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Estimates & customer approval

Generate detailed cost estimates for work orders and send them to customers for approval before beginning work.

Enterprise Plan Feature

Estimates and customer approval are available on the Enterprise plan.

Generating an estimate

  1. Open the work order
  2. Click Generate Estimate
  3. The system auto-creates labor line items from each sub-job's estimated hours
  4. Review and adjust pricing as needed

Adding manual items

Click + Add Item to add materials, permits, or other costs:

Field Required Description
Item Type labor, part, permit, inspection, travel, or other
Description What the line item covers
Quantity Number of units
Unit Price Price per unit

The line total is calculated automatically.

Sending for approval

  1. Review all estimate items
  2. Click Send Estimate
  3. The customer receives the estimate with a 30-day validity window

  4. The customer opens the project in the customer portal, where they see the estimate's line items, the total, and the validity date

    Until you send the estimate, the customer does not see it. A draft project whose estimate has not been sent does not appear in the portal at all, and a draft estimate on a project they can see shows as no estimate. 5. They can Approve Estimate or Reject Estimate from that screen. Rejecting asks them for a reason, which comes back to you on the work order

Approval workflow

When a customer approves the estimate, the work order can proceed. If they reject it, the reason they gave is recorded on the work order so you can revise and resend.

Invoicing from estimates

Once a work order is Completed, you can generate an invoice directly from the estimate:

  1. Open the completed work order
  2. Click Generate Invoice
  3. All estimate items are transferred to a new invoice
  4. Review, adjust, and send to the customer

If every estimate line is $0.00 and contract coverage is not ticked, you are asked to confirm before a $0.00 invoice is created.