Electrician software built for how Australian sparkies actually work

The electrician's week, and where the software has to earn its keep

A typical sparky's week is a mix of quick service calls, a couple of quoted jobs, and the ongoing sites — a renovation, a small commercial fit-out, a switchboard upgrade. The money leaks in the gaps between them: the quote that never got followed up, the variation the client "doesn't remember agreeing to," the roll of cable that went on a job but never made it onto the invoice, the timesheet reconstructed from memory on a Sunday night. Good electrician software closes those gaps by keeping everything attached to the job it belongs to.

Here's how My Apprentice handles the electrician's core loop. It's built for Australian electrical contractors and Xero-integrated.

Quoting: fast, itemised, and margin-aware

Most electrical quotes are a blend of labour and materials — so many hours at your rate, plus the switchgear, cable, accessories and sundries. In My Apprentice you build a quote from line items and your materials list, and every material and item line shows the catalogue cost behind it next to the price you're charging, so you can see the gap before you send. You quote at the price you mean to, not the price you hope works out after the fact.

When you send that quote, My Apprentice stores an immutable PDF snapshot of exactly what the client received — which matters the day a customer queries what they agreed to. When they accept, the quote becomes a job in one click. No re-typing the scope, no copying line items across; the thing you priced is the thing you now run.

Because electrical work throws up variations constantly — "while you're here, can you also…" — the job stays live and the numbers stay honest as the scope grows.

Scheduling and dispatch: the right sparky, the right site

Electrical crews are rarely all in one place. You've got a leading hand on the commercial job, an apprentice you don't want sent solo, and yourself bouncing between service calls. My Apprentice's scheduling lets you assign shifts to the right people, run recurring shifts for ongoing sites, and keep an eye on what's unassigned so nothing falls through. Field staff only see the shifts and jobs they're assigned to, which keeps their day simple and your business's information contained.

The honest limitation: My Apprentice doesn't do live GPS tracking, so if you need to see exactly where each vehicle is on a map in real time, that's not a feature it offers today. What it does well is get the right person to the right job with the right information attached.

Materials and stock: from the wholesaler to the invoice

Electrical is a materials-heavy trade, and materials are where margin quietly disappears. My Apprentice keeps a materials library you can pull onto quotes and jobs, tracks stock as an immutable ledger, and — this is the useful part — asks you to confirm the materials that went on a job when you complete it, then writes them off stock in one step. So the cable, the RCBOs, the GPOs that went on the job come off your stock and, if you've priced them, onto the invoice.

There's a genuinely time-saving trick here for suppliers' bills. When your monthly invoice lands from the wholesaler, My Apprentice's built-in AI supplier-invoice scanning reads the PDF, matches the lines against your own suppliers and materials, flags anything it's unsure about for you to check, and then updates your stock or costs it to the job. Over time it learns each supplier's product codes, so the more you use it, the less you touch it. For an electrician getting regular bills from one or two wholesalers, that's an evening of data entry a month you get back. It's included at every seat — you don't upgrade a plan to reach it.

Worth being straight about the edges: My Apprentice doesn't generate purchase orders or connect directly to wholesaler catalogues, so if your business runs on formal POs and live supplier pricing feeds, that's a gap. For most residential and light-commercial electrical work, the materials library plus AI bill-scanning covers the ground.

Compliance and documentation: prove the work

Electrical work carries real compliance weight — you're signing off that installations meet AS/NZS 3000, and depending on your state you're issuing certificates of compliance or electrical safety certificates through the relevant scheme. My Apprentice is honest about its role here: it is not a certificate-issuing or SWMS module, and it won't replace your state's compliance process. What it does is keep the evidence trail that supports your compliance — photos of the work attached to the job and shift, notes, and a full audit trail of what happened and when, with an immutable record of the quotes and invoices you sent. You can share that photo evidence with the client through the portal, which is often exactly what a customer or builder wants to see before they release payment.

If dedicated SWMS and certificate management are central to your operation, a compliance-heavy platform will do more there — we'd rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. What My Apprentice gives you is clean, defensible documentation attached to every job.

Customer communication: fewer "where are you at?" calls

Electrical customers — especially homeowners and builders — want to know what's happening without having to chase you. My Apprentice's no-login client portal gives each customer a secure link where they can see their job's progress, view and accept the quote, read the invoice, message you, and — once you've connected Stripe — pay by card. No account, no password, just a link. For a sparky, that means fewer interrupting phone calls, faster quote acceptance, and quicker payment because the "pay now" button is right there next to the invoice.

Timesheets: hours that match the jobs

Between service calls and site work, electrician hours are fiddly to capture. My Apprentice lets your team clock in and out, records time against the work, and rolls it up for weekly submission and approval, with a payroll export when you're ready to pay. Apprentices, leading hands and yourself all get time captured as it happens rather than reconstructed later — which means the hours on the payroll match the hours on the jobs.

Getting paid: invoice from the job

Because the invoice comes straight off the job — with the labour, the materials and any variations already attached — you're not rebuilding the story at billing time. Send it, and My Apprentice tracks whether it's paid, chases with reminders, and (with Stripe connected) lets the client pay by card from the portal. Invoices push to Xero when you're ready, with paid and outstanding status syncing back, so your books stay straight without double entry.

Where My Apprentice fits an electrical business — and where it doesn't

It fits:

• The sole-trader sparky who wants to look professional and stop losing hours to admin
• The small-to-mid electrical contractor (up to around 25 staff) running a mix of service and project work who needs quoting, scheduling, materials and permissions in one place
• Any electrical business that wants transparent pricing and a modern client experience without an enterprise rollout

It's less of a fit if you run large commercial electrical projects with multi-phase progress billing and formal procurement, or if MYOB is non-negotiable — those point you toward heavier platforms. My Apprentice's sweet spot is the residential and light-commercial electrical business that wants its whole workflow joined up and easy to run.

The same workflow runs for the trades you share sites with — see plumbing software and HVAC software.

A real-world example

Take a three-person electrical business: the owner, a qualified electrician, and a second-year apprentice. A builder asks for a quote on the electrical rough-in and fit-off for a home renovation. The owner builds the quote from the materials list — cable, switchboard, GPOs, downlights, labour — and My Apprentice shows the margin as it's built. The builder gets a professional quote by email and a portal link; he accepts it there, and it becomes a job.

The owner schedules the rough-in across two days and assigns the apprentice alongside the electrician — the apprentice sees only that job and shift, not the pricing. On site, photos of the rough-in go onto the job. A variation comes up (extra circuits for a new appliance); it's added to the live job, so it can't be "forgotten" at invoice time. When the wholesaler's monthly bill arrives, AI scanning reconciles the materials to stock and the job. At fit-off, the job's marked complete, materials write back to stock, and the invoice — labour, materials, the variation — is sent from the job. The builder pays by card through the portal. The apprentice's and electrician's hours flowed straight into the timesheet for payroll. No Sunday-night admin, and nothing left on the table.

Pricing for electrical businesses

My Apprentice is priced per seat in Australian dollars, and the rate drops as your team grows: $39 per seat per month for a sole trader, dropping to $27 per seat for larger teams, with 20% off annual billing. Your first 2 months are free, there's no setup fee and no lock-in contract. There's a free trial, no implementation fee and no lock-in contract. A solo sparky pays one seat; a growing firm pays less per head as it hires. You can see the price before you sign up — no demo required.

FAQ

→ Start a free trial, or see pricing for Australian electrical businesses.