Electrical bidding software, from the room count to the signature.

How an electrical bid comes together

A typical order is below. Nothing forces it, but each step feeds the next without retyping.

1. Start from the customer. A client can carry default pricing — tax rate, labor tax on or off, VAT/GST, a price level — so a new bid for a repeat GC or builder starts on the terms you already agreed.
2. Lay out the rooms or areas. Lines are grouped by room, which is how the proposal can total by area later.
3. Count the devices. Apply a Room-Tally template, or browse the catalog by category and add items directly.
4. Review the labor by phase. Every line carries rough-in, trim, finish and install labor, and the bid summary keeps each phase on its own row.
5. Price it. Price levels, bid-level adjustments and tax rules are covered on the electrical pricing page.
6. Send it. The proposal is rendered from the bid and approved online — see electrical proposals and quotes.

Counting by room, with templates you build once

Residential and light-commercial takeoff is repetitive in a predictable way. A kitchen has its receptacles, its switch legs and its under-cabinet lights; a bathroom has its GFCI, its fan and its vanity light; a garage has its door opener receptacle and its lighting. You already know the pattern. Room-Tally stores it.

A template is a room type with a list of device lines. Each line names the device as your crews say it (“Receptacles”, “Switches”, “Can lights”), the catalog product it maps to, a default quantity, and the minutes each device takes at rough-in, trim and finish. On the bid you pick a template, name the room — “Kitchen, unit 4B” — enter the counts you walked, and apply. BidGlory writes the lines for that room from your catalog at the product’s current price.

The templates are yours. You build them in settings, or paste them in from a spreadsheet with one device line per row. Nothing ships pre-filled, because the minutes that matter are the ones your crews actually take.

Labor, phase by phase

Electrical labor is bid in phases because it is installed in phases: rough-in before the drywall, trim after paint, finish and punch at the end. In BidGlory every line carries labor in Prewire, Trim, Finish and Install columns — Prewire is the low-voltage word for rough-in, kept because BidGlory serves both trades. You can add your own phases, such as service and panel, temporary power or site lighting, and rename and order them in settings. Catalog products carry default hours for each phase.

The bid summary shows rough-in, trim, finish and install labor on separate rows, with plus-or-minus adjustments beside them, so you can add a day of install or take back some programming at bid level without editing forty lines. If you connect a language model, an optional labor check flags phases that look high or low for what is in the bid; it is advisory, and you can mute it per bid.

Reusing last month’s job without last month’s prices

The next bid is rarely the first time you have quoted something like it. When you duplicate a bid you choose whether to keep the copied pricing and labor or refresh pricing from your current catalog. You can also pull rooms or individual items from any earlier bid into the one you are working on.

Once a line is on a bid, editing the catalog does not move its price; a bid you sent last week still says what it said. Before a revision, save a version. Later you can open any saved version and compare two of them side by side: which lines were added or removed, and which changed quantity, price or room.

When the bid is won

A bid does not end at the signature, and neither does the software. When the customer approves the proposal online, the bid is marked sold. From there:

• Purchase orders come from the bid lines. Tick the lines to order and BidGlory splits them into one purchase order per supplier, then receives against them.
• Each line has an ordering status: order request, order approved, on order, item received.
• The job moves through statuses your shop defines, with email notifications to the people who opt in.
• Field crews mark items installed and tested from a phone.

Coming from BidMagic

BidMagic was a desktop bid and proposal tool whose company ceased doing business in 2023. BidGlory runs on BidMagic databases: restore your backup and it adopts the data in place — bids, line items, clients, catalog, purchase orders, users — and honours your proposal preferences and templates. It is an independent product from ProjectThunder, the team hired to build BidMagic, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the BidMagic company. If you are still running it, free BidMagic support is available meanwhile.