AI Guides / electrical
Practical ways to save time, capture more enquiries, and use the tools you already have.
Electrical work gets shopped. A switchboard upgrade or an EV charger collects two or three quotes and the customer decides over days, not minutes — so the money leaks from quotes that go quiet, not from an unanswered phone at 9pm. Everything below is built around that, plus the thing plumbers would kill for: the law hands you repeat work on a schedule, because rental safety checks and test-and-tag retests come due on dates already sitting in your job records.
Written for an owner who has never set up a single one of these things. Start at step one, which is free and takes an afternoon, and stop whenever you have had enough — nothing further down is needed for anything above it to work.
Prices checked 27 July 2026 · no affiliate links on this page or any other
The whole page, in order
Software: ServiceM8, Tradify, or Simpro
Cost note: Included only where your current plan contains these automations
Software: ServiceM8 Inbox or Tradify enquiry form
Cost note: ServiceM8 Inbox requires the Growing plan
Software: ServiceM8, Tradify, or Simpro export and recurring jobs
Cost note: No additional software if your current system supports exports
Software: Job-software reports and a weekly tally
Cost note: No additional software
Step one · start here
If you already use ServiceM8, Tradify, Simpro, these features are settings inside those products, not another subscription. Your current plan still needs to include the feature. If you use something else, skip that card and search your software’s help centre for the named feature before you buy anything.
Extra software cost
$0*
if included in your plan
Hours back per month
≈22
Why it matters
Electrical work is compared across two or three quotes, and the job usually goes to whoever stays in the conversation. Up to five automatic email and SMS touches, stopping the moment the client replies. Off until you activate it in Settings.
What to do
Open the official guide below. In ServiceM8 or Tradify, find “Quote follow-up automations”. Follow the guide once, switch it on for one real job or customer first, and check that it did exactly what you expected before using it everywhere.
Open the official setup guide ↗1 hour · $0 extra if included in your current plan
Why it matters
Real estate agents and builders email PDF work orders all day. Inbox scans the PDF and pre-fills the job card with contact, work required and purchase order number, instead of someone retyping it.
What to do
Open the official guide below. In ServiceM8 (Growing plan), find “Inbox — work orders to job cards”. Follow the guide once, switch it on for one real job or customer first, and check that it did exactly what you expected before using it everywhere.
Check the official pricing and plan details ↗2 hours · $0 extra if included in your current plan
Why it matters
Test-and-tag retests and rental safety checks recur on fixed intervals. Set the job once against the site and it re-creates itself on schedule — included on every ServiceM8 plan, and standard recurring job templates in Simpro Premium.
What to do
Open the official guide below. In ServiceM8 or Simpro, find “Recurring jobs for retest cycles”. Follow the guide once, switch it on for one real job or customer first, and check that it did exactly what you expected before using it everywhere.
Open the official setup guide ↗Half a day · $0 extra if included in your current plan
If your software is not named above, the equivalent switch often still exists. Search its help centre for the exact feature name before you buy another tool.
Step two · first workflow to implement
EV charger, switchboard and solar enquiries arrive as forms, and the customer sends the same form to three electricians. The first reply that asks for a photo of the board sets the terms for everyone after it.
Do this in order
Typical size
≈12/mo
Setup
2 days
What to use
ServiceM8 Inbox or Tradify enquiry form
Route: Small build
How you know it worked
Count it in week one, then count the same thing again in week four. If the number did not move, stop spending.
Do not want to set it up yourself?
In Speed to Lead. Or take the Diagnostic before hiring anyone.
Step three · keep going without adding complexity
Do not start all three at once. Finish one, test it on real work, then move to the next card.
In this trade the quiet quote is the single biggest leak. Rewires, boards and chargers all get shopped, and most of them go silent for want of one nudge — not a discount.
1 hour · In Speed to Lead
Victoria requires an electrical safety check of every rental every two years, by a licensed electrician, and the rule extends to all rental agreements from October 2026. Every check you have ever done is a diarised repeat job.
1 week · We do it · $1,600
AS/NZS 3760 sets the retest interval — three months on construction and hire gear, out to five years for low-risk — and the due dates are on the tags you printed. A reminder to the site contact books the round before a competitor's flyer does.
Half a day · We do it · $1,200
Step four · only once the first three are running
This is the first point where a real build may be worth paying for. The earlier steps need to be working before you add it.
Ceramic fuses, no safety switches, a full board with no spare ways — your techs see it on every second service call and it evaporates in the van. A photo and a one-line note should become a drafted quote by the next morning.
1 week · We do it · $1,900
An agent with eighty doors wants one electrician who tracks safety checks and smoke alarm interconnection across the whole rent roll, not eighty separate bookings. A per-property proposal with the dates managed for them wins the roll, not the job.
2 days · We do it · $1,900
What this page is automating
Almost everything above is a computer sending a message at a moment when nobody was going to send one. That is it. No robot and no replacement for professional judgement.
If you already use one of the products named in step one, those cards are settings inside that product. If you do not, skip the card. This page is not claiming that you already own it.
It is
A message going out because a call, date or status changed.
It is not
Something that decides what to charge or replaces professional judgement.
It is
A reminder sent from records your business already keeps.
It is not
A replacement for you, your trade, or the people who know the work.
Does this look familiar?
Answer the web enquiry while they are still comparing
Chase every quote at day 2, 7 and 14
Rental safety-check reminders on the two-year clock
Test-and-tag retests chased from your own records
Quote the upgrade you saw while you were there
Package compliance for property managers
After thirty days
Number one
Write down the current monthly number before you switch anything on. Compare it with the same number after thirty days.
Number two
Count it the same way in week one and week four. Do not change the definition halfway through.
Number three
Use the history inside your existing software to count how often the automation actually ran.
Number four
Ask the person doing the work now. They will know before a dashboard does.
Every figure on this page is a typical size, not a measurement of yours. These four are the numbers that are actually about your business.
Reference · come back to this
Nothing here is urgent and nothing here is a starting point. It is the complete set for this business, in rough order of what it returns, with the tool, effort, and done-for-you route on every row.
Wins work
01
EV charger, switchboard and solar enquiries arrive as forms, and the customer sends the same form to three electricians. The first reply that asks for a photo of the board sets the terms for everyone after it.
02
In this trade the quiet quote is the single biggest leak. Rewires, boards and chargers all get shopped, and most of them go silent for want of one nudge — not a discount.
03
Victoria requires an electrical safety check of every rental every two years, by a licensed electrician, and the rule extends to all rental agreements from October 2026. Every check you have ever done is a diarised repeat job.
04
AS/NZS 3760 sets the retest interval — three months on construction and hire gear, out to five years for low-risk — and the due dates are on the tags you printed. A reminder to the site contact books the round before a competitor's flyer does.
05
Ceramic fuses, no safety switches, a full board with no spare ways — your techs see it on every second service call and it evaporates in the van. A photo and a one-line note should become a drafted quote by the next morning.
06
An agent with eighty doors wants one electrician who tracks safety checks and smoke alarm interconnection across the whole rent roll, not eighty separate bookings. A per-property proposal with the dates managed for them wins the roll, not the job.
Saves hours
07
Certificates of compliance and safety certificates, generated from the job card on the phone before the van moves, filed against the job for the years you are required to keep them. The Form Store has state-specific electrical certificates ready-made, including the Victorian rental safety check.
08
Electrical quotes are materials-heavy and wholesale prices move. Import the supplier price list once, set your markup per level, and the sell price updates when the buy price does.
09
Reminders at 7, 14 and 30 days, with your builder accounts excluded because a builder who owes you for three fit-offs needs a phone call, not an email.
10
Emailed PDF work orders scanned straight into pre-filled job cards — contact, work required, PO number — instead of an hour of data entry every morning.
11
Commercial jobs will not start without the safe work method statement, and rebuilding it per site in Word is an evening gone. A templated form with per-site answers takes minutes and files itself against the job.
12
Scan the barcode, record the result, and the site's asset history builds itself — which is also the list the retest reminders above run off.
13
Clock-on, check-in and travel time recorded automatically from the phone, exported to payroll — instead of reconstructing four techs' weeks from texts and guesswork.
The stack · prices checked
Prices checked 27 July 2026.
| Tool | What it is for | Price | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job managementServiceM8 | Job cards, quoting, forms and certificates for a small crew, priced flat per month rather than per user. | $29–79/mo flat ↗ | The best value here if your techs carry iPhones — the Android app is a cut-down Lite version, so check what your crew actually runs before committing. Forms and asset management need the $79 Growing plan. |
| Job managementTradify | The same job, per user, with supplier price lists and quote reminders built in. | $47/user ↗ | Per-user pricing overtakes ServiceM8's flat rate at about two users, so do that arithmetic first. If you are already on it, the quote and invoice reminders are included — switch them on before buying anything else on this page. |
| Job managementSimpro | Asset maintenance, service contracts and real project accounting for larger electrical businesses. | On quote ↗ | Right past roughly ten staff with maintenance contracts; below that the setup effort eats the benefit. Note the Maintenance Planner everyone raves about is a paid add-on to Premium, not included. |
| AccountingXero | Invoicing, reconciliation, and the overdue-payment reminders nobody enables. | $35/mo (Ignite, AU) ↗ | You almost certainly have this already. The reminders are free and off by default — twenty minutes in settings, no new spend. Watch the Ignite plan's invoice cap if you bill per job. |
| Phone & messagingOpenPhone | A business number with a shared inbox so enquiries stop living on one person's mobile. | $19/user ↗ | Useful, but in a scheduled trade this is not the first dollar to spend — your leak is quotes going quiet, not calls ringing out. Buy the follow-up discipline first. |
| AutomationMake.com | Connecting two tools that will not talk to each other, without writing code. | $9/mo ↗ | The engine behind the safety-check and spotted-upgrade rows above. Powerful, and very easy to build something fragile that breaks quietly — keep the scenarios few and boring. |
| AssistantChatGPT Team | Answering the questions your team asks each other all day, from your own rates, service areas and processes. | $25/user (annual) ↗ | Only earns its keep after you feed it your real prices, service areas and compliance checklists. Out of the box, with nothing loaded, it will not move a single number in your business — and it must never fill in a certificate. |
| Job documentationCompanyCam | Before-and-after photos of every board and defect, tagged with time and place, filed against the right job. | $29/mo ↗ | Pays for itself the first time a defect notice or a warranty claim is disputed. Skip it if your job software already handles photos properly — ServiceM8 and Tradify both do a passable job. |
Do not bother
A certificate of electrical safety carries your licence number and your legal liability. Software should move the test results you took into the form — the moment a tool invents a reading you did not take, you have signed your name to it.
You cannot price what is behind the escutcheon — asbestos panels, undersized mains, a meter isolation the network has to book. A number given off a photo becomes an argument on site, and you will wear it.
That is the right first buy for a plumber, whose money arrives at 9pm. Yours mostly does not — electrical demand is planned and quoted, so the first dollars belong in quote follow-up. Revisit answering only if your missed-call log says otherwise.
Sources
Nearby trades
Nothing on this page is gated. This is the price recheck only, and you can leave at any time.
Do it yourself
Use the official links, do one card at a time, and count the result after thirty days.
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