Proposal and Estimating Software for Electrical Contractors
Build your estimate. Your customer gets a professional proposal. See your margin before you send.
No credit card required.
Electrical contractor software
Your proposals should look as good as your electrical work.
You win the panel upgrade. You win the service entrance replacement. The work is clean and the pricing is fair. Then a GC you've worked with before brings a new project to market and it goes to someone else. Not a price issue. The other contractor's proposal looked like it came from a real firm.
The best commercial electricians are skilled, professional, and trusted by the GCs who keep calling them. A proposal is how you show that before the work starts. It's your first impression before anyone has seen you on the job. A GC choosing between two bids at similar pricing shortlists the one that looks like it came from a real operation.
VoltPro is proposal and estimating software. Not scheduling, not dispatch, not CRM or payments. One thing, done well: take your estimate and turn it into something you can send to a customer, feeling confident.
I'm a lot more confident sending bids now. Before VoltPro I was using a Word doc template and it looked rough. Now every proposal looks a lot more professional.
How it works
From estimate to sent proposal in three steps.
Most electrical contractors have a spreadsheet they've been refining for years. The math is good. The proposal doesn't match it. Keep the spreadsheet. VoltPro handles everything after.
Step 1
Import or build your estimate
Upload your existing spreadsheet via CSV and panel upgrade line items come in as an estimate instantly. Or build directly in VoltPro. No catalog setup required either way.
Step 2
Generate a branded proposal
A PDF with your logo, scope of work, payment terms, and pricing. Choose what your customer sees: full line items, section totals, or a flat price. Your cost breakdown stays private.
Step 3
Send and stay organized
Every proposal saved and searchable by customer, job, or date. When a property manager calls about a panel upgrade from 14 months ago, you find it in seconds.
Real-time profit tracking
Electrical margins are thin. Know your number before you send.
Specialty trade contractors averaged 6.9% net income before taxes in 2023.[1] Electrical contractors specifically net closer to 3% after taxes.[2] Three cents of every dollar that comes in the door.
You finished a $42k tenant fit-out, two electricians over three weeks, and the margin you estimated was 18%. The margin you actually had, after forgotten additional costs, was 8%. That gap comes from the markup-to-margin conversion most contractors get wrong: a 40% markup is a 28.6% margin. Most contractors carrying 40% markup in their head think they're protecting 40 cents on the dollar, not 28.
VoltPro shows your margin as you build. Every line item updates the number in real time across the full estimate. Your markup and margin are both displayed separately, so you're not doing the conversion in your head. The number on the proposal is the number you intended.
Change orders
The paper trail is the protection.
Specialty contractors lose 30% of project revenue to unbilled and unpaid change orders.[3]
Scope expands mid-job: three more receptacles in the break room, an additional circuit to the server closet, and the GC says "just do it, I'll take care of it on the back end." You do the work. The pay app comes in and that scope either isn't on it or gets debated for ninety days.
In VoltPro, a change order takes two clicks. Select the sections that carry over from the original estimate, add the new scope and pricing, and VoltPro numbers it automatically. EST-001-CO-01. EST-001-CO-02. Sequential, every time. One PDF per change order, separate from the original, both stored in your account.
Nothing settled with a handshake when there should be paperwork.
Built for electrical proposals
Built for electrical proposals, not generic documents.
Materials, labor, and markup in one place. Totals and margin update in real time as you work. Every line item you add updates the profit number across the full estimate.
Upload your spreadsheet and line items come in as an estimate. No catalog to build first. The spreadsheet you've been refining for years is the starting point.
Your logo and company details on every proposal. No formatting work required. Panel upgrade, service entrance replacement, tenant fit-out — the layout handles itself.
Write your scope once for a panel upgrade or service entrance job. It carries over on every proposal from the same template. Nothing re-typed, nothing forgotten.
Your terms apply automatically. Clients have a clear place to sign off. Write them once; they appear on every proposal.
Show full line items, section totals, or a flat price. Your cost breakdown never leaves the estimate. The customer sees exactly what you want them to see.
Every estimate stored and filterable by customer name, job address, or date. Find any past bid in seconds. Clone it, update the line items, and a new proposal is ready.
Push estimates to QuickBooks with full line items, taxes, and discounts. One entry, no double work. Your accounting stays in sync without re-entering anything.
Stay organized
Every past bid, right where you need it.
A GC you've worked with calls about a new warehouse. Commercial lighting package, similar scope to the one you priced for him last year. He wants a proposal by end of the week. You need your original estimate to build from, not start over.
VoltPro stores every proposal permanently. Search by customer name, job address, or date. Find the old estimate in seconds, clone it, update the line items for current material prices, and a new proposal is ready. You're starting from a job you've already priced.
Most contractors have three years of bids scattered across email threads and downloads folders. The callbacks are always the same: a customer wants paperwork for insurance, a property manager asks for the panel upgrade cost on their next building, a GC wants a comparable scope for a new bid. The estimate you already did is the fastest answer.
How VoltPro compares
How VoltPro compares to the other options.
Most electrical contractors compare a short list before switching. Here's what each option actually does.
VoltPro
Proposal and estimating built for commercial electrical work.
Free plan. Pro from $29/mo.
QuickBooks Quotes
A quote builder inside your accounting software.
Included with QBO ($35+/mo).
Word / Excel
A spreadsheet or template you reformat manually every bid.
Free. Your time is the cost.
Field Service Platforms
Full job management. Knowify, BuildOps, ServiceTitan.
$99–$400+/month.
For commercial electricians
Built for electrical contractors
Trade-specific scope of work
Spreadsheet / CSV import
Estimating and pricing
Native estimate builder
Real-time profit tracking
QuickBooks integration
Proposal output
Branded PDF output
Change orders
Searchable proposal history
Getting started
Right for solo or small shop
Setup time
Price
VoltPro
Free plan. Pro from $29/mo.
QuickBooks Quotes
Included with QBO ($35+/mo).
Word / Excel
Free. Your time is the cost.
Field Service Platforms
$99–$400+/month.
For commercial electricians
Built for electrical contractors
- VoltPro
- Panel upgrades, service entrance, commercial work.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Generic accounting output.
- Word / Excel
- Blank document.
- Field Service Platforms
- Full platform, not just proposals.
Trade-specific scope of work
- VoltPro
- Structured, saved, auto-applies.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Word / Excel
- Manual.
- Field Service Platforms
- Part of full platform.
Spreadsheet / CSV import
- VoltPro
- Line items import instantly.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Re-enter manually.
- Word / Excel
- You are the spreadsheet.
- Field Service Platforms
- Varies. Most require catalog setup.
Estimating and pricing
Native estimate builder
- VoltPro
- Real-time totals and margin.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Quote builder only. No margin view.
- Word / Excel
- Manual calculation.
- Field Service Platforms
- Full estimating module.
Real-time profit tracking
- VoltPro
- Margin and markup both visible as you build.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Word / Excel
- Manual calculation.
- Field Service Platforms
- Job costing available, typically post-job.
QuickBooks integration
- VoltPro
- Customers, estimates, tax codes.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Word / Excel
- Field Service Platforms
- Most platforms.
Proposal output
Branded PDF output
- VoltPro
- Logo, scope, terms, automatic layout.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Basic QuickBooks formatting.
- Word / Excel
- Manual formatting required.
- Field Service Platforms
- Requires platform setup.
Change orders
- VoltPro
- Two clicks, numbered PDF, project summary.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Word / Excel
- Duplicate spreadsheet manually.
- Field Service Platforms
- Within full PM workflow.
Searchable proposal history
- VoltPro
- Every bid stored, filterable.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Limited.
- Word / Excel
- Folder and email search.
- Field Service Platforms
Getting started
Right for solo or small shop
- VoltPro
- Built for 1–5 person electrical operations.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Word / Excel
- Field Service Platforms
- Typically built for 5+ person teams.
Setup time
- VoltPro
- Minutes. No catalog required.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Requires QBO account setup.
- Word / Excel
- Immediate.
- Field Service Platforms
- Days to weeks.
Price
- VoltPro
- Free plan. Pro: flat monthly fee.
- QuickBooks Quotes
- Included with QBO ($35+/mo).
- Word / Excel
- Free. Your time is the cost.
- Field Service Platforms
- $99–$400+/month.
A note on
Field service platforms
Knowify, BuildOps, and ServiceTitan are real software built for real commercial electrical contractors. If you have a crew of five or more and need scheduling, dispatch, job costing, and project management in one place, they are worth evaluating. VoltPro doesn't do any of that. No scheduling, no dispatch, no invoicing. That's a deliberate call, not an oversight. Solo operators and small shops doing commercial work who want professional proposals and accurate estimates don't need a full platform. They need the proposals to look right and the margin to be visible before they send.
"Using VoltPro has cut our estimating time in half. We used to struggle with quotes, but now we send out estimates that look top-notch. It's easier than ever, and we're winning more jobs because of it."
Frequently asked questions.
Resources
- [1]
Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA), 2024 Construction Financial Benchmarker . Annual survey of 1,290 US construction companies (fiscal year 2023). Cited for the 6.9% average net income before taxes across specialty trade contractors.
- [2]
National Electrical Contractors Association, Financial Benchmarker Annual Survey . Annual benchmark of electrical contractor margin, labor, and overhead data. Cited for the 3% average net profit after taxes among electrical contractors.
- [3]
Dodge Construction Network & Procore, 2022. Top Business Issues for Specialty Contractors . Industry survey of specialty contractors across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand. Cited for the 30% of project revenue lost to unbilled and unpaid change orders.
Related
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Estimates and proposals feature
How the estimate becomes the proposal.
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QuickBooks integration
Sync estimates and customers without double entry.
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Dayton Power & Controls case study
How a commercial electrical firm cut estimating time in half.
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