Electrical contractor software across two provinces
Electrical contractor software for a trade that is compulsory nearly everywhere: two provinces, two sets of papers, one set of hours, and a licence number on every document.
Électricien
A construction electrician is one of the few Canadian trades whose certificate is not optional. That sounds like a small fact until you put it beside the list it comes from.
Ontario names twenty-three compulsory trades. Not one of them is a carpenter, a bricklayer, a painter, a roofer, a tilesetter or a drywall finisher — those are voluntary. The electrician is on it twice, under 309A and 309C. So on a single site, the person running conduit is committing an offence without a ticket and the person framing the wall beside him is not.
That asymmetry is the whole reason electrical contractor software in Canada has to be about paperwork per person and per province, not about scheduling.
Twelve time types, and travel is one of them
An electrician's day is rarely one job. It is a service call, a drive, a rough-in and a warranty return, and only some of that is billable to the customer who phoned.
In Zirko time is recorded against the job with a type on it. Twelve types sit behind the list, each with its own effect on target hours and the leave account, and nine of them can be requested straight from the phone. Travel is a type of its own, so a call-out that crosses a city is visible as travel rather than hidden inside eight hours of work.
An hour taken into a document carries an origin marker and leaves the selection. It cannot reach a second invoice. That is a database rule, not a habit.
Two provinces, two sets of papers
Cross into Quebec and the trade changes shape. Électricien is one of the twenty-five CCQ métiers, so every worker on site needs a certificat de compétence, and the business needs a Régie du bâtiment licence on top of it. The licence number is not decorative: it has to appear on estimates, bids, contracts, account statements and invoices — the number belongs on every invoice.
Zirko holds no register of certificates and validates nobody's number. What it does is let you set the text once, per document template, in the language of the document, so the number leaves with every estimate instead of with the ones somebody remembered.
The rate follows the work, not the office
An Ottawa firm that takes a job in Gatineau has changed regulator and tax rate in the same twenty minutes. A Canadian business in Zirko enters its own rates, and the rate and the tax category sit on every line of a quote or an invoice rather than on the document as a whole. A document whose line rate contradicts its category will not finalize.
What has to be on the paper once the job passes five hundred dollars is a separate question with a precise answer — the $500 tier and holdback.
The clock starts with a proper invoice
In Ontario the owner pays within twenty-eight days of a proper invoice and the contractor passes payment down within seven, and since 1 January 2026 a deficient invoice is deemed proper unless the owner objects within seven days — twenty-eight days, seven days, and a new invoice rule. That reverses who has to be quick.
Zirko issues document numbers on the server from ranges with no gaps, and an issued invoice can no longer be changed: a correction is a credit note or a cancellation with its own number. A reminder rule you wrote yourself fires on the status you named, and the log records every message with its trigger, its recipient and its moment, so the same notice cannot go out twice.
Whether the person you are paying is a sub or an employee is not answered by the contract either, and getting it wrong is expensive — why the contract does not answer it.
What it does not do
There is no dispatch board that optimizes routes or forecasts capacity, no map of your vans, no clock-in with location checking, and no estimating database of electrical assemblies. Zirko does not issue certificates, does not file anything and does not compute a deadline. Nothing in it is decided by a language model: the automation is eleven fixed rules you switch on one at a time.
Plans are counted in office seats, with field licences for anyone who only works on site, and the mobile application comes with every office seat at no extra charge. Fourteen days free, no payment details, and the trial ends by itself.
Frequently asked questions
Is an electrician a compulsory trade everywhere in Canada?
Practically, yes — and that makes it the exception rather than the rule. Ontario's list of twenty-three compulsory trades contains no carpenter, no bricklayer, no painter, no roofer, no tilesetter and no drywall finisher, but it does contain the construction electrician under codes 309A and 309C. British Columbia certifies electricians the same way. Zirko holds no register of certificates and checks nobody's number.
What changes when the same crew works in Quebec?
Two things at once. Every worker needs a certificat de compétence, because Électricien is one of the twenty-five CCQ métiers, and the business itself needs a Régie du bâtiment licence. That licence number then has to appear on estimates, bids, contracts, account statements and invoices — so it belongs in the document template you set once, not in somebody's memory at the end of a month.
Can the same hour be billed on two invoices?
No. An hour taken into a document carries an origin marker and leaves the selection, so it cannot reach a second one. Twelve time types sit behind that, each with its own effect on target hours and the leave account, and nine of them can be requested from the phone. Travel is a type of its own, which matters when a call-out crosses a city rather than a job.
Does Zirko know which tax rate a job carries?
No, and it should not: the rate follows where the supply happens, so a crew that works in Ottawa on Tuesday and Gatineau on Wednesday is not on one rate. A Canadian business enters its own rates, and every line of a quote or an invoice carries a tax rate and a tax category. Zirko refuses to finalize a document whose line rate and category contradict each other.
How does the prompt payment clock reach the office?
It starts with a proper invoice and it does not wait for anybody. In Ontario an owner pays within twenty-eight days and a contractor passes payment down within seven, and since 1 January 2026 a deficient invoice is deemed proper unless the owner objects within seven days. In Zirko the due date sits on the document, and a reminder rule you wrote fires on the status you named, with a log of every message sent.
Be there at launch
Zirko launches late 2026. Sign up and we'll let you know the moment it goes live — one email, nothing more.
Available from late 2026