What belongs in an estimate
- Who you are: company name, phone, license number if you have one.
- Who the customer is, and the job address.
- The work line by line: what exactly is done, quantity, unit, price. Not "bathroom remodel" as one line.
- What is NOT included. This is the most common cause of disputes.
- The total, tax where it applies, and payment terms: how much at signing, how much during the job, how much at the end.
- The date until which the price holds.
- A place for the customer's signature.
Extras during the job — only in writing
Rotten subfloor under the old tile, the wrong wiring behind the wall. Put extra work in a separate document — a change order — with a price and the customer's signature before you do it. "We will sort it out later" almost always ends in an argument.
What belongs in an invoice
- An invoice number and a date.
- What it is for: a reference to the signed estimate or the stage of work.
- The amount due and the due date.
- How to pay: card, Zelle, check.
How to do it fast
An estimate sent three days after the visit loses to one that arrived the same evening. The bottleneck is not the visit; it is the evening at the computer.
In WorkTime CRM the AI drafts the estimate from job photos: lines, quantities and prices from your own pricebook. You check it, correct it and send it. The customer opens a link and signs from a phone. Extras are written up as change orders with a signature. The customer pays the invoice by card, or you mark it paid by Zelle or check.
