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For electricians: count the job, price each task

Outlets, switches, light fixtures, a ceiling fan, a new circuit, a panel, a charger for a car: electrical work is counted, and each thing counted is a task with a price. TailGateBid keeps your price for each task, puts the count on a quote your customer signs on their phone, and shows you what the job leaves.

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The work

The federal handbook of occupations gives it one line: electricians install, maintain, and repair electrical power, communications, lighting, and control systems in homes, businesses, and factories (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Electricians). In a house that turns into a list a customer can read: outlets and switches replaced, light fixtures and ceiling fans hung, a circuit added for a kitchen or a shop, a panel replaced, a charger for an electric car, and the call when half the house has gone dark.

Licenses, permits and inspections are not this page's subject: ask your state's licensing board and the authority having jurisdiction where the job is. And it does not say a word about how the work is done.

How a counted job is priced

  1. Walk the job and count it. Each kind of thing you install or replace is a line of its own, with how many.
  2. Put your own minutes beside one of each kind. A finished house is not a new one: the federal handbook says installing in a newly built building is often less complicated than maintaining equipment in an existing one, because the wiring is more easily accessible during construction (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Electricians). The minutes are yours, for that kind of house.
  3. One task costs you its minutes at what your hour costs, plus its part.
  4. Finding a fault is work of its own. The same handbook lists identifying electrical problems with testing devices as one duty, and repairing or replacing wiring, equipment or fixtures as another. On a quote the first gets its own line.
  5. What you sell the task for is your number. Once it is set it is the same in the next house, which is all a price by the task means.

An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate

Say the list is 6 outlets to replace, 4 switches to change for dimmers and 4 light fixtures to hang, and say one of each takes you 20, 15 and 45 minutes in a house like this one. That is 120, 60 and 180 minutes: 6 hours of work in 14 tasks. Say an hour costs you $57.05 and the part for one is $4, $18 and $5. Then one outlet costs you $23.02, one dimmer $32.26 and one fixture $47.79, before you have kept anything.

A counted job, worked through

Sample

Sample Electric Co.

Kitchen and hall: a fault found, 6 outlets, 4 dimmers and 4 light fixtures

  • Service call: the trip and finding the faultQty 1$89.00
  • Outlet replaced, with a new receptacleQty 6$240.00
  • Switch changed for a dimmer, with the dimmerQty 4$232.00
  • Light fixture hung, the customer's own fixtureQty 4$328.00
Subtotal
$889.00
Sales tax (7.25%)
$0.00
Total
$889.00

Only you see this part. Your customer never does.

What it costs you
$516.32
What is left for you
$372.68

You keep about $42 of every $100

Made-up prices again: this is a sample and not a going rate, and TailGateBid holds no price data. Every line is a task with one price, charged by the count, so the customer reads 6 outlets, 4 dimmers and 4 fixtures and no hours anywhere. The 6 hours are inside the prices. The service call is a line of its own. Nothing here is ticked as taxed and no deposit is asked for; whether your state taxes this work is yours to check. On your side each task carries the cost worked out above, and the job leaves $372.68 of the $889.00: about $42 of every $100.

What TailGateBid does for an electrician

  • A price book of your own tasks

    Each task you price is a service in your price book: its name, its price, its unit and, if you want it, what it costs you. Your customer never sees the cost. On a quote it goes on with one tap, and you type how many. That is flat-rate pricing from a book you write yourself. Rates and the price book.

  • A charger, quoted two ways

    A customer with a new electric car is choosing between two things the Department of Energy's fuels data center describes: charging overnight on the Level 1 cordset that came with the car, from a power outlet on a dedicated branch circuit near where they park, or Level 2 equipment at 240 volts for a faster charge (U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center: Charging Electric Vehicles at Home). An electrician, it says, can tell a homeowner whether the home has the electrical capacity for it. Put each on the quote as an option with its own price. Your customer picks one and signs on their phone. How options work on a quote.

  • What is behind the wall

    The handbook's point about existing buildings is one reason a job can grow once a wall or a box is open. Whatever is extra is written up as a change order. Your customer approves it from a link, you do it only then, and it lands on the final invoice. Photos you take on the job are filed as before, during or after, and stay private until you share one. No account yet? The free change order form does the same on paper, with the new total and a line to sign.

  • A draft to start from

    Photos of the rooms and a sentence or two about what the customer wants go into Bid Partner, the AI tool in TailGateBid. A draft quote comes out, priced from your price book and your rates. If Bid Partner had to supply a price itself, the line says "Typical"; put yours in once and every later quote uses it. The draft is read, corrected and sent by you, and it goes only when you press Send.

  • The day of the job

    The approved quote is already a job, waiting for a day on the schedule. Your customer gets a reminder by email the day before, and "I am on my way" tells them who is coming. With more than one truck, the Crew and Shop plans put each person's day side by side: what a crew gets.

  • An electrician's website

    Looking for an electrician website? One comes with each account, hosted at no extra cost. It carries your list of work, written your way; a request form that takes photos of the room or the panel; and reviews, each shown once you have approved it. What is on the website.

What it is not

  • Bid Partner is not a safety inspection and not a code inspection. What is safe and what passes are yours to judge and the inspector's to say.
  • It makes mistakes. Read every line of a draft before you send it.
  • TailGateBid does not come with a price book: no ready-made flat-rate prices, no supplier catalog, no price data. Nor will you find a dispatch board, GPS or inventory in it, and the permit is yours to apply for.

The hour inside every task

The example above stands on one figure: what an hour costs you. The hour calculator works yours out, unbilled hours and the truck included. The job price calculator then shows what a price leaves, and the trip and minimum charge calculator does the same for the service call.

A crew that works in Spanish and a customer who reads English? The list of trade words has outlet, circuit breaker and wiring in both languages, each with where it was read.

Only need a paper today? The free estimate maker adds the count up and prints it. Then, for what goes on the page and in what order: how to write an estimate, with one filled in.

This page is about one trade. TailGateBid works the same way for any other, and Bid Partner is built to price a job in any of them: how it works for your trade.

Sources

Related

Count your next job and send the quote from the driveway.

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