Estimating

Everything that happens before a job is won lives here, and the handful of things that stay put afterwards: the directory of people you deal with, the rate book your prices come from, and the templates every document and email is made from.

The shape of the work is the same on every job. An enquiry lands in the CRM or a job is started straight from Projects. You give Base the drawings and it drafts the estimate a trade at a time, every line marked pending until you approve it. Rates come from your rate book; rules about how you price come from what you tell the assistant in chat. The scope of works is cut from the approved estimate. Trades you do not do yourself go out to price on Tenders. The quote goes to the client from the job's Documents, the client accepts it on their portal or by signing, and the job is marked won.

Three things to hold onto:

• Pending reaches nobody. A line the assistant drafted is visible only to you until a person approves it. The quote, the bill of quantities, tender scopes and purchase orders are built from approved lines only.
• Won freezes the estimate. The moment a job is marked won, its estimate is the contract's basis: the budget, the schedule of values and the contract sum were built from it. Any change after that is raised as a variation, either one the client pays for or one you absorb. The estimate itself does not move.
• Prices live in the rate book; rules live in chat. "Our electricians are $95 an hour" is a labour rate. "We always run a tradesman and an apprentice" is a rule the assistant remembers for every future estimate. Base keeps them apart on purpose, and will refuse a dollar figure typed into a rule.

Design work sits beside estimating: the Floor Plan, 3D Designs, house Frames and Renders describe what gets built before it is priced, and each can push its quantities or its price into the estimate.

The pages in this section follow one shape: what it is, before you start, how to, what happens on its own, and things that surprise people.