Invoicing is a challenge for many electrical service businesses, and we see the owners of those businesses take a fairly uniform path as they try to find the best way to handle invoicing for the electrical services they provide.
They often start out with hand-written invoices, but they soon find that keeping track of carbon copies makes it difficult to keep paperwork organized. They also find that paper invoices don’t look very professional to clients who have become accustomed to conducting transactions online.
After discovering the shortcomings of paper invoices, shops pivot to some sort of digital invoice template. Often they’ll use a program like Excel or Google Sheets.
We’ve developed a customizable electrical service invoice template, and we’re offering it here in PDF format for free. Below, we’ll walk you through how to download and use the template, as well as how to use our Invoice Generator — an interactive web tool for creating invoices.
But although these tools provide great-looking invoices, operationally they actually don’t offer many benefits over a paper-based invoicing system. They still present many of the same process-related issues:
To help solve these issues and streamline the invoicing process, more and more companies are looking to software to help. Some electrical contractors will go with invoice-specific solutions, but many are choosing Electrical Software as a comprehensive solution to consolidate all their service business functions — from estimates and proposals, to invoicing, to scheduling and dispatching, to customer relationship management.
ServiceTitan helps with all this and more.
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In this article, we’ll explain best practices for using our free electrical contractor invoice template and our online invoice generator. Then, we’ll walk you through how ServiceTitan helps electrical businesses streamline invoicing and integrate the process with the rest of their operation.
Curious about how ServiceTitan can help you streamline your invoicing process? Schedule a call to learn more about how our software can help save time and grow your business.
To use our electrician invoice template, download it and save it to your computer.
You can then open the blank invoice template and customize it with your company name, logo, contact information, address, and phone number.
Save this file to your computer as your personalized, professional invoice template.
Anytime you need to prepare a new invoice, open the file and save it as a new invoice for that specific client. Enter the client’s information, along with the services you provided and associated information:
When you’ve added all the information, you can attach the PDF to an email or print it for delivery to your customer.
Our invoice generator tool is similar to the PDF download, but it’s more advanced. It allows your techs to input their electrical service job details into a customized invoice template right at the job site.
The tool then builds a professional invoice, along with a request for payment, that your small business can easily text or email to a customer.
Other free invoice generator tools offer simple functionality, but ServiceTitan’s free tool is more advanced, providing the ability to add images of work performed, along with logos and other branding.
Keep in mind, however, it doesn’t seamlessly integrate with the rest of your business operations. It isn’t designed to fully solve the process-related issues mentioned above. That’s where the true benefits of our Electrical Software come in.
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Although the PDF download and the invoice generator tools are useful, they don’t address more complex issues associated with invoicing.
ServiceTitan can help with all that and more. Our comprehensive, cloud-based software solution for electrician businesses provides much more than invoicing support.
Below, we’ll walk you through the invoicing process, but we encourage you to schedule a one-on-one demo to see how the whole system works and get answers to questions that are specific to your business.
Invoicing is complicated, with a lot of moving parts.
Here are some common challenges that paper-based businesses face, along with a walk-through of how ServiceTitan helps save time and improve communication between your customers and everyone on your team.
Even if your business is small, if you’re using a manual system to store and access client records, you’ve probably run into roadblocks.
For instance, if you need to invoice a job for a rental unit in an apartment complex, your CSR might not know where to send the invoice and file it in your system. Should they send the invoice to the tenant, the property manager, or the landlord? And where should they file the office copy of the invoice?
Knowing a customer’s name, their recent service history, and how they prefer to pay helps to personalize the electrical service experience, whether it’s a routine call to fix a ceiling fan or a more serious electrical safety issue.
Our software frees up CSRs’ time by making it easy to find and store records and send duplicate invoices. ServiceTitan allows office staff or techs in the field to quickly find client records by searching:
Your staff can send an invoice and payment instructions via email to the landlord, property manager, and tenant all at once, and the fully searchable record is automatically saved and updated in the system.
With our mobile app, techs can also easily send invoices from the field.
They can use their phones or tablets to photograph checks, cash, or credit cards and post payments automatically. This means fewer trips to the bank and no more lost checks.
Generating a digital invoice for electrical work before ever leaving a job site is the best way to get paid quickly.
Another headache associated with manually preparing electrical business invoices is accurately noting the parts and supplies used, unit pricing, hourly rates, and other information.
Looking up pricing information is time-consuming and tedious, but it’s important to get it right: an incomplete or incorrect invoice can lead to confusion and even disputed charges.
With ServiceTitan, all the pricing and labor information associated with a job is saved in one place that’s easy to access from the office or the field.
Parts, prices, and hourly rates are all clearly shown to the customer on the job estimate at the beginning of a project, and that same information is automatically pre-populated in work orders and invoices.
When your electrical pricebook is updated, all the changes are automatically replicated throughout the system in real time.
That means techs can quickly pull from the pricebook to add tasks to the invoice while they’re out on a job — and they can be confident that the pricing information is accurate and up-to-date.
Manual invoicing systems can also introduce complications when communicating with clients about invoiced work. Notes, cellphone photos, text messages, and even paper copies of invoices can get lost.
With ServiceTitan, techs are prompted to provide a write-up of the work they performed in the “Summary” section of the invoice. The customer acknowledges receiving the explanation, which lowers the chance that questions and disagreements can arise at a later date.
ServiceTitan also allows techs to attach cellphone photos and videos to invoices. This feature allows your crew to document a job site as they found it and show how they solved a client’s electrical issues, which is particularly helpful when billing commercial customers or rental properties.
Best of all, the photos and videos are saved all together and embedded with the job record — not on your techs’ phones — in case you need to find them later.
When your techs are ready to share an invoice with a client, they can use ServiceTitan’s software to view the customer-facing version of the invoice.
That information is synced with the electrical work estimate that was originally given to the client, along with any new information the techs might have entered related to additional work performed.
This screen also prompts the customer to provide a signature acknowledging work that’s been completed.
Pro Tip: Don’t forget to offer a service contract or membership agreement as a part of your electrical invoice. It’s an often missed opportunity to present this offer and gain repeat customers.
Taken together, ServiceTitan’s thorough documentation and streamlined processes help ensure that customers’ expectations are met, save time for your techs and office staff, and minimize the risk of errors or miscommunication.
Businesses that rely on pen-and-paper invoicing also face a number of accounting challenges. For example:
Even if you use QuickBooks for accounting, you’ve probably found that your office staff has to manually enter information from handwritten invoices into your QuickBooks account.
Every manual action presents a chance for a mistaken entry. In case of an audit or dispute, any of these issues could leave you open to serious problems.
ServiceTitan helps eliminate the possibility for human error and enables frictionless communication between your teams. Our QuickBooks integration automatically synchronizes entries in real time, minimizing the chance for errors and freeing up techs and office staff for other work.
Ultimately, invoicing is all about getting paid so your business can thrive.
ServiceTitan helps route the information in your invoices through the proper channels so you can collect payments as efficiently as possible.
It simplifies bookkeeping tasks by pre-populating fields and minimizing manual data entry. The service also offers your customers flexible payment methods and makes it easy for you to accept online payments so you can avoid having to deal with cash, checks, or third-party payment processing apps.
At the end of a job, when the final transaction is complete and you’ve earned another satisfied customer, ServiceTitan makes it easy to encourage them to spread the word.
When you send your invoice to a client, you can choose to set up the system to automatically add links to sites like Google Business or Yelp so they can easily share their experience.
ServiceTitan can help improve your invoicing process, whether you choose to download our free invoice template, try out the interactive tool, or learn more about our complete software solution.
Keep in mind that a temporary stopgap measure like a new template download doesn’t really solve the underlying issues of miscommunication and inefficiency that are keeping many electrical contractors’ businesses from reaching their full potential.
When you’re ready to explore a truly transformative solution that will streamline all aspects of your operation, we’re here to explain how ServiceTitan works, how it can help your business, and how you can get started today.
Are you ready to streamline your plumbing invoicing and connect it with the rest of your business? Schedule a demo today to arrange a free product walk-through.
Download our invoicing template!