A service call invoices once. A panel upgrade ties up a crew for days, needs money before the wire is bought, and gets paid in stages if you set it up that way. Ten platforms compared on staged billing, autopay and what they take from every card payment, checked September 16, 2026 against their own pages.
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Our pick
The only platform that puts the electrical progress-billing sequence on a product page rather than in a help center: deposits configured before materials are ordered, milestone payments during the project, final collection at completion, with job costs kept current from the field. It never says how the amounts are set.
Our pick
The only vendor that maps invoices onto deposit, rough-in and final inspection, by dollar amount or percentage, with panel upgrades, EV chargers and rewires named. Card processing from 2.59% and ACH at 1%, both printed.
Our pick
Progress invoicing is available on all plans: a deposit or a full payment schedule by percentage or fixed amount, set on the quote, though Jobber documents it only in its help center. Bank payments cost 1%, and the card rate is the one thing Jobber won't print.
Kickserv prints 2.9% tap, 3.9% keyed and 1% plus 30 cents for ACH, though a second Kickserv page advertises 2.5% plus 30 cents for its top plan. Service Fusion prints card rates from 2.90% plus 30 cents and collects job deposits up front. Both publish what most of this market hides.
The money problem on electrical work is the gap between buying breakers, wire, conduit and a panel, and getting paid at the end. Four platforms document a real mechanism. Housecall Pro invoices by dollar amount or percentage at each milestone and gives each invoice its own due terms, capped so you can't bill past 100% of the job. Jobber sets a deposit or a payment schedule on the quote, by percentage or fixed amount, on every plan. Service Fusion builds each progress invoice line item by line item, with one catch worth knowing: once you use progress billing on a job, its deposit option disappears, so the two are mutually exclusive. FieldPulse offers deposits, milestone draws and partial payments by amount or percentage, though only its help center says so.
ServiceBox and Workiz name the pattern without publishing the mechanics. ServiceBox describes deposits before materials and milestone payments through completion. Workiz has the best sentence in the set, promising milestone billing "from rough-in to trim-out", and then says nothing about how it works. ServiceTitan offers only "phased billing" as an undefined phrase, and FieldEdge claims nothing at all. Nobody in the set names retainage, which matters if you do commercial work where 5 or 10% is held back until closeout.
"Not claimed" means the vendor's own pages don't state it, and "Not published" means no processing rate is printed anywhere we could read. Both describe the pages, not the products.
| Platform | Deposits and stages | Autopay | Reminders | Published rates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housecall Pro | Amount or percentage per stage | Yes, cards on file | Yes | Card from 2.59%, ACH 1% |
| Jobber | Percentage or fixed, help center only | Recurring jobs only | Yes | ACH 1%, card rate unpublished |
| Kickserv | Deposits and progress payments | Not claimed | Yes | Tap 2.9%, keyed 3.9%, ACH 1% + 30¢ |
| Service Fusion | Percentage or dollar, per line item | Pro plan or add-on | Yes | Card from 2.90% + 30¢ |
| ServiceBox | Deposits before materials, then milestones | Not claimed | Manual review only | Set by the provider |
| FieldPulse | Amount or percentage, help center only | Not claimed | Yes | Not published |
| Workiz | Deposit then milestones, no mechanics | Not claimed | Yes | Not published |
| QuoteIQ | No workflow published | Yes, invoice subscriptions | Yes | Not published |
| ServiceTitan | Phased billing, undefined | Membership billing only | Not claimed | Not published |
| FieldEdge | Not claimed | Not claimed | Not claimed | Not published |
Four platforms print a rate. Housecall Pro says cards start at 2.59% and bank payments cost 1%, with no fee to deposit a check. Service Fusion prints card rates as low as 2.90% plus 30 cents. Kickserv prints 2.9% for tap to pay, 3.9% when the card isn't present, and 1% plus 30 cents for ACH, which can be passed to the customer. Jobber now prints one number where it printed none before: bank payments cost 1% on all plans, and instant payouts cost another 1%. Its card rate stays unpublished, and Jobber's own help article sends you to a pricing page that carries no rates at all.
Read every one of those as a floor rather than a quote. Kickserv is the awkward case: its payments page promises "a single rate for everyone, regardless of your plan", while a separate page on the same site advertises "as low as 2.5% + 30 cents" for its top plan. Both are live, neither mentions the other, so get the number written into your contract. ServiceTitan, FieldEdge, Workiz, FieldPulse and ServiceBox publish nothing, and ServiceBox says plainly that the payment provider sets the terms. QuoteIQ prints no card rate either, and its own pages currently disagree about which company processes its payments, so we publish no figure for it.
Consumer financing turns a quote the homeowner can't afford into a monthly payment, and the contractor pays for the privilege. Housecall Pro and Jobber both run Wisetack and both charge the contractor a flat 3.9% per transaction; Housecall Pro finances from $500 to $65,000 over terms up to 120 months, and puts the option on estimates and invoices, while Jobber places it on quotes. Service Fusion uses Acorn Finance and is the only one offering it at the estimate, the job and the invoice, with no dealer fee and 30-plus lenders. Workiz names Wisetack in its legal disclosure and shows monthly payments on estimates and invoices. QuoteIQ sells Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay up to $30,000 a job, and Kickserv offers Klarna at the payment step. FieldPulse offers financing but names no lender anywhere, so don't assume whose paper you'd be signing. FieldEdge, ServiceTitan and ServiceBox name no consumer financing partner at all.
All ten connect to QuickBooks, and the differences are in direction and cleanup. FieldPulse documents a genuine two-way sync for invoices in the US, Canada and Australia. ServiceBox pushes invoices out one way, and a posted invoice has to be deleted in QuickBooks and re-synced to correct it. QuoteIQ's own pages disagree: its invoicing and electrical pages say QuickBooks Online only from the Pro plan up, while its features page claims Online and Desktop with a two-way sync. Workiz contradicts itself too: both its QuickBooks pages say data flows one way, while its invoicing page claims a two-way sync, and that is the version it publishes as structured data. The full QuickBooks comparison covers Desktop support, plan gates and the catches that appear after you connect.
How do electricians invoice a panel upgrade in stages?
Use progress invoicing. Housecall Pro bills by dollar amount or percentage at each milestone, and describes the sequence as the deposit, the rough-in and the final inspection. Jobber sets a deposit or payment schedule on the quote, by percentage or fixed amount, on all plans. Service Fusion builds progress invoices line by line, but using it disables the deposit option on that job. FieldPulse supports deposits, milestone draws and partial payments, documented only in its help center.
Which electrical invoicing software prints its card processing rates?
Four of the ten. Housecall Pro publishes cards from 2.59% and ACH at 1%. Service Fusion publishes cards from 2.90% plus 30 cents. Kickserv publishes 2.9% for tap to pay, 3.9% keyed and 1% plus 30 cents for ACH, though a second Kickserv page advertises 2.5% for its top plan. Jobber publishes 1% for bank payments but no card rate. ServiceTitan, FieldEdge, Workiz, FieldPulse, ServiceBox and QuoteIQ publish nothing.
Can I take a deposit before buying materials?
Yes on Jobber, Service Fusion, FieldPulse, Kickserv, Workiz and ServiceBox, though only ServiceBox frames it as a deposit before materials are ordered. Housecall Pro is a near miss: it treats the deposit as the first progress invoice rather than as a named deposit setting. On Service Fusion a job can have deposits or progress billing, not both. ServiceTitan and FieldEdge claim no deposit feature on any page we read.
Does any electrical software handle retainage?
None of the ten names retainage on its own pages, and only ServiceTitan mentions AIA-style billing, inside a project management answer rather than as an invoicing feature. If you run commercial work with money held back until closeout, ask about it by name on every demo and expect to track it outside the software.
For commercial panel and project work, ServiceBox names the electrical sequence most clearly, but Housecall Pro is the only platform that both names it and publishes the mechanism. Among the platforms that document staged billing, Housecall Pro, Service Fusion and Kickserv also print a rate. For a smaller shop that wants deposits without a plan upgrade, Jobber includes progress invoicing on every plan, documented in its help center. And if the fee decides it, read the published numbers as floors: the gap between a 2.59% floor and a 3.9% keyed rate is about $118 on a $9,000 rewire.
The Stack Builder scores all ten platforms on your answers, the electrical software overview covers the rest of the stack, and the HVAC invoice guide answers the same questions for heating and cooling.