The End of Manual Work Orders? Electricians Turn to Tech
Job management software, such as invoicing software, helps your business streamline workflow management. Tracking and managing the flow of work orders is crucial if you want to boost the productivity and organization of your business. Today's electrical contractors are turning to electrician invoicing software, which can partially automate many important work order processes.
Quotes to Work Orders
The first step of partially automated work orders is turning customer quotes into work orders. Professional quoting software can intake the client's work request and other relevant information, and once the quote is approved, invoicing software can turn the quote into a work order with the push of a button. Once the work order is in your system, your admin staff can drop the work request into a technician's individual calendar.
Along with invoicing software, effective scheduling software is another way partially automated work orders can improve your business management. Integrated software that allows your admin staff to drag and drop work orders into available time slots makes your business much more efficient. This feature may be especially important for urgent or emergency work order requests.
Work Orders to Invoices
Electrician software can also transform work orders into invoices once a job is completed. With mobile connectivity, your field technicians can close a work order, which can become an invoice with a single tap. This function reduces duplicate data entry and also allows important work order details, such as time and materials, to be part of the invoice for more accurate billing. Safety checklists can also be attached to completed work orders.
Invoices to Payments
Once invoices are generated, they can be sent to the customer immediately with a payment link. Emailing the invoice to the customer directly will ensure the invoice is not lost in the mail, which can speed up payment processing and allow your business to maximize cash flow speed. Furthermore, instead of your admin staff handling this part of the transaction, a field technician using a mobile application can email the invoice and payment link from the job site.
What Are the Advantages of Cloud-Based Electrician Invoicing Software?
Cloud-based technology is a major asset for modern businesses. Whether you own a small business or you're trying to grow your business, cloud-based service software tailored to the needs of your business can support all of your business operations. This is particularly true for invoicing software, which can easily be integrated into your existing accounting software. The main advantages of using invoicing software for your electrician business include:
Immediate Updates
One of the main advantages of cloud-based invoicing software is the immediate updates. Not only can all relevant staff members and technicians access the invoice software, but all updates are synced and stored immediately. The expediency of these updates can increase the productivity of your workflow management, since your staff won't have to wait for manual data entry to track work orders and invoices.
Automatic Timesheets
Another unique element of invoicing software is the ability to generate automatic timesheets from completed invoices. With invoicing software, employee hours are tracked on mobile devices with GPS technology. When a work order is complete and an invoice is generated, the software will automatically log the time it took the technician to complete the job request. Automatic timesheets ensure employees are compensated for all billable hours.
Track Invoice Status
Invoicing software allows your admin staff to track the status of an invoice as it moves through the system. From the original work order to the generation of an invoice once the work is complete, your admins can easily access the cloud-based system to view the invoice. The ability to track the status of an invoice is particularly important when the invoice is sent to the client for payment.
At this stage, the invoice status can be tracked until the payment has finished processing, which can reduce follow-up calls for payments. Compared to the old-school way of tracking invoices, electronic invoices and invoice tracking ensures payments are tracked accurately. This can also benefit your accounting tasks since you can be more certain about the accuracy of processed payments.
Mobile Management
Cloud-based service software also allows your business to manage invoices remotely with mobile devices. As long as your field technicians have access to a mobile device and the correct mobile application, it's simple for technicians to update invoices on the go. This can be particularly important if invoices need to include pictures and other notes.
If your technician runs into an issue in the field and a work order needs to be updated because more work is required, mobile management can ensure the productivity of your team stays high. Instead of contacting the office to update work orders, your field technician can simply update the work invoice on the job in real-time, and then submit that completed invoice to your system for processing.
Reduce Human Error
Finally, invoicing software can greatly reduce human error. All too often, human data inputting can lead to typos, missed decimals, and other errors that can be time-consuming to fix during payment processing. When there are too many errors in your invoicing data, the overall cash flow of your business is greatly reduced. However, because invoicing software integrates partial automation with one-button data transfer capability, the risk of data errors is significantly reduced.
Electrician invoicing software that is integrated with cloud-based technology can make managing your business operations infinitely easier. The main benefits of invoicing software include reduced human error, automated processes, and easy invoice tracking. If you're ready to simplify the paperwork for your business, contact Service Box and ask about a free demo today.
