How to Create an Estimate (Leads & Estimates)

Last updated October 16, 2026 · Admins and office staff

An estimate is a priced proposal for work — a one-time project or recurring maintenance. You can attach it to a lead (a prospect) or directly to a customer, build it line by line from your product catalog, offer optional add-ons, and set deposit terms. Once accepted, an estimate converts into a job.

Estimate detail page with line items, optional add-ons, and pricing totals

Before you start

  • An operator account with access to the Leads & Estimates menu.
  • Who is it for? Create the estimate from a lead’s summary page, from a customer’s summary page, or from the Estimates list (where you pick the customer from a dropdown). An estimate can also be created unassigned, but it can’t be converted to a job until it has a customer.
  • Optional but recommended: set up your Products catalog first — line items pull descriptions and unit prices from it.
  • If you plan to collect a deposit online, Stripe and online payments must be configured — see Deposits on Estimate Acceptance.

Steps

  1. Open the create form from wherever fits:
    • Lead Summary → Create Estimate — the estimate is linked to that lead (a banner at the top shows the lead’s name, email, and phone).
    • Customer Summary → estimate/quick actions — the estimate is linked to that customer.
    • Leads & Estimates > Estimates → Create Estimate: pick the customer yourself from a searchable Customer dropdown; once selected, the Job Site dropdown loads that customer’s sites.
  2. Fill in Basic Information:
    • Estimate Name (required, up to 225 characters).
    • Version — defaults to “A”. Use B, C, etc. for revisions.
    • Estimate Type — Standard (One-time/Project) or Service (Recurring Maintenance). Choosing Service reveals an extra Service Details card.
    • Status — defaults to Draft. You can set it manually (Sent, Accepted, etc.) but usually leave new estimates as Draft.
    • Description — free text.
  3. For Service estimates, fill in Service Details:
    • Frequency — Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly.
    • Billing Mode — Per-Visit, Monthly Fixed, or Seasonal Prepay.
    • Route Intent — free text (e.g. “North Route”) to guide scheduling later.
    • Season — picking a season auto-fills the Season Start/End Date fields below it (you can still adjust them).
  4. Check the Dates card. Estimate Date defaults to today and Expiry Date to 30 days out. Both must fall between 2000 and 2100, and the expiry can’t be before the estimate date. Expired estimates can no longer be approved by the customer in the portal.
  5. Build the Line Items. An estimate needs at least one line. Click Add Line for each row:
    • Product/Service — picking a catalog product fills the Rate with its unit price (you can override it).
    • Description: free text; use it alone for ad-hoc lines with no catalog product. Free-text lines carry through to the job and onto its invoices like any other line, including their tax-exempt choice.
    • Qty × Rate: the Amount column calculates automatically, up to $999,999.99 a line. Enter a discount as its own line with a negative price (the quantity can’t be negative). The estimate total can’t go below zero.
    • Option — leave as Required for normal lines. Recommended / Optional turn the line into a customer-selectable option — see Options-Based Proposals.
    • Remove a row with its trash button, or Delete Line to remove the last row.
  6. Review the totals. Subtotal sums the included lines. Tax is calculated automatically when your company has sales tax enabled and the customer isn’t tax-exempt (only taxable products are taxed); you can type over it to override. A discount on tax-exempt work never produces negative tax. Total = subtotal + tax, up to $99,999,999.99.
  7. Set the Deposit terms if you want money down on acceptance. The card is pre-filled from your company defaults; choose No deposit, Requested (optional for the customer), or Required to accept, then a percent (1 to 100) or a fixed amount greater than zero. Details in Deposits on Estimate Acceptance. If online payments are disabled, the card warns you the deposit won’t be chargeable yet.
  8. Add Notes:
    • Client Notes — customer-facing (scope, exclusions, warranty). These appear on the printed/PDF estimate.
    • Crew Notes — internal, for field crews.
    • Change Log — what changed between versions (e.g. “Rev B: Updated pricing, added mulch service”).
  9. Click Create Estimate.

What happens next

You land on the new Estimate Summary page with the banner “Estimate created successfully. Review it, then send or accept it when ready.” From there you can keep editing, download a PDF, update the status, and — once the estimate is Accepted and linked to a customer — convert it to a job. See Manage Estimates.

If the customer uses the Customer Portal, the estimate is visible there once it’s linked to their customer record and no longer a Draft; they can review, choose options, and e-sign it online. See Estimate Approval in the Customer Portal.

Tips & best practices

  • Use catalog products rather than free-typed lines wherever possible — you get consistent pricing, correct taxability, and cleaner reporting.
  • Pick the right type up front. Service estimates carry frequency, billing mode, season, and route intent into the job conversion; Standard estimates are for one-off projects.
  • Version instead of overwrite. For a materially revised quote, bump the Version field and note the change in the Change Log — especially once an estimate has been sent.
  • Set the expiry date deliberately. It protects you from a customer accepting last season’s pricing months later.
  • Mind portal visibility. An estimate linked to a customer shows up in their portal (if the Estimates section is enabled) once it is past Draft. Drafts stay hidden, so build and check the estimate as a Draft, then move it to Sent when the customer should see it.

Troubleshooting

  • The form won’t submit — Estimate Name is required; make sure it’s filled in.
  • “Estimate name cannot be longer than 225 characters.”: shorten the name; put detail in the Description.
  • “Add at least one line to the estimate.”: an estimate needs a line before it can be saved.
  • “Line item amount must be at least $0.01. Please check the quantity and price.”: a quantity and price so small the line rounds to $0.00. Check the numbers.
  • “A line’s quantity cannot be negative. Enter a discount as a negative price.”: make the quantity positive and the price negative.
  • “The estimate total cannot be negative. Check the discount lines.”: the discounts are bigger than the work.
  • “The expiry date cannot be before the estimate date.” / “The estimate date must be between the years 2000 and 2100.”: fix the Dates card.
  • “Enter a deposit amount greater than zero, or turn the deposit off.” / “The deposit percent must be between 1 and 100, or turn the deposit off.”: fix the Deposit card or choose No deposit. The estimate is never saved with the deposit silently dropped.
  • Job Site dropdown is empty — select a customer first; sites load after the customer is chosen. If the customer truly has no job sites, add one from their customer summary.
  • Tax stays at $0 — sales tax may be disabled in your company invoicing settings, the customer may be tax-exempt, or the products on the estimate aren’t marked taxable. You can always type a tax amount manually.
  • Tax recalculates over my manual value — once you type in the Tax field yourself, the form stops auto-recalculating it for that visit; if it looks wrong, re-check the line items and re-enter the tax.
  • “The selected season / job site / product is not available” — the item was deleted or belongs to different data than the form expected. Re-open the form and re-select from the current dropdowns.
  • Deposit fields disappeared — you chose No deposit; the type/percent/amount fields only show when a deposit mode is selected.

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