We are probably saving a good 20 hours a week of office time

Dom iTrade
Aug 23, 2021
4 min read

Updated: Nov 10, 2022

You could say that chief sparky and owner Rob Winchester, and the team at Winchester Electrical, pride themselves on their mission to make the world a better place by providing top-quality electrical services to complement architectural excellence.

What makes a beautiful building is more than just aesthetic. It provides seamless comfort and ease for its occupants. This is a high-quality home in Rob Winchester’s eyes, and he and the team have worked hard over the last 5 years to specialise in bringing old, character-filled homes, up-to-date with today’s electrical standards plus providing comfort with heat pump installation and servicing.

But this isn’t the only arrow in their quiver. Winchester Electrical doesn’t stop at residential. No job is too big or too small, and that includes industrial and commercial work too.

“We are passionate about everything electrical and pride ourselves on our professional approach to all jobs big and small.”

With such a varied portfolio, Rob and the team need an equally seamless, and easy-to-operate system to keep track of jobs, invoicing, supplies, and the copious paperwork that comes with the meticulous tracking of a job done well.

The Heart and Soul: Rob Winchester

Rob is Winchester Electrical. He took a unique approach to his career in electrical by starting his apprenticeship with a heat pump installer. This meant that he well and truly mastered servicing and diagnosing problems with heat pumps. A rare gift amongst electricians!

His vast knowledge began here, and on his journey, which initially started in new homes, eventually gravitated towards tackling the challenging yet rewarding trade of working on existing buildings.

Fuelled by his desire for work-life balance that allows him family time to pursue recreational and often outdoorsy experiences, Rob needs his business to operate as self sufficiently as possible. And here is where his journey with iTrade began.

The Problem: Too Much Paperwork, Too Little Time.

Running a business in the trades has its own special set of demands, complications, and headaches. From managing a team to tracking inventory, job inquiries, and so much more, Rob spent far too much time on administrative tasks that took up precious working hours, without any reward or organisational end in sight. The biggest problem he says:

"The fact that we were doubling up paperwork time by transferring job notes to an invoice, then having to create a COC and wasting valuable time. Also not charging out the hours wasted in the office because of the inefficient system that we had.”

At iTrade, we are always interested to know what would make our customers lives easier when it comes to streamlining their business processes. Whether it’s easy integrations with existing accounting software like Xero or keeping tidy and accurate databases of jobs, teams, and clients, a job management software must perform tasks that are specific to the industry. So this feedback is incredibly important to how we build the software, and offer support and training to clients like Rob.

By introducing iTrade to his business, Rob saw paperwork minimised, hours saved, and some major benefits for himself and the team.

"We are probably saving a good 20 hours a week of office time with all of the integration that iTrade offers which equal more beer money each week!!!”

The Solution: Minimising paperwork for busy tradespeople.

We can almost guarantee that you ask any tradesperson what they would like less of in their workweek, and it always comes down to excessive paperwork. Rob, like many others, would much rather be out supporting his team, and providing great, high-quality services to his clients.

Rob always wants to do things the best way and also pass on his knowledge through staff and develop a brand that represents his true beliefs and values.

Since introducing iTrade to his business, Rob's business spends far less time buried under administrative tasks, and more time on these important goals. He can manage job time tracking, job scheduling, Xero accounting, all in the best app based job management software for trades and services.

Electrical tradesperson van on housing site

“I liked the fact that iTrade was designed by a Tradie, which to me was huge as you know what we do and don't need on the software. Also, the cost of it was real value for money.”

We asked Rob to give us examples of what he found the most useful features were. For him, this included the following:

"App-based so every staff member can use it on their phone, saving on hardware costs.
Easy integration between iTrade and Xero. This means no doubling up on paperwork. (My missus loves this the most!)
Google Map integration. One-click of a button to see where you are going.
Certification integration. Another click and most of the job details are there. Just add test results and voila!"

Plus, the free initial training and continued support from Dom and the iTrade support team. According to Rob, the support is:

“Next to none of any other job management software that we’ve used. Dom answers emails in a couple of hours”.

Final thoughts?

I now don't spend a whole Monday in the office, now it's only an hour or so each night. I now gain an extra day of work, meaning I can do more quotes and focus a bit more on the business as well.

We have no additional requests or feedback as the team always listens to all of the extra features that we have already asked for and got!!!! WE love you iTrade fairies.

Stop thinking about it and bloody well get iTrade, I can give my personal guarantee that you will never regret it.”

We appreciate the time Rob took to give his feedback on our software, and are honoured to share his story with our community of hard-working, business-savvy tradespeople.

Are you interested in trialing our software for yourself and your business?

We offer a FREE trial to all new customers.

Simply follow the link to sign up and find out more.