Job costing software for electrical contractors
Electrical jobs bill on a schedule of values. Payment comes late. CFOS reads your QuickBooks Online jobs and tracks labor hours against material by cost code.
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How electrical bills and where the money leaks
Most electrical work bills progress on a schedule of values, one pay app a month, with retainage held back on every line. Gear, wire and fixtures get billed as stored material when they're bought ahead, and the GC holds retainage on that too, even though you paid the supplier in full. Change orders pile up between pay apps, and the ones that never get signed are the ones that cost you.
The leaks are easy to find once you look. You come back to the same building four to six times, so the rough-in, trim and service each get a share of the budget, and a single line that says electrical hides which trip lost money. Temp power, lighting controls and fire alarm tie-ins get pushed into the base contract when the plans change. Your crew works out of scope at the GC's request, and without a signed T&M ticket it's your cost.
How electrical costs split and what CFOS tracks
Electrical is a labor and material trade, and the two move on different clocks. Labor is hours times a burdened rate, so a job can hit its bid hours and still lose money if the rate you bid is off. Material is gear with long lead times, wire and conduit bought in bulk, and fixtures that get delivered late. You need both tracked against the estimate by cost code, not lumped into one total.
CFOS imports your estimate as the job budget by cost code and compares it to the actual cost from QuickBooks Online, updated every hour. Labor burden is set by class, so a journeyman hour and an apprentice hour cost what they really cost. Vendor bills emailed to your bills inbox are read, coded to the job and checked against the PO, so gear ordered for one job isn't charged to another.
Workflow from the field to the office
The foreman files a daily with the crew, the equipment and photos. If the GC asks for extra work, the T&M ticket rides on that daily and the GC signs it on site. It becomes a change order draft that goes on the next pay app, so the office doesn't have to remember it three weeks later.
Field time is entered by the crew, approved, and goes to QuickBooks Payroll. Hours are posted to the cost code they were worked on, so the office can see rough-in labor separate from trim labor. The PM then builds the pay app from the schedule of values, with retainage and stored materials, and sends it to the GC from QuickBooks or logs it for the GC's own system.
What the owner sees every month
Each month the PM enters cost to complete on every open job and it gets approved. That feeds a WIP schedule with over and under billing, so you can see which jobs are billed before the work is done and which ones you're funding. The master WIP gives you the whole company on one page.
Your CEO Report grades gross margin, overhead and net profit before taxes against the published average and the CFOS target for electrical at your size. The 13 week cash forecast reads your QuickBooks and your pay apps and marks the lowest week. If retainage on gear is the thing squeezing you, you'll see it before the payroll week, not after it.
Electrical cost codes, matched to QuickBooks
Each group below is one set of cost codes in CFOS. Bills, time and equipment post to them. QuickBooks keeps the books underneath, so your bookkeeper sees the same numbers.
| Cost code group | What goes on it |
|---|---|
| Rough-in labor | Conduit, boxes, pulling wire and hangers in the walls, ceilings and slab before inspection. |
| Trim and finish labor | Devices, plates, fixtures and panels set after the walls are closed. |
| Gear and switchgear | Panels, switchboards, transformers and generators, including deposits and stored material. |
| Wire, conduit and fittings | Bulk material bought for the job and drawn from the shop. |
| Lighting and controls | Fixtures, drivers, lighting control panels and programming time. |
| Fire alarm and low voltage | Devices, panels, cable and testing when it's in your scope. |
| Temporary power | Temp panels, cords and distribution, tracked by month so the duration is visible. |
| Permits, inspections and testing | Permit fees, inspection call backs, and startup and testing labor. |
| Equipment and vehicles | Lifts, trucks and tools charged to the job by day. |
| Change orders and T&M | Extra work with its own coding, tied to the signed ticket. |
How electrical contractors do, by revenue
Each row shows the all-trade average, this trade's average and the CFOS target where one is published. These are the numbers your own job costing gets graded against. Net profit is before taxes in every row.
| Revenue | Overhead | Gross margin | Net profit, before taxes |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1M to $5M | 15.1% all-trade average 16% Electrical 14.1% CFOS target | 22.1% all-trade average 25% Electrical 25% CFOS target | 7% all-trade average 9% Electrical 11% CFOS target |
| $5M to $10M | 14.1% all-trade average 15% Electrical 13.1% CFOS target | 23.4% all-trade average 27% Electrical 26% CFOS target | 9.4% all-trade average 12% Electrical 12.9% CFOS target |
| $10M to $25M | 13.1% all-trade average 14% Electrical 12.1% CFOS target | 24.6% all-trade average 28% Electrical 27.1% CFOS target | 11.5% all-trade average 14% Electrical 15% CFOS target |
| $25M to $50M | 12.1% all-trade average 13% Electrical | 25.7% all-trade average 29% Electrical | 13.7% all-trade average 16% Electrical |
Gross margin and overhead come from figures CFMA, Jones Maresca and other sources publish by trade and size. Net profit is computed, not surveyed: net profit = gross margin minus overhead. Nothing comes out for taxes, interest or other income and expense, so it is a before tax figure, on the same basis as CFMA's net income before taxes.
CFMA's 2025 medians are 7.1 percent before interest and taxes and 6.7 percent net income before taxes. Gross margin minus overhead leaves out interest and other income and expense, so a figure here can come in a little above or below a reported net income on the same business.
Above the $10M to $25M band the gross margin and overhead rows are a modeled extension of the same curves. They have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker, so read those bands as a model and not as a survey result.
Problems electrical contractors write to us about
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We email you when CFOS for QuickBooks opens, plus a few updates before then. Your address stays with Run On CFOS. One click unsubscribes.
30 days free, a 90-day money-back guarantee, and cancel anytime. It opens January 2027. We email you the day it opens.
What electrical contractors ask
Can CFOS track labor hours against material on each electrical job?
Yes. Seven cost types and three levels of cost code let you budget labor and material on separate lines, and the actuals come from QuickBooks Online every hour. Field time is approved and posted to the cost code it was worked on.
How does CFOS handle retainage on gear and stored material?
The pay app lists stored materials on the schedule of values and applies retainage by line. You can see what you've billed and what the GC is holding. That tells you how much of the gear cost you're still funding.
What about T&M tickets the GC won't sign?
The ticket rides on the foreman's daily and the GC signs it on site, before the crew leaves. It then becomes a change order draft for the next pay app. If it isn't signed, you can see that on the daily instead of finding out at closeout.
Can I code a job by phase, like rough-in and trim?
Yes. Cost codes have three levels, so a phase is a level above the labor and material lines. Your estimate imports as the budget by cost code, so the job costing lines up with how you bid it.
Does this replace QuickBooks Online?
No. CFOS works on top of QuickBooks Online and reads from and writes to it. QuickBooks keeps your books, and you still pay Intuit for it separately.
- Job costing software that runs on QuickBooks
- One price. Every module. Priced by your revenue.
- Use all of it, or just the part you need
- Job costing software that runs on QuickBooks
- One price. Every module. Priced by your revenue.
- Use all of it, or just the part you need
- Electrical benchmarks
QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Run On CFOS isn't affiliated with Intuit.