HOW IMPROVED JOB SCHEDULING CAN TRANSFORM YOUR TRADE BUSINESS — AND YOUR LIFE

No one said running an electrical contracting business would be easy, and the sense of achievement a business owner feels is all the greater for knowing they’ve worked hard to achieve it. But there’s no need to make things more difficult than they have to be. Burnout is always a risk for a business owner, and a healthy work life balance is important.

Building a business that works for you, not the other way around, should be a key priority for all electrical contracting business owners. The high personal risk of owning a trade business means owner burnout is becoming more common. With the business environment seemingly changing daily, the pressure can mount and anything that helps trade business owners to tackle the hard stuff and stay on top of things can only be good.

The crucial question is, how do you go about working hard, but also having the quality time needed for family, friends and leisure activities? Thankfully there are some processes you can easily put in place, and even better, automate, so that you have more time free for the good things in life.

One of the easiest processes to automate is job scheduling, which can be managed through software, bringing with it some significant improvements in your business, and potentially, your life.

Manually building employee schedules takes a lot of time and energy and, in this digital world, it doesn’t really make sense to still be employing manual means of booking.

One of the key benefits of job management software is the ability to easily schedule and manage appointments with clients. You can quickly create appointments, set reminders, and send out automated confirmations and notices to clients. This can help ensure that appointments are kept and that clients are informed about any changes or delays. One of the risks that comes with manual booking is human error. This can include overbooking, double-booking or overlooking essential job details. Good scheduling software will minimise these risks and provide you with a clear visual calendar that you can view on your dashboard. A visual calendar will allow you to see at a glance what needs to be done, along with any important appointments coming up so that you can schedule jobs more effectively.

Another benefit of job management software is the ability to easily generate invoices and manage payments. It can help businesses keep track of what services have been performed and at what cost, making it easy to generate accurate invoices and bill clients for services provided. Additionally, many job management software programs offer integrations with popular payment processing platforms, making it easy for businesses to accept payments from clients. Think of all that time you spend invoicing and chasing payment and imagine getting it back for a bit of relaxation with family and friends!

A good software scheduling program can integrate various data management apps or tools so that you can access all your important apps in one place. If you run your job scheduling app and accounting system separately, any invoices or quotes recorded on your job management software would have to be re-entered manually into your accounting database. This is time-consuming and increases the risk of human error. With an integrated software app, you will have clear, simultaneous visibility of all areas of your business. Management and other staff should be able to view employee data and customise reports when necessary. So ideally, your chosen scheduling software and app would have an easy-to-navigate dashboard that features real-time meeting rooms as well as updates so that you and/or your clients can stay informed of a project’s or employee’s status.

It can have a positive impact on internal communication within your business too, leading to increased efficiency amongst your employees or subcontractors.

Scheduling your team and assigning jobs to workers can be difficult if it’s done offline. Get rid of the phone tennis and avoid scheduling conflicts with a scheduling software app that features auto-scheduling. Another feature to look out for in a scheduling software app is payroll tracking. With this feature, the gross pay an employee earns is automatically calculated as soon as they clock off their shift. Some apps allow you to see how much an employee has earned that week based on the hours worked. You can then copy this information into your integrated accounting software or separate payroll system, making it easier to calculate payments and invoices.

By automating just some of these processes, you can potentially claw back some time for the more important things in life, such as your family, friends and free time. As a business owner it doesn’t make sense to keep wasteful and time-sapping habits in place when the answer is just a few mouse clicks or finger swipes away.

Fergus, fergus.com