Free Electrical Work Order Template: Integrate Work Orders Into Your Business Workflow

Drawing on the expertise of industry veterans on our team, we’ve created an electrical work order template including all of the fields that electrical technicians and customer service reps need to document the details of electrical jobs (available as a free download below). 

However, while a template can provide structure for collecting job details and customer information, it can’t address the more complex, process-related issues associated with generating, managing, and keeping track of work orders. 

Challenges that often arise for electrical businesses that rely on paper or PDF work order templates—based on Excel and MS Word files, for example—include:

1. Workflow Inefficiencies: Printed forms or static PDF templates lack integration to the apps electrical businesses use to run their operations (e.g. CRM, scheduling and dispatching apps, estimating and invoice apps, etc.). This requires CSRs and techs to repetitively record the same customer and job details of every work order into many different tools causing significant workflow inefficiency. 

2. Errors from Manual Data Entry: As CSRs and techs transfer job information from paper or PDF work orders to other apps and tools, the opportunity for errors and inconsistencies increases—which can come at a significant cost to business owners.

3. Customer Experience Inconsistencies: Handwritten documents like work orders, quotes, and invoices—and the delays and mistakes they often entail—can create a lack of clarity and organization in communications with customers. When it comes to conveying professionalism, efficiency, and consistency, they tend to fall short.         

To solve these issues, many electrical service businesses are using electrical contractor software (sometimes referred to as field service management software) like our product, ServiceTitan. 

These holistic software solutions automatically integrate work order management with invoicing, estimating, and other essential business processes, enabling electrical contractors to become dramatically more efficient and increase their bottom line.     

In this post, we’ll explain how to download and use our free electrical work order template as a short-term solution for managing your work orders. And then we’ll provide a detailed walk-through of how ServiceTitan streamlines the process of generating and managing work orders, and incorporates it into the other elements of running an electrical contracting business.  

Our electrician software helps businesses like yours integrate their work order processes with dispatching, invoicing, and more. Want to see how ServiceTitan can increase efficiency and grow your profits? Schedule a call for a free product tour.

How to Download and Use Our Electrical Work Order Template

The first page of our template has fields for all the information that techs and office staff need, including:

• Company name and contact information

• Customer information 

• Materials needed for the job

• Detailed job description 

• Labor hours and rate

• Options to note if it’s a warranty or regular maintenance work order

• Recommendations and, if applicable, next steps

The second page contains fields for:

• Customer and payment information (including credit card info)

• Collecting signatures

• Warranty details (if applicable)

• Terms and conditions

Using this template can provide your staff with structure and consistency when creating work orders, helping to ensure that all key details are documented. But as we mentioned above, particularly as you scale your business, using this sort of static template can cause workflow inefficiencies, introduce room for errors in manual data entry, and potentially hurt customer experiences.

In the next section, we’ll describe how ServiceTitan solves these issues and integrates work orders with the rest of your business processes.

How ServiceTitan Integrates Work Orders Into the Overall Electrical Service Workflow

Work orders are a foundational element of doing electrical work. CSRs, techs, and managers rely on them for every subsequent step of an electrical job, including:

• Scheduling and Dispatching: Ensuring that dispatchers have the information they need to get the right field technicians to the right jobs, and to be fully informed when they show up to a business or residence.  

• Creating Estimates and Proposals: Ensuring that estimates and proposals reflect the appropriate solutions (repairs, replacements, etc.) and customer information.  

• Creating Invoices and Processing Payments: Ensuring that invoices and payment information reflect the same job and customer information that were documented in the initial work order and estimate. 

Below, we’ll take a detailed look at how ServiceTitan optimizes work order management by linking it to each of these essential business processes. 

ServiceTitan Work Orders: Ensure CSRs Capture All Essential Job Details

From the moment CSRs pick up a call, ServiceTitan’s call booking workflow guides them through a series of steps to make sure that they gather all of the necessary customer details. Based on this information, our software auto-fills work orders, with no need for additional data entry or transfer. 

Drop-down menus and text boxes facilitate the process, including:

• Type of work

• Job priority 

• Job summary 

• Marketing campaign information

• Additional details, such as security gate codes, notifications about pets on site, etc.

Then, via our mobile app, techs have full access to all of this information, which they can reference before, during, and after a job. 

For existing customers, CSRs can quickly and easily pull up useful historical data, such as job history, warranties, property data, or service agreement details.  

With our cloud-based software, job details and customer information are automatically reflected in documents throughout the lifecycle of a job—in estimates, invoices, and contracts, for example. 

In other words, there’s no need to re-enter information into additional forms and documents. This guarantees accuracy and consistency while allowing contractors and their staff to save time.

Seamlessly Incorporate Work Order Creation Into the Scheduling and Dispatching Workflow

ServiceTitan uses the selected job type and priority of a work order to automatically display relevant scheduling options directly from the call booking screen. To book the job, all the CSR needs to do is choose a date and time agreeable to the customer and assign an available tech.   

ServiceTitan’s scheduling software offers an array of invaluable features:

• Every call is recorded and accessible to both dispatchers and techs, allowing them to reference previous conversations for clarification and confirmation of job specs.

• Automated job confirmations are sent to customers by text and/or email; when a customer confirms, their job automatically changes from “scheduled” to “confirmed” on the dispatch board.

• ServiceTitan’s Adjustable Capacity Planning feature ensures that appointment availability always reflects seasonal capacity goals and strategy, preventing under- and overbooking.

• Customers can book their own appointments online with our intuitive web widget, which collects the same job details a CSR would otherwise gather by phone.

Scheduled jobs—complete with all the essential details—become immediately viewable on the dispatch board. From this view, dispatchers can see at a glance which jobs have been dispatched, which are in progress, which remain unassigned, and more—all on a single screen.

According to their preference, dispatchers can use right-click or  drag-and-drop functionality to easily assign (or reassign) techs, dive into property data, confirm or reschedule techs, and more.

Further benefits of ServiceTitan’s dispatching functionality include:

• An Activity Feed that provides dispatchers with visibility into real-time job status—Arrived, Paused, Complete—and messaging capabilities that allow for instantaneous communication with techs, either individually or as a group. 

• Notifications about unexpected issues or problems.

• GPS tracking that enables dispatchers to track the location of techs (that clients can also use, if desired).

• Schedule and Technician Route optimization—helping dispatchers efficiently coordinate appointments and minimize your technicians travel time between jobs.

Leverage Work Order Details to Build Estimates and Proposals

Using the ServiceTitan mobile app, techs can generate high-quality proposals that are optimized for profitability and present them to customers right from their tablet. 

Customizable estimate templates enable techs to efficiently put together sleek, professional proposals. Alternatively, they can take advantage of our software’s native pricebook features to build estimates from the ground up. 

Both options allow technicians to quickly create accurate, consistent Good Better Best proposals, which have been shown to increase close rates and average ticket prices. 

To get the absolute most out of their estimating and proposal process, ServiceTitan gives electrical contractors the ability to:

• Augment estimates with photo and video to educate customers on the need for replacements and repairs, and illustrate the equipment and materials associated with estimates. 

• Attach summaries of diagnostic inspections, proposed work, and more.

• Present estimates via mobile device, and allow clients to sign off on work while techs are still on site.

• Furnish near-instant access to financing to get customers approved for high-value projects within minutes.

Use Integrated Invoicing and Payments to Get Paid Quickly

Since ServiceTitan stores all customer and job information in one location, everything contractors need to build invoices and get paid is already on hand and fully updated by the time a job is complete. 

Staff can immediately create accurate, professional invoices that are deliverable by mail, fax, text, or email. Digital invoices also include a link to let customers pay online via our customer portal. (Like virtually all ServiceTitan documents—purchase orders, change orders, construction work orders, contractor work orders, and other business forms and docs—invoices are fully printable.) 

The ability to create and leverage invoice templates, which can be customized with your company name and logo, adds an additional element of efficiency. As with estimates, invoices can be improved with images and/or video—a great way to emphasize the before-and-after effect. 

Contractors also have the option to make suggestions for additional services, as well as provide relevant warranty information and note current company promotions.  

ServiceTitan automatically stores all invoices—along with other customer service history details—in the customer database, making them easy to reference at any point in time.

Finally, there are a number of options for accepting payment through ServiceTitan, including:

• Credit card payments, which can be processed using a Bluetooth Card Reader, or through our online customer portal.

• Payments by check, facilitated by our mobile app, which allows technicians to photograph checks and auto-deposit them immediately.

• Google Pay™ and Apple Pay® integrations provide yet another option, giving customers greater flexibility and ensuring prompt payment.

Streamline Operations and Grow Your Profits with Our All-in-One Electrician Software

For electrical contracting companies looking to improve their system for work order management, a well-designed template, like the one included in this post, can be a good start. But a paper-based or PDF work order template can only do so much. 

Our software’s holistic approach to service business management helps contractors streamline their operations to improve efficiency and customer relationships, allowing electricians to earn more, get paid faster, and grow their business. 

Want to see how ServiceTitan can increase efficiency and grow your profits? Schedule a call for a free product tour.