Electrical Contractor Bookkeeping: Why One Set of Books Hides Three Different Businesses

Florida has no statewide prevailing wage law; the U.S. Department of Labor’s table of state prevailing wage laws lists Florida as “repealed in 1979.” For a Florida electrical contractor, a government-set wage arrives through other doors: federally funded or assisted work covered by Davis-Bacon, and, until a 2026 change in state law, wage terms written into local government contracts. That is one of four splits an electrical contractor’s books have to keep, alongside residential service versus new construction versus commercial work, fixed price versus time and materials, and permits charged to the right job. A single blended profit number hides all four.

Three Divisions Under One License

Residential service work, new construction wiring, and commercial projects carry different prices, payment terms, and risks. Service calls are small tickets billed on completion. New construction runs from rough-in to trim and is billed in stages. Commercial work brings negotiated contracts, progress billing, and whatever retainage the contract allows.

Blended into one income statement, the three produce a single margin that can describe none of them. A strong service operation can carry an underpriced new-construction operation for a long time without either showing. The fix is structural: set up each line of work as its own class or division, code revenue and direct costs to it, and run a profit-and-loss report per division every month.

Division	Billing pattern	What its report should answer
Residential service	Per ticket, at completion	Margin per call and per technician hour
New construction	Staged draws	Job margin against estimate, by stage
Commercial	Progress billing under contract	Over or under billing, retainage held, margin against estimate

Material Costs That Move Between Bid and Purchase

Electrical materials are bought after the bid, sometimes weeks after. On a fixed-price job, any increase between the price assumed in the estimate and the price actually paid comes out of margin. The books catch it only if materials are coded to the job by type and compared with the estimate as purchases post, so the variance appears during the job instead of in the year-end margin. A single “materials” account across all jobs makes that comparison impossible; job and material-type coding makes it routine, and the history feeds the next estimate.

Fixed Price and Time and Materials Protect Different Numbers

On a fixed-price job, the price is set and profit depends on cost staying within the estimate. The books protect margin by tracking actual cost against estimate, line by line, as the job runs, which depends on job costing that charges labor at a burdened rate and codes every cost to the job.

On a time-and-materials job, the invoice is built from the records, so the books protect revenue by capturing every hour and every part. For example, assume a repair billed at $95 an hour with materials marked up 20%:

Line	Calculation	Amount
Labor	40 hours × $95	$3,800
Materials	$3,200 × 1.20	$3,840
Invoice total		$7,640

If ten hours never reach the ticket and a $400 part is left off, the invoice is short $950 of labor and $480 of marked-up material, $1,430 the customer had agreed to pay. Each job should carry a tag for its pricing model, so fixed-price jobs are reviewed against estimates and time-and-materials jobs against time records and parts issued.

Permits Belong to the Job

Permit and inspection fees are costs of the job that required them. Posting them to general overhead understates each job’s cost and overstates its margin, and on a high-volume service operation the misallocation adds up across many small permits. Code each fee to its job when it is paid, and include expected permit costs in the estimate so the job’s actual cost has something to be compared with.

When the Wage Is Set by Law

Federal work. Davis-Bacon and related acts require contractors and subcontractors on federally funded or assisted contracts “in excess of $2,000” for the construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works to pay laborers and mechanics no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits, according to the DOL’s Davis-Bacon construction page. Coverage comes through two routes that are checked differently. The Davis-Bacon Act itself applies to federal contracts; on assisted projects, the same page explains, its wage provisions apply through the “Related Acts,” under which federal agencies assist construction through grants, loans, loan guarantees, and insurance. Federal money in a project is a reason to check whether a Related Act and the funding program’s terms cover it, not proof that they do. The rates for a covered project come from its wage determination, and they have to be in the estimate before the bid is submitted, not discovered after award.

For example, assume a job estimated at a $35 base rate for 500 electrician hours when the wage determination requires $52:

	Calculation	Labor cost
Labor as estimated	500 hours × $35	$17,500
Labor at the determination rate	500 hours × $52	$26,000
Shortfall before fringe benefits		$8,500

Fringe benefits required on top of the base rate add to that gap; how a company can satisfy them is a question to settle with the wage determination and a payroll advisor in hand.

Certified payroll. On federal and federally assisted construction, contractors submit payroll information weekly. The DOL’s Form WH-347 page describes the form as available “for the convenience” of contractors submitting certified weekly payrolls; the weekly submission is the requirement, and WH-347 is one way to meet it. For the books, that means payroll on a covered job is coded by job and by labor classification, with hours, rates, and fringe payments that can be reported weekly without reconstruction.

Local government contracts in Florida. Section 218.077, Florida Statutes bars a political subdivision from using “its purchasing or contracting procedures” to “control or affect the wages or employment benefits” of its contractors. Until September 30, 2026, the statute allowed a political subdivision to set wages or benefits for employees of its contractors under the terms of a contract. Chapter 2024-80, Laws of Florida, removed that exception effective September 30, 2026, and provides that the amendments “do not impair any contract entered into before September 30, 2026.” Subsection (4) of the statute keeps an exception where compliance would prevent receipt of federal funds or conflict with federal requirements tied to them.

Florida project	Government-set wage?	Source
Federal contract, or federally assisted project, over $2,000	When covered by the Davis-Bacon Act or an applicable Related Act: Davis-Bacon rates and fringe benefits	DOL Davis-Bacon
Local government contract entered before September 30, 2026	Only if the contract imposed it under the former exception	Section 218.077, chapter 2024-80
Local government contract entered on or after September 30, 2026	No local wage terms, except as federal funding requires	Section 218.077(2), (4)
State or private work without federal funds	No state prevailing wage law	DOL state table

What the Books Should Show

An electrical bookkeeping setup that fits the trade reports each division on its own, compares fixed-price jobs with their estimates and time-and-materials jobs with their time records, charges permits to jobs, and flags covered public work from the bid stage. The measure of whether it works is simple: at month-end, the owner can name which division earned the profit, which jobs drifted from estimate and why, and whether any open bid carries a wage determination the estimate has not priced.

This guide explains electrical contractor bookkeeping and wage rules as general information, not legal, payroll, or accounting advice. Prevailing wage coverage depends on the funding and the contract, so confirm it with the contracting agency and a qualified advisor before bidding.