How to write an electrician invoice

What goes on an electrician invoice

Six things, in the order they belong on the page. The invoice generator opens an electrician document with the lines already in place, so most of this is checking rather than typing.

1. Bill labor with the hours showing. The count on the line, so the customer sees what was worked rather than one figure.
2. Put certification and testing on its own line. Testing, recording readings and issuing the certificate is work, and it is the part a customer may need for a sale or a landlord check.
3. Name the circuits or the work location. Which board, which circuits, which rooms. It is what makes an invoice checkable months later.
4. Price materials separately. Cable, accessories and the electrical panel itself move independently of your labor.
5. Reference the certificate number. Put it on the invoice. The two documents belong together and customers lose one of them.
6. State the notification or building control position. Where work needs a permit, say who is notifying and whether a fee is included.

The lines an electrician invoice usually carries

The generator opens with these lines when you pick Electrician. The figures are placeholders to type over, not a going rate.

Add, rename, reorder or delete any line, and set tax per line where it applies. Priced as they open, that comes to $1,170 before tax.

How to write an electrician invoice, step by step

1. Reference the permit or certificate. Open the electrician invoice and put the permit number, or the certificate number you issued, at the top. On notifiable work it is the document the homeowner will need when they sell.
2. Name the circuits and the rooms. Panel replaced in the garage, four receptacles added in the kitchen. Location detail is what lets the next electrician find your work.
3. Enter the devices with the count. Each receptacle or switch as a count at a rate, and the panel as its own line with the protection fitted.
4. Add rough-in and trim-out hours. Three hours at your rate, from your job sheet. Keep them apart from the devices so a price rise on materials is not an argument about your time.
5. Bill testing as a line, then send. Testing and the certificate are what the customer keeps, so they are a line, not an attachment. Set 14 days and send it with the test results.

Electrician invoice example, filled in

A panel replacement with four new kitchen receptacles, done under a permit. The permit number is at the top and the certification is a priced line, because on electrical work the paperwork is part of what the customer is buying.

Subtotal $1,170, tax $117, total $1,287. Certification and testing at $120 is billed as a line rather than given away as an attachment, and the note records that the permit inspection passed. Four receptacles at $55 each are shown with their count.

The certificate is the deliverable, so bill it as one

For a lot of electrical work the customer is not really buying the labor, they are buying the certificate at the end of it. A landlord needs it to let, a seller needs it to sell, a business needs it to satisfy an insurer.

Name certification and testing as its own line. It reflects real work: testing every affected circuit, recording readings, and issuing the document. It also stops the certificate being treated as a free attachment to the job.

Put the certificate reference on the invoice too. Customers keep the invoice and lose the certificate, and being able to match them a year later saves you a phone call you are not paid for.

Work that needs a permit, building control and who pays the fee

Some electrical work carries a notification obligation, and the cost of that notification has to sit somewhere. If it is not on your invoice, it is in your margin.

State on the document who is notifying and whether the fee is included or charged at cost. Where a building control submission is being made, that is a disbursement like any other and belongs on its own line.

This also protects you commercially. A customer who later discovers there was a fee, and assumed you had absorbed it, is a customer with a grievance about a number they never actually saw.

Working for a main contractor rather than a homeowner

Subcontracting to a builder or a main contractor changes the invoice completely. The payer works to applications, valuations and payment cycles rather than to a bill.

Reference their site, their order number and the period the work covers. Where you are one of several trades, the reference is what stops your invoice sitting in a pile while somebody works out which job it belongs to.

Agree in advance whether retention applies and what percentage, because discovering it when the payment lands short is the worst time to have that conversation. Terms in days, always.

Hourly, fixed price or per unit: how electricians price the work

Electrical work is priced three ways depending on who is buying. Householders buy jobs, builders buy days, and testing work is priced per unit because the unit is what the certificate counts. The mistake is letting a domestic customer think they bought a day when they bought a job.

Testing and certification deserve their own line whatever model you use, because they are what the customer needs to satisfy a landlord, a buyer or an insurer. An invoice that folds the certificate into the labor figure has hidden the part with the longest life.

Working out what to charge

Electrical prices depend on your area, the permit fees and the materials market, so a rate from a web page cannot be yours. The cost estimator builds a price from your own materials and hours, and the markup calculator sets the margin on panels and devices.

Getting paid once it is sent

On rewires and panel work, take a deposit that covers the materials, and send the invoice with the certificate so the paperwork the customer needs and the payment request arrive together. If the due date passes, the late fee calculator works out what your terms allow and the due date calculator sets the new date.

Five dates decide whether an electrician gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost electricians money

• Certification given away as an attachment. It is work and often the whole deliverable. Bill it.
• No certificate reference on the invoice. The customer loses one of the two documents and you cannot match them later.
• Notification fees absorbed. A cost the customer never sees is a cost you paid.
• No circuit or location detail. An invoice nobody can check months later is an invoice that gets queried.
• No retention agreed on contractor work. You find out when the payment lands short.

Electrician invoice questions

Free electrician invoice template

The free electrician invoice template opens with the lines above already priced, in any of 30 designs made for the trade, and exports a print-ready PDF with nothing saved to a server. Opening a design needs a free account.

Invoicing guides for related trades

Everything on this site, set up for electricians

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to electricians rather than in general. The four marked links open with electrician already selected.