Best Accounting Software for Electrical Contractors (2026): Job Costing, Progress Billing and Retainage

8 min read

Disclosure: Augmented Trades participates in affiliate programs. If you click a link and buy, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change what we recommend. Read our full disclosure.

Electrical contracting breaks general-purpose accounting software in a specific way: the money is committed long before it is earned. You buy wire and gear at the front of a job, bill on a schedule of values or a progress draw, hold retainage for months, and settle change orders after the work is already in the wall.

A ledger that assumes you invoice what you did last month cannot see any of that. This guide covers what actually handles it, and what each option costs — every figure read off the vendor pricing page on August 16, 2026, with the billing cycle stated, because most of these vendors quote a different number depending on which toggle you are looking at.

Decide which of two problems you have

Almost every electrical contractor lands in one of two situations, and they need different software.

Service and small-project work — troubleshooting, panel upgrades, fixture swaps, EV charger installs. Lots of small invoices, fast turnaround, payment at completion. Your problem is getting the invoice out the door the same day the van leaves. A field service platform with a solid accounting sync solves this.

Contract and new-construction work — bid or negotiated jobs, progress billing, AIA-style pay applications, retainage, lien waivers, subs. Your problem is knowing whether job 214 is actually making money while it is still running. This needs job costing and construction-aware billing, which most general accounting packages do badly.

Plenty of shops do both. If that is you, be honest about which side carries the revenue, and buy for that. Buying for the smaller half is how contractors end up with software nobody uses.

QuickBooks Online — the default, and its real limits

Most electrical contractors are already on QuickBooks, and for good reason: every bookkeeper knows it and nearly everything integrates with it. Verified on the Intuit pricing page on 2026-08-16:

• Simple Start — $38/month
• Essentials — $75/month
• Plus — $115/month
• Advanced — $275/month

Intuit was advertising 90% off for three months, ending August 27, 2026, when we checked. Discount the promotion when you budget — you are buying the list price for years two onward.

Plus is the realistic floor for any electrical contractor who wants per-job profitability, because that is the tier where project tracking appears. Simple Start and Essentials will keep your books; they will not tell you which jobs made money.

Where it runs out: progress billing against a schedule of values, retainage tracking, and certified payroll are not things QuickBooks Online does natively and comfortably. Contractors doing prevailing-wage or AIA work almost always end up bolting something on.

Knowify — built for the contract side, sits on top of QuickBooks

Knowify is aimed squarely at the second problem: contract jobs, progress billing, AIA-style pay applications, and job costing, syncing to QuickBooks rather than replacing it. If retainage and schedules of values are your week, this is the category of tool you want.

Pricing, verified 2026-08-16 — and read the billing toggle carefully, because it changes every number on the page:

• Core — $149/month on monthly billing, or $99/month billed annually. Includes 1 user.
• Advanced — $399/month on monthly billing, or $329/month billed annually. Includes 10 users.
• Enterprise — quote only.
• Service Pro is an add-on rather than a plan — $199/month on monthly billing, or $99/month billed annually. Do not confuse it with a tier.

Core includes one user and Advanced includes ten; unlimited users appear only at Enterprise. Knowify does not publish an additional-user rate on its pricing page, so if your seat count lands between tiers, that is a number you will have to ask for. One caution if you go looking: the $25/month figure on that page is per vehicle, for the Live Equipment Tracking add-on — it is not a seat price. Get any per-seat rate in writing on the order form.

Fit: electrical contractors doing bid work, progress billing, or prevailing wage. Skip it if you are pure service — you will pay for contract machinery you never touch.

Knowify is not an affiliate partner of ours. We earn nothing if you sign up.

Jobber — service-side, with the QuickBooks sync where it matters

For service and small-project shops, Jobber is the straightforward answer: quote, schedule, invoice on site, sync to QuickBooks Online. The sync starts at the Connect tier, which is the practical entry point for anyone who cares about their books.

Jobber prices by team-size band, not per seat — a distinction that catches people out. Verified 2026-08-16:

• Just me (1 user): Core $49, Connect $139, Grow $199 per month. Billed annually: $29, $99, $149.
• Larger crews: Jobber publishes separate pricing for 2–5, 6–10, 11–15 and 16+ people, chosen with the team-size selector on its pricing page. Core is not offered above the solo band. We are not quoting the higher-band figures here because we could not read them off the page on the date above.

Fit: service-led electrical shops up to about five in the field. Skip it if you need AIA billing or retainage — that is not what it is for.

Housecall Pro — the other service-side option

Housecall Pro covers similar ground with a stronger lean toward customer communication and repeat work. Verified 2026-08-16: Basic $59/month billed annually (1 user; no month-to-month rate published for this tier), Essentials $189/month or $149 billed annually (5 users), Max $329/month or $299 billed annually (8 users, then $35/month per additional user).

ServiceTitan — only once you are big enough

ServiceTitan lists four tiers — Starter, Essentials, The Works, Enterprise — and no prices at any of them, confirmed 2026-08-16. We are an affiliate and will still tell you plainly: under roughly ten techs this is usually the wrong purchase, because the platform needs office staff to feed it.

Price comparison

Each row states the vendor own billing basis. Nothing is converted to a common cycle. Figures read from vendor pricing pages on 2026-08-16.

Three things that cost electrical contractors more than the subscription

• Material cost lag. If gear is bought in month one and billed in month three, a cash-basis view will tell you a profitable job is a disaster and vice versa. Whatever you buy, get job costing on an accrual view.
• Change orders tracked in text messages. The most common source of unbilled revenue in this trade. If the software cannot attach a change order to the job and push it onto the next invoice, you will lose some of it.
• Retainage nobody is chasing. Five percent held across several jobs is often the largest receivable a shop has, and the one least likely to be on a report. Ask any vendor to show you the retainage report before you sign.

What we would actually do

• Service-led, one to five in the field: QuickBooks Online Plus plus Jobber Connect or Grow.
• Contract or prevailing-wage work: QuickBooks Online Plus plus Knowify. The bolt-on beats forcing QuickBooks to do AIA billing.
• Mixed, and growing past ten techs: price ServiceTitan, but only if you have the office capacity to run it.
• Solo, pure service: QuickBooks Online Simple Start or Essentials plus Jobber Core. Add Plus when you start asking which jobs made money.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just use QuickBooks on its own?

For pure service work, yes. Once you are progress billing or holding retainage, you will spend more hours working around it than the add-on costs.

Does the field software replace my accounting software?

No. Jobber, Housecall Pro and Knowify all sync to QuickBooks rather than replace it. Budget for both.

Is the QuickBooks promotional price worth timing a purchase around?

Only if you were buying anyway. Three discounted months is not a reason to pick the wrong tier.

Related reading

• Best software for electrical contractors
• Best accounting software for contractors
• Field service software that syncs with QuickBooks
• All electrician guides

Disclosure: Augmented Trades participates in affiliate programs and may earn a commission if you click a link and buy, at no extra cost to you. We recommend by fit, not by commission, and we name tools we earn nothing on — QuickBooks and Knowify are not affiliate partners. Read our full disclosure.

Pricing verified 2026-08-16. Vendor pricing changes without notice — check the vendor page before you buy.

Written by Michael

Michael is the founder of Augmented Trades, an independent site that compares AI and software tools for trade contractors on published pricing, contracts, and real feature limits. Tools are recommended on fit for your shop — affiliate partnerships never decide coverage.