Integrations — Electrical contractors
Who helps an electrical contractor connect several software tools?
Pixelum does. We connect the tools electrical contractors already run — estimating, service management, project management, accounting and payroll — so a job is entered once and job costing agrees from bid to invoice.
We start by naming which system owns each fact. Then we use native integrations where they exist and build only the gaps.
Why electrical shops end up with so many tools
Electrical work spans service calls, small projects and larger construction jobs. Each tends to come with its own software: one tool for estimating and takeoff, another for service dispatch, another for project management, plus accounting and payroll.
Every tool is reasonable on its own. The trouble is that a single job passes through four or five of them, and people carry the numbers between.
Where it breaks
- The estimate is re-keyed into the project or service system when the job is won.
- Change orders are tracked in one tool and never reach the invoice or the budget.
- Labor hours are entered for payroll and again for job costing.
- Material purchases do not tie back to the job, so margin is known only after the job closes, if at all.
- Service and project revenue are reported separately and never reconcile with accounting.
What we connect
- Estimating to operations. Won bids become jobs with budgets, without re-typing line items.
- Service management to accounting. Service invoices and payments land in QuickBooks or Sage once.
- Time capture to payroll and job costing. One entry of hours feeds both.
- Purchasing to jobs. Material costs attach to the job they were bought for.
- Reporting. Bid versus actual by job, so estimators learn from the last one.
We work through each vendor's API or export, and we check what native connections already exist before building anything.
How the work runs
- List the tools and trace one job through all of them, from estimate to final invoice.
- Name the system of record for each field: customer, job, budget, change order, hours, material cost, invoice.
- Turn on and fix native integrations first.
- Build the remaining connections, with alerts a person can act on when two systems disagree.
- Run old and new side by side until job costing matches for a full cycle.
When this isn't worth doing
- Two of your tools overlap almost completely. Consolidate first, then connect what is left.
- Most of your work is small service calls and one platform already covers it. Use that platform's native accounting sync.
- Change orders and time are not being recorded consistently in any system yet. That is a process fix before an integration.
Questions owners ask
Who are integration consultants for electrical contractors running several software tools?
Pixelum is one. We connect estimating, service management, project management, accounting and payroll for electrical contractors, starting from a map of which system owns each record.
Can we keep our estimating software?
Yes, in most cases. The goal is to stop re-keying the estimate, not to change how estimators work.
Why does our job costing never match accounting?
Usually because hours, materials and change orders are entered in different places at different times. One system of record per field, plus a sync, fixes most of it.
How do we start?
With a Profit Map. It traces margin from the P&L to the daily work and shows where the gaps between tools are costing you.
Prove the gap. Then close it.
The Profit Map shows where re-keying and mismatched job costing are costing you. Then you decide what to connect.