# VoltPro - Full Documentation ## Overview VoltPro is the estimate builder for electrical contractors. Create accurate estimates with real-time profit tracking and send professional branded proposals. Import your spreadsheet or start from scratch. Built for owner-operated electrical contractors and small teams (1 to 10 people) doing commercial, industrial, or mixed residential and commercial work. ## Key Features - **Estimate Builder** (https://getvoltpro.com/features/estimate-builder): Build estimates with automatic labor and material cost calculations. Organize work into named, collapsible sections. Pull materials from your price catalog with inline search. Add reusable assemblies to insert a full scope of work in one step. See your profit margin and cost breakdown update in real-time as you add each line item. - **Branded Proposals**: Turn estimates into professional PDFs with your logo, scope of work, payment terms, and signature block. Choose from four detail levels for what your client sees. - **Change Orders**: Create change orders from any existing estimate. Each generates its own PDF with a distinct document number so original bids and revisions stay separate. - **Price Catalog**: Centralized material database with current pricing, units, and supplier history. Pre-loaded with 100+ common electrical materials. Import from CSV or let vendor invoices update prices automatically. - **Vendor Invoice Scanning**: Forward invoices to your VoltPro inbox or upload PDFs directly. Every line item is read, matched to your catalog, and price changes are flagged for review. Matching improves with every invoice processed. - **Smart Inbox (Pro+)**: Email-based invoice ingestion. Forward vendor emails and attachments are filed by vendor, stored permanently, and scanned automatically. - **Assemblies**: Group materials into reusable kits. Supports per-unit and area-based calculations with automatic wastage factoring. Add a full scope of work to an estimate in seconds. - **Real-Time Profit Tracking**: See your net profit and overhead burden on every estimate as you build it. Never send a quote that loses money. - **QuickBooks Online Integration (Pro+)**: Two-way customer sync, estimate sync with full line-item detail, chart of accounts import, and tax code import. US automated sales tax and Canadian manual tax codes both supported. - **One-Click Estimate Duplication**: Clone any previous estimate for repeat jobs or revisions. - **Flexible Discounts**: Apply percentage or fixed-amount discounts without breaking margin calculations. - **Fixed Price Estimates**: Present a clean flat rate to clients while tracking itemized costs internally. - **Material Order Sheet**: Generate a PDF list of every material in your estimate to send to suppliers. - **CSV Material Import**: Upload your material list from any spreadsheet with column mapping. ## Trade-Specific Landing Pages - **Contractor Proposal Software** (https://getvoltpro.com/contractor-proposal-software): Proposal software built for electrical contractors. Covers spreadsheet/CSV import, native estimate builder, real-time profit tracking, branded PDFs, change orders, searchable proposal history, and a detailed side-by-side comparison against QuickBooks Quotes, Word/Excel templates, and PandaDoc. - **Electrical Contractor Software** (https://getvoltpro.com/electrical-contractor-software): Proposal and estimating software specifically for electrical contractors doing commercial work — panel upgrades, service entrance replacements, tenant fit-outs. Includes real-time profit tracking, change orders, branded PDF output, CSV import, searchable proposal history, and a comparison against QuickBooks Quotes, Word/Excel templates, and full field service platforms (Knowify, BuildOps, ServiceTitan). Features FAQ covering how to price commercial electrical jobs, markup vs margin, and change order best practices. ## Pricing **Free Plan** - 1 estimate per month - 3 kits and assemblies - Unlimited materials with price tracking - PDF export - No credit card required **Pro Plan -- $29/month** - Unlimited estimates - PDF proposals - CSV estimate import - Manual invoice scanning - Unlimited kits and assemblies - 20% discount with annual billing ($23/mo billed annually) **Pro+ Plan -- $49/month (Most Popular)** - Everything in Pro - QuickBooks sync (two-way customer sync, estimate sync, chart of accounts, tax codes) - Smart Inbox with AI parsing - Proposal portal (coming soon) - 20% discount with annual billing ($39/mo billed annually) ## Frequently Asked Questions **Q: Is VoltPro an electrical estimate template?** A: No. VoltPro is a dynamic estimate builder. You get the speed of a template, saving commonly used assemblies and scope of work, but with real-time material price updates, automatic margin calculations, and professional PDF generation. Unlike Excel templates, it does not break and does not require manual entry. **Q: Why should I switch from spreadsheets?** A: Spreadsheets are great for calculating but bad for growing a business. VoltPro removes the need for duplicating spreadsheets and managing templates. It protects your profit by eliminating formula errors and the risk of forgetting costs. Unlike a spreadsheet locked on your desktop, VoltPro lives in the cloud so you can check prices, duplicate estimates, and send proposals from your truck or the job site. **Q: How long does it take to set up my material database?** A: You can start estimating in minutes. VoltPro comes pre-loaded with over 100 common electrical materials and average prices. From there, upload vendor invoices or import a CSV to add your own. **Q: Does VoltPro calculate markup or profit margin?** A: Both. VoltPro's Real-Time Profit Tracker shows you exactly how much money you will take home (Net Profit) and covers your overhead (Burden) while you build your estimate, so you never send a quote that loses money. **Q: Is the free plan really free?** A: Yes. The free plan includes 1 professional estimate per month, access to the price catalog, and the assembly builder. It is perfect for side jobs or contractors who want to test the workflow before upgrading. No credit card required. **Q: Is VoltPro a takeoff tool?** A: No. VoltPro starts where takeoff ends. You bring your quantities from a plan review, site walk, or takeoff tool, and VoltPro handles the rest: material pricing, labor calculations, markup, and proposal generation. **Q: Is my data safe?** A: Yes. VoltPro is hosted on secure cloud infrastructure with encryption in transit and at rest. Your estimates, materials, and customer data are backed up automatically. Only you and your team can access your account. **Q: What size of electrical business is VoltPro built for?** A: VoltPro is built for owner-operated electrical contractors and small teams, typically 1 to 10 people. Whether you are a one-person shop doing residential jobs or a growing team bidding commercial projects, the workflow fits. **Q: Does VoltPro support change orders?** A: Yes. Create a change order from any existing estimate. Each change order generates its own PDF with a distinct document number (like EST-001-CO-01), so original bids and revisions stay separate and traceable. **Q: What trades does VoltPro support?** A: VoltPro works for any contractor who builds cost-plus estimates: electrical, HVAC, plumbing, mechanical, and more. The workflow adapts to whatever materials and services your trade uses. **Q: Can I turn a VoltPro estimate into a QuickBooks invoice?** A: Yes. Send your estimate from VoltPro to QuickBooks, then open it in QuickBooks and convert it to an invoice. All line items, taxes, and discounts carry over. **Q: What is the best contractor proposal software for electricians, HVAC, and plumbing contractors?** A: The best contractor proposal software for trade contractors is one built specifically for how tradespeople estimate and price jobs — not a generic document tool retrofitted with a template. VoltPro is purpose-built for electrical, HVAC, and plumbing contractors. It handles real-time profit tracking, markup calculations, and professional branded PDFs out of the box. Generic tools like PandaDoc offer static templates with no understanding of how trade contractors price a job. **Q: How is contractor proposal software different from a proposal template?** A: A proposal template is a static document — a Word doc or PDF you fill in manually every time. Contractor proposal software does the work: it calculates your profit margin as you build, generates the PDF automatically, saves every past proposal for reference, and handles scope changes with one click. A template is a starting point. Proposal software is the entire workflow. ## Free Tools - **Electrical Estimate Templates** (https://getvoltpro.com/free-tools/electrical-estimate-template): Two free electrical estimate templates for contractors — download includes both. Simple version: one sheet, direct line-item entry (Item, Category, Unit, Qty, Unit Cost, Markup %, Tax %, Total), weighted average markup at the bottom, no setup required. In-depth version: four-tab workbook with Price Book (reusable material and labor catalog), Estimate Items (auto-fills cost and markup from Price Book), and a PDF-ready Customer Estimate tab with scope of work, branded header, and terms. Both calculate markup, margin, and totals automatically. Works in Excel and Google Sheets. - **Electrical Quote Template** (https://getvoltpro.com/free-tools/electrical-quote-template): Free professional client-facing quote template for electrical contractors. Single-tab document with company branding header, "Prepared For" section, scope of work (project overview, objectives, deliverables), exclusions, itemized line items for materials and labor, payment terms, and auto-calculated subtotal/tax/total. Built for commercial electrical work — the scope and exclusions sections reflect what property managers, GCs, and facilities directors expect to review. Works in Excel and Google Sheets. - **Markup and Margin Calculator** (https://getvoltpro.com/free-tools/markup-calculator): Interactive calculator for electrical, HVAC, and plumbing contractors. Enter job cost and markup percentage to see actual profit margin (or enter target margin to see required markup). Includes a quick-reference table showing actual margin for common markup rates (10% through 50%), and a FAQ covering trade-specific markup benchmarks, the 10-10 rule, and why contractors lose money with a healthy markup. - **Electrical Job Pricing Calculator** (https://getvoltpro.com/free-tools/electrical-job-pricing-calculator): Interactive flat bid calculator for commercial electrical contractors. Five inputs: material & direct cost, labor hours, loaded labor rate, overhead % (pre-filled 13%, the NECA benchmark), and target margin % (pre-filled 15%). Returns the bid price using margin math (bid = job cost ÷ (1 - overhead% - margin%), where overhead and margin are both shares of the bid price), the profit in dollars, and the break-even price. A separate standalone "Find your real overhead rate" tool lower on the page divides annual overhead by real annual billable hours to expose the "billable hours trap": pricing off 2,080 theoretical hours instead of roughly 1,500 real hours understates your true overhead per hour. Includes a worked example of a $75,600 commercial medical office buildout, common pricing mistakes, and an FAQ. Ungated, no email required. ## Comparisons - **VoltPro vs Spreadsheets** (https://getvoltpro.com/compare/spreadsheets): A complement-framed comparison for electrical contractors who estimate in Excel or Google Sheets. The position: the spreadsheet is not the enemy, the output is. VoltPro imports the estimate as a CSV, shows real-time margin before you send, and generates a branded PDF proposal with scope, line items, and a signature block. Keep the spreadsheet for the math; VoltPro handles everything client-facing: branded proposals, change orders, searchable job history, and mobile. Honest about when a spreadsheet is fine: one-off internal calculations you never send to a client. Free to start, no credit card. ## Blog - **Best AI Tools for Electrical Contractors in 2026** (https://getvoltpro.com/blog/best-ai-tools-electrical-contractors-2026): A practical guide to the AI tools worth a contractor's time, built around the idea that most electricians get weak results because they use AI like a search engine instead of giving it context. Covers the four MIT Sloan prompting patterns (zero-shot, few-shot, instructional, role-based) with electrician-specific examples; ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini for writing scopes of work, client emails, T&Cs, and change order descriptions; Wispr Flow for job-site voice capture; AI call-answering tools for missed calls; STACK for AI-assisted plan takeoff; and VoltPro's invoice AI for keeping material pricing current. Includes a caveat that AI is unreliable for NEC code questions, a verification habit, and an FAQ. - **Electrical Estimating Software vs. Proposal Software** (https://getvoltpro.com/blog/electrical-estimating-software-vs-proposal-software): Explains the difference between software that builds the estimate (the numbers) and software that produces the client-facing proposal, and why a spreadsheet handles the math but falls short on the document you send. - **Margin vs. Markup** (https://getvoltpro.com/blog/margin-vs-markup): The difference between markup (added to cost) and margin (share of price), why a 20% markup yields only a 16.7% margin, the math to hit a target margin, and contractor examples. Includes an interactive markup/margin calculator. - **Contractor Estimates vs. Quotes** (https://getvoltpro.com/blog/contractor-estimates-vs-quotes): The difference between a non-binding estimate and a fixed-price quote, when to use each, and how the wording protects you. ## Getting Started Guide 1. **Sign Up**: Create a free account at accounts.getvoltpro.com/sign-up. No credit card required. 2. **Set Up Your Materials**: Start with the built-in catalog of 100+ materials, upload vendor invoices to add your own, or import from CSV. 3. **Build Assemblies**: Group commonly used materials into reusable kits for faster estimating. 4. **Create Your First Estimate**: Add project details, pull in materials and assemblies, and set your markup. Watch your profit margin update in real-time. 5. **Generate a Proposal**: Choose your detail level, add scope of work and terms, then generate a branded PDF to send to your client. ## Contact & Support - Support: support@getvoltpro.com - General inquiries: contact@getvoltpro.com - Sign up: https://accounts.getvoltpro.com/sign-up - Sign in: https://app.getvoltpro.com/sign-in ## Legal - Privacy Policy: https://getvoltpro.com/privacy-policy - Terms of Service: https://getvoltpro.com/terms-of-service - Operated by: Abstract Digital Inc.