SHORT VERSION
A price book is a written list of the jobs an electrical shop runs constantly, each with a price already set on it, taken from what those jobs actually cost the last several times they ran. Build it for the handful that fill the board most weeks, and keep it in the same place the estimate gets built. The price for a repeat job then comes off the list, so the same work stops going out at a different number every time.
Pricing electrical work from scratch on every job is what happens when there’s nowhere for a finished price to live. The fix is a price book: the jobs your shop runs constantly, written down with a price already set on each one. Those numbers come off jobs you already ran and closed out, so every price in there held up on real work before it went in. Put the jobs that fill the board in first. After that, the price for one of those jobs comes off the list, and the same panel change stops going out at a different number depending on who took the call.
Why does the same job come out at three different prices?
Because every quote gets produced fresh. Somebody adds up material off whatever the last run to the counter cost, puts hours to it out of what the last one seemed to take, and lands on a number. That’s real work, and it happens under time pressure with a customer waiting. The number that comes out is right for that afternoon and then it’s gone. Nothing catches it. The next time that job comes in, the whole calculation runs again from zero.
A service change from 100 amp to 200 amp is the clearest version. You’ve run dozens of them. The panel, the meter equipment, the permit, the shutdown, the coordination with the utility, the relabeling: close enough to the same every time to be worth writing down once. There’s no place in the shop where a finished price gets written down, so every one of those jobs got priced starting from nothing.
What comes off when a price gets rebuilt
Rebuilding a price is reconstructing a list out of memory. Some of it is easy to see. The panel, the wire, the hours. Some of it isn’t, and that’s the part that comes off.
Permit time. Supervision on anything running more than a day. The small material nobody counts, the connectors and straps and anchors. The second trip to the counter because one thing was wrong. None of that comes off because somebody was careless. It comes off because there was no list for it to be on.
That’s also why a job can feel fine going out and come back thin at job costing. Nothing on the estimate was wrong. The estimate just didn’t have everything on it that the job actually took.
Build it out of jobs you already ran
You’re not sitting down to invent prices. The prices already exist. They’re in the jobs you closed last year.
Take the five or six jobs the shop runs most. The diagnostic service call, the panel change, the added circuit, the fan or fixture install, whatever’s actually filling the board. Pull the last several of each and look at what they really took.
Actual hours, not scheduled hours. Actual material, including the trips to the counter. Set the price at what the job cost the shop the last several times it ran, not at what the estimate said it was going to cost.
Then it needs somewhere to sit, and one rule about how it gets used.
If the shop runs field service software, the pricebook is a function sitting in there waiting to be filled in. That’s where it goes, because the price has to live in the same place the estimate gets built. A spreadsheet on one laptop means the number still gets retyped or remembered at the moment the quote goes out.
The rule is that when a job is in the book, the price comes off the book and nobody prices it again. A job that isn’t in the book gets priced the way it always was, and then that price goes in.
“Every job is different”
Every house is different, and every panel you open has something in it you didn’t expect. True, and it isn’t an argument against the book, because the book isn’t pricing the whole job. It’s pricing the part that’s the same every time.
The panel change is the panel change. What varies is the mast that turns out to need replacing, the circuits that have to be extended, the wall that has to come open. Those get added to a price that already exists instead of being the reason a price gets built from nothing. And when the same addition shows up on the third job in a row, it goes in the book too.
Common questions
Can I start a price book in a spreadsheet?
You can, and plenty of shops do. The catch is where the price sits. If the quote goes out of your field service software and the numbers live in a spreadsheet on one computer, the price is still getting reconstructed at the moment the quote goes out. Wherever the estimate gets built is where the book has to be.
Do I have to go flat rate to use a price book?
No. Flat rate is a fixed price per task pulled from a price book, so the two go together, but a T&M shop gets the same thing out of one. On T&M the book holds the hours and the material for the jobs you run constantly, so the estimate starts from a real count instead of getting rebuilt.
How many jobs should be in it before it’s worth anything?
Five or six. The ones on the board most weeks. A book that tries to cover everything on the first pass doesn’t get finished, and an unfinished book gets abandoned. Six entries built off closed jobs can be done in a couple of sittings and covers the calls you take most.
How do I know when a price in the book is out of date?
The job cost tells you. A price that’s still right comes back close to what the book said it would. When the same job comes back over more than once, the number needs resetting, and the actual hours and material on those jobs are what you reset it to.
