If you’ve been running a trade business long enough, you’ve probably felt it, that frustrating moment when your company stops growing, even though you’re working harder than ever.
You’re busy, jobs are coming in, and the team’s flat-out. But no matter what you do, your revenue just won’t climb past a certain number.
That’s exactly where Fairway Electrical Services, a mid-sized contractor, found themselves.
They were sitting comfortably at $3.5 million a year in revenue. On paper, that looked great. But behind the scenes, things were falling apart, delayed paperwork, lost change orders, miscommunication between field and office.
They weren’t losing clients. They were losing time.
Three years later, they’re now a $20 million company, and the catalyst for that growth wasn’t new hires or bigger contracts.
It was changing their business software.
Here’s how they did it, and what every contractor can learn from their transformation.
Fairway started like many electrical contractors do with one van, a small crew, and a hardworking owner, Jason, who handled everything from estimating to invoicing.
But as the company grew, their processes didn’t.
Field teams filled out paper time sheets that got turned in late (if at all).
Job costing was done in Excel, days after the work was completed.
Purchase orders and invoices lived in different folders and never quite matched.
Communication between the field and the office was a constant game of phone tag.
“We were doing great work,” Jason said, “but we were buried in paperwork. I was spending more time managing spreadsheets than managing projects.”
At some point, it became clear that Fairway didn’t have a people problem, they had a process problem.
Every contractor knows wasted time costs money. But few realize how much it costs.
Fairway estimated they were losing 20% of their total working hours to redundant admin tasks, double entry, data retyping, and waiting for information to move between systems.
That’s one day per employee, per week.
Multiply that by 40 employees, and you’re looking at thousands of hours each year doing work that software could automate.
And it wasn’t just time, they were losing accuracy too.
Missed change orders. Incomplete documentation. Delayed invoices. Each mistake chipped away at their margins and their confidence.
Eventually, Jason hit his breaking point.
“We had this realization that we weren’t just growing slower, we were actively holding ourselves back. We couldn’t scale if we couldn’t even keep up with the work we already had.”
The first step was to map out their workflows. Every form, every approval, every document, Jason laid it all out on the table.
And what they found was telling.
They weren’t short on effort. They were short on organization.
Their field teams, office staff, and management were all using different systems—some digital, some manual, none connected.
Jason knew they needed something centralized. Something that would let the field talk to the office and the office talk to accounting. All in real time.
He started researching electrical contractor management software, but most tools were either:
Too expensive for a mid-sized firm
Too complex for field crews to actually use
Or too limited in scope (accounting-only, project-only, etc.)
Then he built a platform that did it all, project management, safety tracking, timesheets, estimating, and communication, all in one place.
The transition wasn’t instant, but it was transformative.
Once Fairway switched systems, the results were immediate.
Instead of juggling five different tools, everything now ran through one construction workflow management platform.
Here’s what changed:
Digital Time Tracking: Field staff clocked in and out from their phones. Payroll went from hours to minutes.
Real-Time Job Costing: Project managers could see labor and material costs as they happened.
Integrated Invoicing: No more waiting on paperwork. Jobs could be billed the same day they finished.
Connected Scheduling: The office updated schedules instantly, and every foreman saw the changes in real time.
Supplier Integration: Purchases were tracked automatically, eliminating double entry and price mismatches.
Safety Compliance: All toolbox talks, inspections, and documents lived in the same system.
The chaos was gone.
Fairway finally had visibility, something they never realized they were missing.
The first year after switching software, Fairway's administrative workload dropped by nearly 40%.
With the time saved, they were able to take on more projects without adding more staff.
Profit margins increased by 18%, job turnaround times improved, and communication issues nearly disappeared.
But the biggest shift was in how the company made decisions.
For the first time, Jason and his team had real-time data. They could see which jobs were most profitable, which crews were performing best, and where money was being lost.
That visibility gave them confidence to bid bigger and expand faster.
“We stopped guessing,” Jason said. “Every number we needed was right there. And once we trusted our data, we started winning more.”
Within five years, Fairway's annual revenue skyrocketed from $3.5 million to $20 million and they did it without adding unnecessary overhead.
Most trade companies try to scale by adding people. But people can’t fix process problems.
Fairway grew because they built a foundation first, a system that let them scale without breaking under their own weight.
Here’s what that system looked like:
Centralized Information: Every job detail from estimates to invoices lived in one system.
Field-to-Office Connection: Crews, PMs, and admin all communicated through one platform.
Instant Reporting: Job costing and financial insights updated automatically.
Simplified Safety: Digital checklists, forms, and logs made compliance effortless.
This approach didn’t just reduce busywork, it eliminated bottlenecks that had been slowing them down for years.
There are thousands of trade companies sitting at that $2–5 million ceiling, wondering why they can’t grow.
The truth? They’re too busy working in the business to work on the business.
They’re stuck doing things manually because it feels safer, until one day they realize it’s costing them more than it’s saving.
The biggest roadblocks Jason sees other contractors face:
Fear of change (“Our guys won’t use it.”)
Sticker shock (“Software’s too expensive.”)
Comfort with chaos (“We’ve always done it this way.”)
But here’s the thing, the cost of inefficiency is far higher than the cost of good software.
Once you make the jump, the payoff is huge.
Technology alone didn’t grow Fairway, it was how their people used it.
Once they saw how much smoother their days ran, morale skyrocketed.
Foremen stopped chasing paperwork. Project managers stopped getting blindsided. Admins stopped staying late to reconcile numbers.
Everyone was finally aligned.
“It wasn’t just about efficiency,” Jason said. “It was about pride. Our people saw we were investing in making their jobs easier. That changed everything.”
That cultural shift, from reactive to proactive, was just as valuable as the software itself.
Fairway's story isn’t unique. It’s a blueprint for growth in today’s trade industry.
If you can’t clearly see what’s happening across your business, in real time, then you can’t fix it.
But once you do?
Growth becomes predictable.
It’s no longer about luck or hustle. It’s about control.
The software BestVolt used was Tradetraks, an all-in-one platform built specifically for trades and contractors.
Tradetraks gave them everything they needed to streamline their business:
Estimating, scheduling, and invoicing in one connected system
Real-time job costing synced with accounting
Digital timesheets for easy payroll
Supplier integration to track materials and costs
Safety management tools built right in
The biggest difference? Simplicity.
Tradetraks was designed for people who work in the field, not behind a desk. That’s what made it stick.
Fairway's story proves something every contractor should take to heart:
You don’t need more people or more hours.
You need more leverage.
When your workflows are automated, your communication is clean, and your data is live, you can grow faster, with less effort.
That’s the difference between a $3.5 million company and a $20 million one.
So if you’re stuck in the same loop, busy, stressed, but not scaling, it might not be your effort that’s the problem.
It might be your system.
And changing it could change everything.
Tradetraks is helping contractors like Fairway Electrical Services streamline operations, cut wasted time, and scale their business with confidence.
If you’re ready to see what that kind of transformation could look like for your company, start exploring what Tradetraks can do today.
Because growth doesn’t just happen, it’s built, one smart decision at a time.