Every electrical contractor starts the same way: a few reels in the back of a truck, tracked with memory and maybe a notebook. It works fine when you're small.
But at some point, the system breaks. You're not sure exactly when it happened, but suddenly you're losing track of cable, crews are making wasted trips, and you have no idea what's actually in your yard.
Here are five signs that your cable yard has outgrown your current system—and it's time for something better.
1 You've Bought Cable You Already Had
This one stings. You order 1,000 feet of 10/3 because you think you're out. Then someone finds two partial reels in the back corner of the yard with 800 feet total.
Now you've tied up cash in inventory you didn't need, and you still have to find somewhere to store it.
This happens when there's no single source of truth for what's in stock. Everyone has a different mental picture of the inventory, and none of them are accurate.
The fix: A real-time inventory system that everyone can check before ordering. If someone pulls cable, it updates immediately. No more guessing.
2 Nobody Knows Who Has What
"Hey, where's that reel of 500 MCM?"
"I think Dave took it to the hospital job last week."
"No, that was the 350. The 500 went to the school."
"Are you sure? I thought Mike had it."
Sound familiar? When cable leaves your yard with no record of who took it or where it went, tracking it down becomes a guessing game. Sometimes you find it. Sometimes it just disappears.
Every reel that vanishes is money gone. And even when you do find it, the time spent hunting adds up fast.
The fix: Check-out tracking. When a reel leaves, you log who took it, which job, and when. When it comes back, you log the return. Simple accountability.
3 Your Spreadsheet Has Multiple Versions
You started with a simple Excel file. One sheet, list of reels, update it when things change. Easy.
But now there are three copies floating around. The one on the office computer says you have 2,000 feet of 12/2. The one the foreman has says 1,400. Nobody's updated the shared drive version in two weeks.
Spreadsheets work great for one person. The moment you need multiple people to update and access the same inventory, they fall apart. There's no real-time sync, no history of who changed what, and no way to update from the field.
The fix: A cloud-based system that everyone accesses from anywhere—phone, tablet, or computer. One version, always up to date.
4 You've Sent a Crew to Grab Cable That Wasn't There
A crew drives 30 minutes to the yard to pick up cable for a job. When they get there, the reel they needed was already checked out yesterday.
Now they're making calls, scrambling for a backup plan, and the job is delayed. That's an hour of labor wasted, plus the frustration and lost productivity.
Multiply that by a few times a month, and you're looking at real money—not to mention the hit to your reputation when jobs run late.
The fix: Real-time status on every reel. Before anyone drives anywhere, they can check if the cable is in stock, checked out, or running low.
5 You Can't Tell Which Jobs Are Eating Your Cable
At the end of the year, you know you spent $150,000 on cable. But which jobs used the most? Which ones went over budget? Which foreman consistently burns through more material than estimated?
Without tracking cable usage by job, you can't answer these questions. You're bidding future jobs blind, hoping your estimates are close.
Some jobs are profitable. Some are money pits. If you can't see which is which, you'll keep repeating the same mistakes.
The fix: Job costing reports. Track what cable goes to each job, and you'll finally see where your money is going—and where it's leaking.
How Many Signs Did You Recognize?
If you nodded along to one or two of these, you can probably get by with a better spreadsheet and some discipline.
If you recognized three or more, your cable yard has outgrown manual tracking. The inefficiencies are costing you more than you realize—in wasted material, wasted time, and missed information.
The good news is that fixing it doesn't require a massive enterprise system. A simple tool that tracks reels, logs check-outs, and shows real-time inventory can solve most of these problems.
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Start Your Free TrialWhat to Look For in a Cable Inventory System
If you're ready to move beyond spreadsheets, here's what matters:
- Mobile access: Your team needs to update inventory from the yard, the truck, or the job site. Not just the office computer.
- Check-in/check-out: Know who has what, where it went, and when it's coming back.
- Footage tracking: Cable isn't tracked in units—it's tracked in feet. Make sure your system understands that.
- Low stock alerts: Get notified before you run out, not after.
- Simple and fast: If it takes more than 30 seconds to log a reel, your team won't use it.
You don't need a complicated warehouse management system. You need something built for how electrical contractors actually work.