Estimates & price book

Estimates are built from a lead and they are versioned. A new one opens as a Draft at version 1 with no price on it: you set the price from what the job costs plus the margin you want, so the lead's estimated value never becomes the quote by accident.

1. 1Go to Estimates and click New estimate.
2. 2Pick the lead. Won and lost deals are not offered, and the lead needs a street and city on its job site before you can estimate it.
3. 3Click Create & open. The builder opens with line items on the left and the pricing and margin panel on the right.

Every line is one real cost: quantity times unit cost, plus a waste percentage for offcuts. Lines are grouped by cost category with a subtotal on each group.

1. 1Click Add from price book and search your catalog. The item lands on the estimate with its current unit cost and default waste factor copied onto the line.
2. 2Click Custom line for a one-off, and fill in description, category, unit, quantity, unit cost and waste %.
3. 3Edit quantity, unit cost and waste % straight on the row. Totals and margin update as you go.
4. 4Use the trash icon on a row to remove a line. You are asked to confirm first.

Costs group into Labor, Materials, Permits & Fees, Equipment, Disposal, Subcontractors, Contingency and Other. Units are Each, Linear ft, Sq ft, Hour, Day and Lump sum. Hover the small info icon beside any category heading to see what belongs in it.

The pricing panel keeps your cost breakdown, total cost, price, gross profit and gross margin on screen together, and recalculates as you work. If the lead carried a ballpark figure it shows under the price as a reference only, never as the price.

1. 1Tap one of the percentage buttons above the Price field to set the price that hits that margin. They mirror your own grade cutoffs, so out of the box they read 15%, 20% and 28%.
2. 2Or type a price into the field. Gross profit and margin recalculate as soon as you leave it.
3. 3Once a price is set, cost-side changes hold the margin you already had: add a line, change a quantity, bump complexity, and the price moves with it. A price you type yourself always wins.

Under the price you get the gross margin percentage, a letter grade and a bar with a red marker at your margin floor. Out of the box A is Premium at 28% and up, B is Standard from 20%, C is Acceptable from 15%, and anything under that is D, Below target. The floor starts at 15%. All four numbers are yours to change in Settings → Estimating, and the meter, the Estimates list and Analytics all follow them.

Two optional knobs for jobs your price book does not describe well. Both sit under the margin meter, and either can be hidden in Settings → Estimating if you do not use it. Hidden means neutral in the math, so nothing quietly moves your price.

1. 1Set Complexity to 1× Standard, 1.1× Moderate, 1.2× Complex or 1.3× Very complex. It scales your whole base cost.
2. 2Above Standard, add a short Complexity reason. It stays on the estimate for your team and is never shown to the customer.
3. 3Set Contingency %. It starts at 5% and is held between 3% and 8%.
4. 4Check the cost breakdown. Each one shows as its own row, so you can always see what it added.

This is off until you turn it on. With it on, an estimate under your floor cannot be sent until an Owner or Operations Manager who did not build it signs off. One independent approval clears it.

1. 1Turn it on in Settings → Estimating, under Approvals. Only the Owner can set this, and you need at least two people who can approve, because nobody clears their own job.
2. 2A below-floor estimate shows a red "Below the floor, needs approval" panel in the pricing column, naming who built it.
3. 3Someone else with Owner or Operations access opens the estimate and clicks Approve. The panel turns green and records who signed and when.
4. 4Change the price or any line after that and the approval is retired, the estimate drops back to In Review, and it has to be signed off again.

The builder edits live so your margin moves as you type, but nothing is stored until you save. A bar appears at the top of the estimate the moment something is unsaved.

1. 1Click Save changes to store it, or Discard to put back the last saved version.
2. 2Compose proposal stays greyed out until you have at least one line item, a price above zero and no unsaved changes.
3. 3If the below-floor gate applies to this job, clear that too.
4. 4If a teammate saved the same estimate while you were working, you are asked to reload before saving so their work is not overwritten.

Estimates move through Draft, In Review, Approved, Sent, Accepted, Declined, Expired and Superseded. Draft is yours to build. In Review means it is waiting on a below-floor sign-off. Approved means that sign-off is done. Sent is stamped when you compose the proposal, and from there the estimate is locked. Accepted and Declined come from the customer answering. Superseded is stamped on older versions once you send a newer one. Declined, Expired and Superseded are closed: they leave the Estimates list and move to Archives.

A sent estimate is locked, so you revise by starting a new one on the same lead. It comes back as the next version number, and the versions sit side by side on the Estimates list under the Ver column.

1. 1Go to Estimates and click New estimate, then pick the same lead.
2. 2The new version opens empty. Line items are not carried over, so build the revised scope.
3. 3Price it and compose the proposal. At that moment every earlier version of that job is marked Superseded and any live proposal link on them is closed, so the customer cannot accept the old price.

The price book is your reusable catalog of unit costs and default waste factors. It starts empty and you build it as you go. Owners and Operations Managers edit it; anyone who can see estimates can price against it.

1. 1Go to Estimates and click Price book.
2. 2Click Add item, then fill in Name, Category, Unit, Unit cost, Waste %, SKU and Vendor.
3. 3Click any row to edit it, use the Active switch to retire an item without losing it, or the trash icon to stage a delete.
4. 4Nothing changes until you click Save changes. Discard throws the whole batch away.

No. Adding an item to an estimate copies its cost onto that line at that moment. Later edits to the catalog, whether a new price, a retired item or even a deleted one, never touch an estimate you already built. Your supplier raises a price today and last month's quotes still read exactly as they were quoted.

Settings → Estimating holds the rules the builder follows. Open Settings from your account menu in the top right, then Organization → Sales & delivery → Estimating. Owners and Operations Managers can open it.

1. 1Job grading: the margin cutoffs for grades A, B and C, plus your margin floor. Only the Owner can move the floor.
2. 2Approvals: whether a below-floor job needs independent sign-off before the proposal goes out. Owner only.
3. 3Project conversion: whether an estimate needs an accepted proposal before it can become a project. On to start with.
4. 4Estimate builder: show or hide the complexity multiplier and the contingency field.
5. 5Customer proposal: the default pricing detail new proposals start with.

Owners, Operations Managers and Estimators can open Estimates, build them and price against the price book. Crew have no access to estimates or pricing at all. Editing the price book itself is Owner and Operations only, and clearing a below-floor estimate takes an Owner or Operations Manager who did not build it.