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Document Studio

The templates every document Base sends is rendered from.

Document Studio

What it is

Where your business designs the documents it sends: the quote, the scope of works, the bill of quantities, the purchase order, the progress claim, the variation, letters and notices, tender paperwork, site and safety forms and the handover certificate. A template is a document with placeholders in square brackets, such as [Client name], that Base fills from the job when it generates one. The studio opens on a home screen of your recent documents and the ready-made templates; opening one puts you in the editor. Admins and team members can change templates; everyone else can look.

Before you start

  • A ready-made template becomes your copy the first time you open it. Nothing Base ships later changes your copy.
  • A template only fills a project's document buttons once it says what it is a template of. Until then it is a document, not a template.
  • The business details and payment terms your documents print come from your business profile.

How to

Make a template yours

  1. On the home screen, open one of the ready-made templates, or press Blank document to start from nothing. Search finds documents and templates by name.
  2. Edit the text in the editor as you would in a word processor: headings, lists, tables, images from the asset library. Keep the placeholders; they are what Base fills in.
  3. Press Save. Every save is a version, and Version history opens any earlier one.

Say what a template is for

  1. In the editor's steps panel, under Say what it is for, pick the kind of document this is a template of: quote, scope of works, bill of quantities, purchase order, progress claim, variation, and so on.
  2. From then on every document of that kind on every job generates from this template. A document with no kind set is marked as used by nothing.

Try it on a real job

  1. Under Use it on a project, press Generate for a project and pick a job.
  2. The document opens already filled from that job, so you can see what the placeholders become before a client does.

Export a PDF

  1. Press Export PDF. The document is saved first, then rendered by the same engine that produces a filed document, so the download matches what a job would generate.
  2. Portrait or landscape is kept with the document, so a landscape schedule stays landscape when reopened.

Set the quote wording and branding

  1. Open Quote wording and branding on the home screen.
  2. Set the logo (admins only), the accent colour, how many days a quote is valid for, the introduction, the terms and conditions one per line, and optional payment details (admins only).
  3. Save. Every quote generated from now on carries them.

Edit with the assistant

  1. Open the document, then ask in chat: "put the client's ABN under their name", "make the inclusions a two-column table".
  2. The change streams into the editor. If the assistant edits while you have unsaved typing, the page shows its version rather than silently reverting the assistant's work.

What happens on its own

  • The studio autosaves as you work; a save by the assistant creates the document's record if it did not have one yet.
  • Fonts and the heading colour can be made the starting point for every new document in the business from the Style panel.
  • Long content is split across pages the way the PDF will split it, and the editor marks a page that overflowed rather than the author ending one there.

Things that surprise people

  • A beautiful template that has not been told what it is for is invisible to the quote, scope and claim buttons on a project. Set the kind.
  • The payment details on a quote are admin-only. Team members see them but cannot change them.
  • Export needs a saved document: the PDF is rendered from the saved version, so an unsaved change is saved first.