That Breaker Was on the Van. Except It Wasn't: Inventory for Electricians
Your electrician shows up to a panel upgrade, reaches for a 200-amp main breaker, and it's not there. Per-van inventory tracking with low-stock alerts means every tech knows exactly what's on their truck before they leave the shop.
TL;DR
Your electrician shows up to a panel upgrade, reaches for a 200-amp main breaker, and the bin is empty. Somebody used the last one and didn't say anything. Now it's a parts run — or a reschedule. Opsler tracks inventory per van, per warehouse, per location — with low-stock alerts that fire before you run out. Electricians check stock from their phone before they leave the shop. Transfers between locations are logged automatically. No more guessing what's on the truck.
The Missing Breaker That Cost You $800
It's 8:30 AM. Your electrician Mike pulls up to a residential panel upgrade in a 1970s split-level. The homeowner wants to ditch the old 60-amp fuse box and move to a modern 200-amp service. Mike's done this job a hundred times. He pops the panel cover, takes his measurements, and walks back to the van for the main breaker.
The bin is empty. Not one 200-amp main breaker on the truck.
Mike checks the other bins. He's got plenty of 100-amp breakers. He's got a box of 15-amp single-poles. He even has the 2/0 copper and the ground rods. But the one part he absolutely cannot start without — the main breaker — is gone.
Now what? He calls the shop. The shop checks the warehouse. The warehouse has them, but nobody can get one to the job site before noon. Mike has two options: sit and wait while the homeowner watches the clock, or drive 40 minutes round trip to the supply house and pray they have one in stock.
Either way, the 8:30 AM job that should have been done by 2 PM is now bleeding into overtime. Mike's next call — a generator hookup on the other side of town — gets pushed. That customer calls the office wondering where their electrician is.
One missing part. Total cost? The breaker was $80. The wasted time, the reshuffled schedule, the frustrated customers, and the overtime added up to more like $800. And the problem wasn't that you didn't buy enough breakers. The problem was that nobody knew the last one had been used.
Per-van inventory with real-time stock levels and a low-stock warning on 200A breakers — catch shortages before they become emergencies.
Per-Van Inventory That Actually Works for Electricians
Opsler gives every location its own stock levels — warehouses, vans, trucks, offices. Each van is assigned to a specific electrician. Transfers are tracked. Alerts fire when stock drops. Here's how it plays out in practice.
Morning: electrician checks van stock before leaving
Mike opens the app, taps his van. Sees he's down to 1 200-amp main breaker — his minimum is 3. Grabs 4 from the warehouse shelf and logs a stock transfer. Takes 30 seconds. His van is stocked, the warehouse count is updated, and it's all in the audit trail.
On the job: part used, stock updated automatically
Mike installs the main breaker and logs the part used on the job. His van's breaker count drops by one. The part is tied to the job record — useful for warranty tracking and permit documentation later. If that breaker fails in a year, you know exactly which one went where.
Low-stock alert fires before it's a problem
Mike's van hits 2 breakers remaining. His minimum is set to 5. Opsler sends a WARNING alert. If it drops to 1, that becomes CRITICAL. The office sees it. Mike sees it. The part gets restocked before the next job — not after a customer is waiting with no power.
Full visibility across every van and warehouse
Need a 200-amp breaker that's not on Mike's truck? Search by SKU or part name and instantly see what's at the warehouse, what's on Van #2, and what Sarah has on her truck across town. Transfer it, log it, move on. No phone calls. No guessing.
When inventory is tracked and stock levels are known, dispatching becomes smoother — no more scrambling to find parts mid-route.
What “I'll Be Back in an Hour” Actually Costs
Let's be conservative. Say each of your electricians has to make an unplanned parts run or reschedule a job twice a month because something wasn't on the truck.
Two missed or delayed jobs per electrician, per month. Eight electricians. That's 16 disrupted jobs every month. At $600 average ticket value for electrical work, you're looking at $115,200 per year in revenue that's either lost outright, delayed, or delivered with a side of customer frustration.
And those are just the direct costs. The indirect ones are worse. The homeowner who waited three hours without power doesn't leave a 5-star review. The electrician who's constantly running behind gets burned out. The dispatcher who spends her afternoon reshuffling the board isn't doing the work she should be doing.
An $80 breaker caused all of that. Not because you didn't buy enough breakers. Because nobody knew it was the last one.
Per-van inventory tracking doesn't make these problems impossible. Electricians will still occasionally use a part and forget to log it. But it takes you from “nobody has any idea what's on any truck” to “we catch 90% of stock issues before they become emergencies.” And in this business, 90% is the difference between running smooth and running ragged.
Related: Free electrical estimate builder · Explore Opsler features · See pricing
Frequently Asked Questions
Right from the Opsler app on their phone. When an electrician uses a part on a job — a breaker, a length of wire, a conduit fitting — they log it in the app. When they grab parts from the warehouse before heading out, they do a stock transfer: select the parts, select the quantity, and the inventory moves from the warehouse location to their van location. The whole thing takes about 15 seconds. It works offline too, so if they're in a basement or garage with no signal, the transfer queues up and syncs when they get back online.
Yes. You set the minimum thresholds per part, per location. A 200-amp main breaker might have a minimum of 2 for each van but a minimum of 10 for the warehouse. When stock drops below the minimum, the right people get notified — the tech, the office, or both. You can set WARNING and CRITICAL severity levels so your team knows when it's time to restock versus when it's an emergency.
Parts are organized into electrical-specific categories — breakers, wire and cable, conduit and fittings, panels and load centers, switches and outlets, transformers, safety gear, meters, tools, and more. Not generic 'widgets' and 'supplies.' Your electricians find what they need because the system speaks their language. Each category supports SKU and barcode fields for quick scanning.
Yes. Every stock movement is logged with a full audit trail — who moved it, when, from where to where, and which job it was tied to. If you need to know who used the last 200-amp breaker and didn't tell anyone, you can find out in about 10 seconds. It also helps with warranty claims and permit documentation when you need to prove which parts were installed on a specific job.
As many as you need. Opsler supports four location types: WAREHOUSE, VAN, TRUCK, and OFFICE. Each van gets assigned to a specific electrician. So if you've got a main warehouse, a satellite shop, and 8 vans, that's 10 locations — each with its own stock levels, minimums, and alert thresholds. You get a complete picture of where every breaker, spool of wire, and box of connectors is across your entire operation.
Related: Tiered Pricing for Electricians · Scheduling & Dispatch for Electrical Teams · Opsler vs. ServiceTitan
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