Electrical Contracting Business

This workbook turns the course into the documents and decisions that run a profitable electrical contracting company: a labor-burden and estimate builder, a go or no-go and bid system, a crew schedule and productivity tracker, and a compliance, safety, and job-cost set. Work through one section per module, completing each worksheet and checklist as you go. By the end you will have your own burdened labor rate, a bid you can defend line by line, a manpower plan, and the financial reports that tell you which jobs actually make money.

Build your true burdened labor rate and overhead recovery, then turn a takeoff into a priced estimate you can defend.

Pick one real labor classification (for example, a journeyman you actually employ) and work through the burden stack from the lesson to reach a fully burdened cost per worked hour. Then write down how that number differs from the bare wage you have probably been bidding. Keep this figure visible on every estimate.

Use last year's numbers to calculate the overhead percentage you must add to every job's direct cost so your profit is not silently paying your office bills. Fill each value, then divide total overhead by total direct job cost.

Take off one real or sample job and convert it to priced labor and material. Count each item, apply its labor unit and the right difficulty column, multiply by your burdened rate, then add overhead and profit to reach a bid.

Decide which jobs to chase, assemble a scoped competitive bid, and protect the company with contract and payment terms.

Take an actual bid invitation in front of you and run it through the go or no-go filter before spending an hour estimating. Score each factor, decide go or no-go, and write one sentence justifying the decision.

Draft the inclusions, exclusions, allowances, and clarifications that must accompany your number so everyone prices the same scope. Fill each field for the job you are bidding; this letter goes out with the price.

Before signing any subcontract, review it against the clauses that decide your cash flow and risk. Note the term as written and what you will negotiate. Do not sign until the high-risk rows are resolved.

Schedule manpower across all jobs, lay work out for efficiency, and track field hours against the estimate while the job is live.

List every active and awarded job and the crew it needs by week, then lay them against your total headcount to expose coming overloads and idle gaps. Fill several weeks forward so you can act before the peak or valley arrives.

Pick a job and identify which assemblies you will prefabricate in the shop instead of building in the field. Decide what to prefab, who builds it, and roughly how many field hours it removes, then write the kit-and-stage plan for the crew.

For each phase of a live job, compare physical percent complete to the share of budgeted hours already burned so you catch an overrun in time to fix it. Update weekly with the foreman.

Keep the company licensed, permitted, code-compliant, and safe, then run it by job costing, WIP, and a monthly P&L.

Map the licensing the company depends on and the permit and inspection steps for a job, so nothing lapses and no inspection is missed. Fill the license rows once and the job rows per project.

For each open job, calculate percent complete and earned revenue against what you have billed to reveal whether you are overbilled or underbilled. Review monthly; this is how serious contractors and bonding companies judge real financial health.

Take a closed job and the most recent monthly profit and loss statement and interpret them against the benchmarks from the lesson. Decide what the numbers are telling you to change.