For electrical subcontractors
Electrical contractor software built for the sub, not the service truck.
Search “electrical contractor software” and you get dispatch boards for service calls. You are not running service calls. You are running a seven-figure gear package, four crews across six jobs, and a draw due Friday through a GC portal you did not choose. SubMark is built for that job — bid to final retainage, office and field in the same system.
14-day free trial, no card needed. Sign up from here and electrical is already selected when you pick your trade. See pricing →
- Bill stored gear without rebuilding your SOV
- Rough-in and trim-out hours logged as they happen
- Every GC’s draw deadline in one calendar
What actually goes wrong on a commercial electrical job.
Your gear is capital you cannot bill yet.
Switchgear, panelboards and transformers get released the day the submittal is approved and show up months later. You owe the supplier on their terms long before the GC owes you on yours. If your schedule of values does not carry stored-material lines separate from the labor that installs them, that gear floats on your line of credit. SubMark lets you build the SOV the way the job is actually bought — material, stored material and labor as their own lines — and logs every draw you submit against it.
Extras are half the business, and nobody signs anything.
Electrical touches every late change on a job. A workstation moves, FF&E needs four more circuits, an ASI rewrites a panel schedule. Your foreman does the work Tuesday and mentions it three weeks later, by which point the superintendent remembers it differently. SubMark gives the field a change event with photos the day it happens, a T&M tag priced off your own rate list and signed on the spot, and a one-click path from a stack of signed tags into one change order.
You find the rough-in overrun at trim-out.
Branch rough-in is where the hours go. A floor that ran 40% over still looks fine on a job-level report, because the gear line is sitting there unspent and hiding it. SubMark logs labor per worker and per job as the hours come in — and, with phase tracking switched on in Settings, per phase against that phase’s budget — so the floor that is bleeding shows up while there are still floors left to fix.
Every GC bills differently and they all want it Friday.
One job goes through Textura, one through GCPay, one through the GC’s own project-management portal, and one old-school GC still wants a PDF emailed by the 25th. Your office keeps the real schedule of values in a spreadsheet and retypes it into whichever portal is due. SubMark keeps one SOV per job and one calendar of every GC’s cutoff, so the spreadsheet stops being the system of record.
Before you mobilize
The 4 things electrical subs settle with the GC before mobilizing.
What is approved, where your scope stops, what has to be true before you start, and how you get at the work. Every one of them turns into a change order three weeks in if nobody writes the answer down — and the answer is worth nothing if it only lives in one PM’s inbox.
In the pack
Switch on Pre-Construction Review and these 4 questions are already the list, worded the way electrical subs ask them.
- Confirm the approved fixture, panel and device schedules
- Confirm the temporary power scope, who provides it, and metering
- Confirm who furnishes and who installs owner- and vendor-supplied equipment
- Confirm the utility and inspection milestone dates
Tick them off job by job, with your own note on each. The note is your answer — the pack ships the question and leaves the answer to you.
Pre-Construction Review is an opt-in module — it is not one of the eight switched on at setup. Turn it on in Settings and the list is already there in electrical terms, with no upgrade and no setup call. Edit it once and it applies to every job; the tick and the note stay with the job it was asked on. See every module →
The electrical job, phase by phase.
A tool that does not know the difference between rough-in and trim-out cannot tell you which one is losing money. Here is how the work maps to what ships in SubMark.
- 01 Preconstruction & bid
Takeoff off the E-sheets, device and homerun counts, gear pricing, alternates and value engineering.
Bid Board, Plans & Drawings, Takeoff, Estimating & Proposals
- 02 Submittals & gear release
Gear, fixture and device submittals approved before anything is released for manufacture.
Submittals with a material library and merged PDF export
- 03 Temp power & underground
Temporary power stood up, conduit and duct bank in the ground, sleeves set — all on the concrete sub’s pour date, not yours.
Daily Labor Logs with photos, Crew Scheduling, Change Events
- 04 Rough-in
Branch conduit, boxes, homeruns, feeders and cable tray, overhead before the grid closes it in.
Time Clock & Labor Logs feeding Job Costing
- 05 Gear set & terminations
Gear delivered, set, landed and labeled; feeders terminated.
Purchase Orders and the Invoices Inbox tying supplier cost to the job
- 06 Trim-out
Devices, plates, fixtures, panel trim and breaker labeling, chasing the finish trades floor by floor.
Crew Scheduling across jobs, Where Workers Are
- 07 Energization & inspection
Utility coordination, AHJ inspection, testing and the first time the building has real power.
Daily Labor Logs as the dated record, Safety for inspections and certs
- 08 Punch & closeout
Punch list, as-builts, O&M manuals, final billing and the retainage you have been waiting on.
Schedule of Values & Draw Log, Lien Waiver Tracking, Submittals for the O&M package
Every module named above ships today; the eight below are on from day one, and the rest are a switch in Settings, not an upgrade. The full list is on the product page.
In the pack
These 9 phases load with the Electrical pack the moment you pick it at setup.
They are the phase list your foremen pick from on every daily log, so the hours come back tagged to the part of the job they were spent on.
- 01 Permit / Layout
- 02 Rough-In
- 03 Rough Inspection
- 04 Wire Pull
- 05 Gear / Panel Set
- 06 Trim-Out
- 07 Devices / Cover Plates
- 08 Fixtures
- 09 Final Inspection
Plus “Other”, for the work that fits nowhere. Rename, reorder or delete any of them in Settings — the pack is a starting point, not a cage.
An electrical schedule of values that survives contact with the job.
Most SOV problems start with too few lines. One line called “Electrical — Level 2” cannot tell you whether you are owed money, and it cannot carry stored gear. These are the kinds of lines a commercial electrical SOV usually needs:
In the pack
Open the SOV builder on a new job and these 5 lines are already in it.
- Rough-In 40%
- Gear / Equipment 25%
- Wire / Feeders 15%
- Trim / Devices 12%
- Fixtures / Final 8%
What most commercial electrical subs add
- 01 Temporary power
- 02 Underground & duct bank
- 03 Switchgear & panelboards — material stored-material line
- 04 Gear set & terminations — labor
- 05 Feeders
- 06 Branch rough-in — Level 1
- 07 Branch rough-in — Level 2
- 08 Lighting fixtures — material stored-material line
- 09 Lighting install — labor
- 10 Devices & trim
- 11 Fire alarm
- 12 Testing, inspection & energization
- 13 As-builts, O&M & closeout
Split material from labor anywhere the money arrives at a different time from the work. That split is what makes stored-gear billing possible, and it is what stops a rough-in that is 60% done from reading as a job that is 60% done.
That longer list is an illustration, not a template — your SOV is negotiated with your GC. SubMark gives you the SOV to build, and tracks every draw, retainage amount and payment against it. It is your record of the job, not a replacement for the GC’s billing system — you submit the draw the way each GC requires and log it here.
Read next
Schedule of values for subcontractors: how to build one that bills clean
How to break out line items, where retainage and change orders sit, and why too few lines is the mistake that costs an electrical sub stored-gear billing for the whole job.
T&M tickets in commercial construction: getting signed, and getting paid
A tenant change on a Tuesday is a T&M tag, not a memory — what belongs on the ticket, how to get the superintendent to sign before he leaves, and how a month of tags becomes one change order.
Inside SubMark
One calendar for every crew on every job.
Four crews, six jobs, and a rough-in that has to be done before the ceiling closes. SubMark schedules workers across every job at once and flags the double-booking before Monday morning.
On from day one, in every trade’s setup.
Nothing is paywalled by tier. These eight are switched on in every one of the 29 trade packs, electrical included, from the moment you finish setup.
T&M Tags
Field tickets priced off your own rate lists and signed by the GC on the spot.
Change Events
The field logs a scope change with photos the day it happens, then it converts to a CO.
Draw Calendar
Every GC’s billing cutoff and submission method in one calendar, with reminders.
Submittals
Submittal packages with a material library, cover sheets and merged PDF export.
Daily Labor Logs
Weather, narrative, labor, materials and photos, with a submit-and-review workflow.
Timesheets
Weekly rollups with worker signatures and supervisor approval, plus a payroll summary export.
Where Workers Are
A live view of which workers are on which job today.
Safety
Toolbox talks, inspections, incidents, and certification and COI tracking with expiry dates.
Pick Electrical at setup and SubMark loads the electrical pack: electrical phase names, checklists and material lists, and a schedule-of-values breakdown shaped like an electrical job instead of a drywall one. Anything the pack gets wrong, you change in Settings.
The worker types are already there too — Journeyman, Apprentice, Foreman and Helper — on every worker record and on every daily labor log. The only thing left to enter is your own rates.
Questions
Electrical subcontractors ask us these.
Is this field service software for electricians?
No, and that is deliberate. SubMark is for commercial project work — you bid a job, sign a contract with a GC, bill against a schedule of values, and wait on retainage. If most of your revenue is service calls, dispatch and truck routing, a field service platform fits you better. If most of it is construction contracts, that is what this is built for.
Can I bill for gear that has been delivered but not installed?
You build the schedule of values, so yes — carry stored-material lines for switchgear, panelboards and fixture packages alongside the labor lines that install them, and bill them as the gear lands. SubMark tracks what you billed on each line, what the GC certified, what retainage is held against it and when the money arrived.
Do we have to change how we bill our GCs?
No. Every GC keeps its own portal, project-management system or emailed form, and you keep submitting through it. SubMark is the sub-side record: your schedule of values carries the stored-gear lines separately from the gear-set and termination labor, every draw you submit gets logged against it, and you can see billed to date, retainage held and what has actually been paid on every job — whichever portal each one went through.
How do T&M tickets work?
You set up your own rate lists — journeyman, apprentice, foreman, truck, equipment, material markup. The office prices the tag off those rates, the GC’s superintendent e-signs it on site, and the signed tag is on file. When you are ready to get paid for the extras, bundle a month of tags into one change order instead of arguing about eleven separate tickets.
Does it handle prevailing wage and certified payroll?
Partly, and here is the honest line. SubMark tracks hours per worker, per job, per day, and rolls them into weekly timesheets with worker signatures and supervisor approval, plus a payroll summary export for your payroll provider. It does not fill out or file certified payroll forms for you.
Does it connect to QuickBooks?
Yes. Connect QuickBooks Online once and bills and purchases pull into job costing (hourly, if you switch auto-pull on) so material and sub costs sit against the right job; draws go across as QuickBooks invoices and POs as purchase orders, one at a time with a click; and a coverage meter shows how much of the cost pulled from QuickBooks is coded to a job.
Do my foremen and field crews cost extra?
No. Field users are free and unlimited — foremen clocking in, crews logging labor, anyone filling out a daily log. You pay one company subscription: $249 a month with your first 3 office users included, then $39 a month each. The whole breakdown is on the pricing page.
See it on an electrical job.
Start the trial, confirm electrical on the first screen, and the pack loads your phases, checklists and worker types in your own words. Or take a 30-minute walkthrough with the person who built it, on your kind of jobs, instead of a canned demo script.
14-day free trial, no card needed. See the whole product →
$249/mo for your company, your first 3 office users included, $39/mo each after that. Field crews are free and unlimited. See what's included →
Other trades
HVAC / Mechanical
Equipment bought a year before it is billed, shop fab the GC will not pay for, and a closeout that holds your last 10% for six months.
Plumbing
First in the ground and last out of the building — with a quarter of the contract value stuck behind the finish trades.
Drywall & Framing
A third to half the contract spent on board before anything is hung, five finish passes nobody can measure, and three punch walks and a clean-up that are all on you.
Concrete
Pour days that cannot move, ready-mix invoices you reconcile weeks later, and forms that are capital cycling across placements.
Fire Sprinkler
Weeks of hydraulic engineering before you can bill a dollar, and every phase gated behind an inspection you do not schedule.
Glazing & Glass
Custom material you cannot order until you field measure, cannot return once you do, and cannot bill until a water test passes.
Roofing
A tear-off that owns the building until dry-in, rotten deck nobody bid, and a warranty package standing between you and retainage.
Low voltage
Drop counts that move with every furniture plan, cable sitting in a locked IDF for months, and a final 10% that waits on a test report.
Fire alarm
A quarter of the contract behind an acceptance test you do not schedule, retests you never bill, and device counts that move all year.
Painting
The last trade on the schedule, four return trips for other people’s damage, and prep bid against a wall nobody left you.
Flooring
A slab that fails its moisture test, prep bid against a flatness spec nobody hit, and a whole building’s material stored for months.
Masonry
Scaffold that is capital, grout lifts gated by an inspector, and a mock-up panel holding up the whole brick order.
Structural & Misc Steel
Two thirds of the contract is detailing, mill material and shop work, earned before a single piece is erected, and the last five percent is a handrail holding your retainage.
Wood Framing
Fourteen buildings billed as one percentage, a lumber package that is 40% of the contract before a wall goes up, and blocking you owe six other trades that nobody drew.
Excavation & Sitework
The only schedule of values on this site that opens without a single line for product you buy: your contract is production, billed against quantities somebody else surveyed.
Waterproofing
Work that is buried within a week of going in, blamed for every drop of water for the next ten years, and finished with sealants months after everyone forgot you were on the job.
Doors, Frames & Hardware
Half the contract is product you buy months early, and the last three openings out of four hundred hold your punch, your final draw and your retainage.
Demolition
A scope nobody can see until you open the wall, extra work that leaves in the dumpster before anyone prices it, and retainage held for a year after you demobilized.
Insulation
A four-day window between rough-in inspection and board that nobody protects, half the contract sitting in material you staged weeks early, and firestopping everyone assumed was yours.
EIFS / Stucco / Plaster
A schedule set by cure time that nobody believes, a weather barrier you bury on day two and get blamed for in year three, and joints drawn by somebody else that crack on your wall.
Acoustical Ceilings (ACT)
Grid that cannot start until every trade above the ceiling is finished, tile that drops in the last three weeks of a two-year job, and a finished ceiling the whole building then uses as an access hatch.
Paving & Asphalt
Material with a clock on it and a crew on the clock whether you place or not, a subgrade somebody else owns, and six months of construction traffic on the binder course you have to warrant.
Tile & Stone
A finished floor installed on somebody else’s slab, to a flatness tolerance the concrete sub was never asked to hit, with waterproofing and movement joints that belong to nobody until the warranty call comes.
Millwork & Casework
Half your contract earned in your own shop before anything reaches the site, built to a drawing of walls somebody else framed, with the furnish-and-install line drawn in a meeting you were not in.
All trades
SubMark ships a setup pack for 29 commercial trades. See the full list.