One way of answering what a job is worth — materials by category, plus labour, services, colour upgrades and every markup rule. Every screen asks the same question and gets the same answer. The number is worked out from the building itself, not parked in a box somebody can type over. On the customer's page every markup is built into the line prices, so the lines add up to that same total to the cent; an optional add-on the customer chooses is added to it, and once the build is running their project total carries every approved change. One system for the whole post-frame job, so there is only ever one number to say out loud.
Also called: price discrepancy · different totals on different screens · what is this job worth
The card, the list and the customer's page all read one figure
A lead showed $72,000 on the board and a different number the moment the card was opened, because the board was showing a value typed in at capture while the estimate had long since moved on. Every screen now works the value out the same way — from the building, through your price book. When the customer adds an optional line on their page, the server totals the link as the base plus what they picked, and the contract, the invoices and the pipeline read that total. Two numbers for one building is an argument with a customer who has seen both.
The board says $72,000, the estimate you actually sent says $68,817, and the customer who screenshotted both is now negotiating against you with your own numbers.
A rep who quotes the number on the card should never be wrong. The card holds no price of its own — it shows what the estimate works out to now, so there is nothing left to go stale — and the budget the customer named at first contact stays beside it as its own chip.
Total means materials, labour, services, colour upgrades and markup
Three screens showed the materials figure while the pricing screen showed the real total — a gap of roughly a third of the job. The total now carries the labour lines, every service, the priced colour upgrades and each markup rule, printed in groups that add up on screen. A quote a rep has to top up in his head before saying it out loud is a quote that gets said wrong.
A rep reads the materials figure off a screen, says fifty thousand out loud, and the concrete, the gutters and the hours come out of your margin instead of the customer's cheque.
A rep who has to top up a number in his head will say it wrong. Four stacks of money each get a heading and a subtotal, with the arithmetic beside every line, so the total a rep reads out loud is the total the customer signs.
The forecast is priced off the estimates, not off a guess at first contact
Column totals on the sales board add up values worked out from real buildings, so what the pipeline says the month is worth is what the quotes say. Every design in the account is priced in one pass rather than one card at a time. A forecast built on budget figures typed at first contact drifts all quarter — and nobody finds out until it misses.
You tell the bank the pipeline is worth half a million off figures your reps guessed at first contact, and the month comes in short with nobody able to say when it started drifting.
An owner planning his season needs a forecast he can bank on. Column money is a sum, so it moves the same day an estimate does, and pricing the whole board in one pass means a deal nobody has opened in three weeks still carries its real weight.
The customer's page shows the same buildup you priced
Materials, labour and services itemised under their own subtotal, with every markup built into the prices — so the lines add up to the total, to the cent, and there is no markup row to argue with. When a buyer asks what the $46,637.09 of services covers, the answer is already on the page in front of them, line by line. Sending a bare number and defending it over the phone is how a $3,700 door line turns into a discount.
The buyer's brother-in-law adds up the lines, finds them thirty thousand short of the total, and the next meeting is about your margin instead of the building.
People don't haggle over a price that adds up. A breakdown in your own order, with every line carrying its share of the markup, reads as fair — and the monthly figure underneath is marked illustrative on the page itself, because a number a customer reads as an offer is one you end up honouring.
Your numbers and theirs, on one card
Try itOn a SmartBuild-priced estimate the total card flips between Builder view — every markup in dollars, the total of all of them and what that is as a percent of cost — and Customer view, the exact prices their page will print. Same total both ways, so you can check what they'll read without leaving the estimate.
You set three markups, send the quote, and only find out what the customer's lines look like when he rings to ask about one of them.
A rep who has seen the customer's page before the customer has is never caught off guard. Two views of one total means the margin conversation happens on your side of the glass.
Every line that moved the total has its own row
Base, markup and total sit on each row, so what a section costs you and what it sells for are one glance apart. A total that cannot be taken apart is a total nobody can defend at a kitchen table.
A customer pushes on price at the kitchen table and you discount blind, because nothing in front of you says which lines carry your margin and which are already sitting at cost.
A discount is a decision about which line can absorb it. Base, markup and total on one row show where the margin is before you give any of it away — and section markups and the whole-job markup each get a row of their own.
Approved change orders count toward what the job is worth
A signed change order sits on the estimate with a switch of its own, and the value that leaves the screen includes it. Two overhead doors added in week three are worth what two quoted on day one are worth. A job value frozen at the original quote makes a busy month of upsells look flat.
Two overhead doors go in during week three, signed for on the tailgate, and every screen still shows what the job was worth back in March.
An owner should see a busy month of upsells as a busy month. A change order is priced like a small estimate — materials, hours, credits that subtract — and it states what it costs the schedule in days, so the money and the finish date move in the same signature.
Their project total includes every approved change
Once the build is running, the Project Total at the top of the customer's page is the estimate total plus every approved change order — upgrades, extras and credits — with incl. $8,150.00 in approved changes written under it. A change they haven't signed isn't counted. How changes and selections get approved is on change orders and selections & allowances.
The page said $420,000, the final invoice said $428,150, and the customer felt ambushed by changes he approved himself.
The first number a customer sees is the one they remember. When it already carries the changes they approved, the last invoice confirms what they expected — and a customer who is never surprised is the one who sends you the neighbour.
- 1The value is built from the building, the labour, the services, the colours and the markup.
- 2The labour part is read off the building as drawn, so a design nobody has priced yet still shows real labour instead of zero.
- 3The whole board is priced in one pass, so every card carries a real figure.
- 4On the customer's page the markup is built into the lines, which add up to the total to the cent.
- 5An add-on the customer picks is totalled on the server as base plus picks, so the contract, invoices and pipeline follow it.
- 6That figure is pushed out to the pipeline card, the linked contact and the customer's own page — and their project total adds every approved change.
One building could show three different prices depending on where you looked. The list totalled the bill of materials, the pricing screen totalled something else, and the pipeline card showed a figure somebody typed by hand months earlier that stopped tracking the day the building changed. A materials-only number understates a real job by about a third — the hours, the gutters and the concrete are all missing from it. A rep quoted the low one out loud, and the company ate the gap. Every screen works it out the same way now.
- Three surfaces computing the job's value three different ways
- Cards showing materials only and understating the job by a third
- A hand-typed deal value that stops tracking the estimate
- Customer line prices that didn't add up to the total printed under them
The value on the card matches the value inside it
One pass over every design in the account answers two different questions at once — does this lead have an estimate yet, and what is it worth. A lead drawn twice keeps the current building.
How this total is built
Not a summary — a reconciliation. Anything worth a dollar gets its own row. If a number is in the total it is on this list, and if it is not on this list it is not in the total.
Change orders count toward the total
The estimate finds the job's approved, invoiced and paid change orders and lists them. Each row has a switch deciding whether its amount and its days stack on top of the customer total.
