requirements during a remodel, adding AFCI protection to bedroom circuits, or upgrading grounding to meet 250.52 requirements—Billed lets you note the specific code section that mandates the work. This protects you from clients who assume code-required upgrades are optional upsells rather than legal requirements tied to the permit.

Time-and-materials billing works for troubleshooting, older buildings with unknown wiring conditions, and commercial service work where the scope is uncertain until you open the ceiling or pull the panel cover. Flat-rate pricing works for repeatable jobs with predictable material costs—standard outlet installations, ceiling fan swaps, dedicated circuit runs, and panel upgrades where you have already scoped the existing service.

Billed supports both models on the same project. A panel upgrade might be flat-rate for the panel swap itself but T&M for any additional circuits discovered during the load calculation that were not in the original scope. The invoice separates the fixed-price scope from the T&M overage so the client sees exactly where the additional cost came from and why it was not included in the original quote.

For T&M work, Billed tracks journeyman and apprentice labor at different rates, logs material receipts with your contractual markup percentage, and records equipment rental—generators, cable pullers, thermal imaging cameras—as separate line items. The client receives an invoice where every dollar is backed by hours worked, materials purchased, and equipment used. This level of documentation reduces disputes on T&M invoices, which historically generate more pushback than flat-rate work because the client did not know the final number before work started.

Residential electrical clients pay on completion—or should. The homeowner is standing in the kitchen when you finish the under-cabinet lighting install, and they expect to pay by card or check before you leave. Commercial clients operate on net-30 or net-60 terms, submit invoices through an AP department, and often require purchase order numbers, job numbers, and W-9 documentation before they process a payment.

Billed handles both workflows. Residential invoices include a payment link so the homeowner pays by credit card or ACH immediately after the job. Commercial invoices carry the PO number, project reference, and payment terms the property manager's accounting system requires for processing. You are not reformatting invoices or chasing missing reference numbers after the fact.

For electrical contractors who do both—residential service calls during the week and commercial tenant improvements on nights and weekends—keeping the two billing workflows in one system prevents the common problem of commercial invoices sitting unpaid because they were missing a PO number, or residential invoices going uncollected because you forgot to send the payment link before leaving the job site. Billed's client profiles store payment terms, PO requirements, and preferred payment methods per customer so each invoice generates correctly the first time.

Emergency electrical calls—a tripped main breaker at midnight, a burning smell from an outlet, a commercial kitchen with no power during dinner service—command premium rates. Most electrical contractors charge 1.5x to 2x their standard labor rate for after-hours work, plus an elevated trip charge and possible minimum-hour requirements. If those rates are not documented on the invoice, the client disputes the bill after the emergency is over and the urgency has faded.

Billed lets you set after-hours and emergency rate schedules alongside your standard rates. When you create a service call invoice at 11 PM on a Saturday, the template automatically applies your overtime labor rate, weekend trip charge, and minimum two-hour billing. The client sees the rate structure on the invoice with a note indicating the after-hours schedule that applies.

For commercial clients on a maintenance contract with tiered emergency response—two-hour response for critical systems, next-business-day for non-critical—Billed tracks which calls fall under the contract's included emergency provisions and which exceed the agreement. A property manager who calls you out for a tripped breaker in a server room at 2 AM should see whether that call was covered by their maintenance contract or billed as an additional emergency call, with the rate differential clearly documented.