These guides cover the three questions that decide most of an electrical contracting company's profit: what to charge, which work to chase, and how to know each week whether the plan is working. Each one is written for an owner with a calculator and last month's invoices, not for a marketing department.
As with everything on this site, the guides are about running the business. We are consultants and marketers, not electrical contractors, and nothing here is electrical, code, legal, tax or wage advice.
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Service mix maths for electrical contractors: EV chargers, panels, generators and commercial service
The right service mix comes from gross profit per crew-day, adjusted for close rate, season, cash cycle and office load. This guide shows how to calculate it and turn it into a target mix.
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How to build a flat-rate price book for an electrical shop
A flat-rate price book is a list of defined electrical tasks, each with one price built from materials, labour time, overhead per billable hour and a target margin. Here is how to build one from your own invoices.
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The electrical shop owner's weekly scorecard
A one-page Monday report with ten numbers tells an electrical contracting owner more than a monthly statement, and soon enough to act. Here is what to track, how to read it and what to do when a number moves.
How to build a flat-rate price book
The flat-rate price book guide walks through building a menu of fixed prices from your own costs. It covers how to group past invoices into tasks, how to calculate overhead per billable hour (and why paid hours give the wrong answer), how to set margin targets by task family, and how to decide when a job leaves the menu and becomes a custom quote.
It also covers the rollout: training techs to present a price rather than defend it, and reviewing the book after 30, 60 and 90 days.
Read it if: your techs quote different prices for the same job, or you suspect a few common tasks are underpriced.
Service mix maths: EV chargers, panels, generators and commercial service
The service mix guide shows how to compare job types by gross profit per crew-day instead of invoice size. It works through EV charger installs, panel and service upgrades, standby generators, commercial service, builder work and everyday residential calls, and explains the factors beyond margin: close rate, seasonality, cash cycle and office load.
It ends with a simple method for setting a target mix and shifting the schedule toward it over two seasons.
Read it if: the schedule is full but the profit isn't, or you're deciding whether to add a new line of work.
The owner's weekly scorecard
The weekly scorecard guide sets out the one-page report we recommend every electrical shop owner read on Monday morning. It covers ten numbers: booked crew-days, backlog, quote close rate, gross margin on menu jobs, estimate-versus-actual hours, unbilled materials, cost per booked job, receivables and two people measures.
It explains what each number tells you, what a warning sign looks like, and what to do about it.
Read it if: you find out how the month went only when the bookkeeper closes it.
How to use the guides
Read them in order if you can. Pricing comes first because every later decision depends on it: a service-mix comparison built on underpriced jobs will point you toward the wrong work, and a scorecard full of bad margins tells you only that something is wrong, not what.
A practical approach for a busy owner:
- Week one: read the price book guide and pick five common tasks to recost.
- Week two: tag a month of jobs by type and fill in the service-mix table.
- Week three: start a four-number Monday scorecard and keep it going.
You won't have a finished system after three weeks, but you will have real numbers, and most owners find at least one surprise. Keep a short note of what you change and why; in six months that note is worth more than any report.
What the guides don't cover
The guides stay on the business side. They don't cover how to scope, install or inspect electrical work, how to interpret your provincial regulator, or what to pay employees. For those questions, go to your licensed team, your regulator or your professional advisers. Regional context, such as heating fuel mix and energy programs, is on the province and territory pages.
How the guides connect to our services
Each guide matches one or more of our services:
| Guide | Related service |
|---|---|
| Flat-rate price book | Pricing and flat-rate menus |
| Service mix maths | Service mix strategy and hiring plans |
| Weekly scorecard | Office systems and marketing tied to margins |
If you'd rather work through the numbers with someone, the first consultation is free. See pricing or contact us. For printable worksheets on job value and budget maths, our sister site Trades.Tools has a collection.
Frequently asked questions
Are the guides really free?
Yes. No sign-up, no download wall. Read them, print them and use the methods with your own numbers.
Do the guides give electrical or code advice?
No. They cover pricing, service mix and business measurement only. Electrical scope, code and permits are for your licensed team and your provincial regulator.
Where do the example numbers come from?
They are round illustrative figures chosen to show the method. Replace every one of them with your own invoices and costs before making a decision.