Building quotes

A quote is made up of one or more sections, each holding line items for labour, materials, subcontractors and other costs. As you add lines, BuilderDash works out your mark-up, profit and margin in real time, while your client only ever sees a clean, priced version with no costs or margins visible.

How to build and send a quote

1. Start the quote. Go to Quotes and select New quote. A draft is created with its own quote number, a first version (v1) and one empty section, and it opens straight into the builder. Give it a title, then use the Client & site card to pick the client and site - you'll also see any linked enquiry or job here. Check the expiry date under Status & dates; it's filled in automatically but you can change it.
2. Add your sections and line items. Use New section to break the job into stages, such as "Strip-out", "First fix" or "Decoration" - rename a section by typing over its title, and drag sections by the handle to reorder them. Inside each section, select Add item and fill in the type (Labour, Material, Subcontractor or Other), description, quantity, unit, buy price and either a mark-up or a sell price. You can also select Add from library to search your saved cost library by name or code, filter by category, and tick items or saved bundles to drop straight into the section.
3. Set your mark-up. On any line, type a mark-up percentage and the sell price is worked out for you, or type a sell price and the mark-up is calculated instead - the two always stay in step. To apply the same mark-up to several lines at once, tick them, choose Apply markup, enter a percentage and select Apply; each line's sell price is recalculated from its own buy price.
4. Group items into a bundle (optional). Tick two or more lines in the same section and choose Combine into bundle to present them to the client as a single line, while keeping the detailed breakdown for yourself. Open the bundle's settings to rename the client-facing description, edit the internal sub-items, add an internal note, or Ungroup to split it back into separate lines. You can also choose Save as template to reuse that set of items on future quotes via Add from library.
5. Preview it as your client will see it. Select Preview as client (or Preview on a phone) to check the clean, priced view with no costs, mark-up or margins, then Download PDF - there's also a separate print/preview page you can open in a new tab.
6. Send it for your client to accept or decline online. Select Send to mark the current version as sent. Your client gets a link to a private, mobile-friendly quote page where they can view it, download the PDF, and Accept or Decline online; their response updates the quote automatically, or you can record it yourself.
7. Convert an accepted quote to an invoice. Once a version has been accepted, select Convert to invoice to create a draft invoice from that version's totals, with VAT added. The figures always come from the accepted version, never from a later draft you might be editing.

Good to know

• Quotes are numbered automatically with a "QT" prefix, counted per business. You can set the starting number in your settings to clear a legacy run, but existing quote numbers never change.
• A quote can have several versions. Creating a new version copies everything from the current one into a fresh, editable draft and bumps the version number. Only the current, non-accepted version can be edited - older and accepted versions are locked and view-only, with a banner explaining how to create a new version.
• Every figure - line amount, section subtotal, breakdown by type, and the quote total - is calculated live from your line items, so nothing gets out of step. A line's amount is sell price multiplied by quantity, profit is sell minus buy, and margin is profit as a percentage of the sell price. VAT is always added at 20%.
• A bundle has no price of its own - its buy, sell, profit and margin are simply the total of the items inside it. The client only ever sees the bundle's single combined line, with quantity, unit and unit price left blank; the internal sub-items are never shown to them.
• Buy prices, mark-up, profit and margin appear only in the builder. The client preview, print page and PDF all use a separate, client-only view that deliberately leaves these out.
• Lines and sections with a margin under 10% are flagged, and a line with no margin at all is flagged more strongly, so under-priced work is easy to spot before you send it.
• New quotes get a default expiry date a set number of days ahead (30 by default) and default footer/terms text (covering VAT, validity and payment terms), both taken from your settings. Both can be changed per quote.
• There's a private notes box on every quote for internal-only notes that never appear on anything the client sees.
• Each quote keeps a simple timeline of when versions were created, sent and accepted, and by whom.
• You can duplicate a whole quote into a fresh draft (its content is copied into a new v1). Deleting a quote removes it and all its versions, and is restricted to office users and owners.
• Quote PDFs are generated in-house, so there's nothing to configure or connect before you can send one.