Job Estimate Builder
A written estimate that goes out the same evening as the site visit, with the scope, the exclusions, the allowances, the deposit and the payment schedule a customer can't later say they misunderstood
The problem
You walked the job at 4:30, you know what it costs, and the estimate goes out on Thursday because writing it takes an hour you don't have in the truck. By Thursday the homeowner has two other quotes. When yours does arrive, it's a number and a paragraph, which is why six weeks later there's an argument about whether the electrical was included and who pays for the rotten subfloor nobody could see. In Ontario a home renovation contract over $50 has to be in writing with specific contents, and if you give an estimate you can't charge more than 10 percent over it without a signed change. A good estimate is a sales document and a legal one at once. This skill writes it from your voice notes in the truck.
The tool
Once installed, this skill turns what you dictate after a site visit into a written estimate in your format. You tell it the job as you'd tell a foreman: what you saw, what you'll do, what you'll need, how many days, what worried you. It drafts the scope in plain numbered lines, and it asks the questions you'd forget until the dispute: what's excluded (permits, painting, disposal, anything behind the wall), what's an allowance (the tile the customer hasn't picked yet, with the per-square-foot number), what the customer provides, and what happens when something unseen turns up (the change-order rule, in a sentence).
It builds the price from your own labour rates and your material markup, which you set once in setup, and it shows the math only to you; the customer sees the sections and the total, or the line items, as you prefer. It sets the deposit and the payment schedule, puts a validity date on the estimate, and writes the sentence Ontario's consumer protection rules expect about estimates and the 10 percent ceiling. For consumer jobs it adds the cooling-off notice. When the job changes midstream, the Change Order Writer picks it up, and when the final invoice is late, the Invoice Chaser does the asking.
What's inside
- A dictation-to-estimate flow: speak the job, answer six questions, get the draft
- A scope section in numbered plain lines, with exclusions and allowances stated
- Pricing built from your labour rates and markup, shown to you and summarized to the customer
- Deposit, payment schedule, validity date, and the change-order sentence
- The consumer-protection lines for Ontario residential jobs: the written contract contents, the 10 percent estimate rule, the cooling-off notice for contracts signed at the home
- A follow-up note for day three and day ten, so the estimate doesn't die in an inbox
How to use it
- 1Click "Install skill" on this page and copy the install prompt.
- 2Paste it into your AI assistant (ChatGPT, Claude, anything that accepts pasted text).
- 3Answer the setup questions once: your trade, your labour rates, your material markup, your standard exclusions, your deposit policy, and your province.
- 4After a site visit, dictate the job and answer the six questions it asks.
- 5Read the draft once, fix anything it guessed, and send it that evening.
Example
A two-person bathroom renovation company in Oshawa visits a 1970s bungalow at 4:15 p.m. In the truck the owner dictates: full gut, new tub, tile to the ceiling, move the vanity drain eighteen inches, customer hasn't picked tile, the floor felt soft near the toilet. The skill asks its six questions and drafts: eleven scope lines, an allowance of $6 a square foot for tile, exclusions for permits and painting, and a line that says the subfloor will be inspected after demolition and any repair priced as a written change order before work continues. Deposit 10 percent, progress payment at rough-in, balance on completion, estimate valid 30 days, cooling-off notice included because the contract will be signed at the house. It goes out at 6:40 p.m. The homeowner signs Saturday. The subfloor is rotten; the change order is signed before the first new board goes in.
Pro tip
Put the allowance number beside every item the customer hasn't chosen yet. "Tile allowance $6 per square foot" turns the most common renovation argument into a sentence you can point to. And send the estimate the same day, even if it's 9 p.m. The customer who gets a careful written estimate twelve hours after the visit assumes the work will be done the same way.
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