Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for electrical contractors.
A checklist built from how electrical contractors work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- BOQ with point and metre rates
- Store room and site material ledger
- Measurement sheet and running account bills
- Teams and piece-rate work
- Testing and approval records
- Maintenance contracts and call-backs
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For owners
- For estimators and the office
- For site supervisors
- For store keepers
- For technicians
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Quotations and tenders open, won and lost by client
- Site cost against billing for each job
- Cable, conduit and switchgear issued to each site, and stock below reorder
- Technician and wireman attendance and labour cost by site
- Running bills raised, approved and pending, with the MB behind each
- Client balances, mobilisation and other advances, and retention held
- Service contracts and inspection visits due
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- SMS
- Bank transfer and payment gateway
- Accounting package export
- Biometric attendance
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Can the builder’s engineer approve a measurement before it is billed?
- Can quotations be built from our own point rates?
- Can material be tracked site by site?
- Does it handle RA bills against a BOQ?
- Can supervisors use it from the site without signal?
- Can job bills go into accounting software?
- Can maintenance contracts be managed?
- Can open sites and stock be moved in?
- Who owns the data?
- What does it cost?
- How soon can site supervisors begin logging material and attendance?
- What registers and rate lists should the estimator pull out?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Metres do not reconcile
- Copper price erodes margin
- Point counts are disputed
- Test reports go missing
Prefer to talk it through? See the electrical contractors page.