Proposals
A proposal is the letter that sends your price to the general contractor or the owner. It takes the base bid and the alternates from the recap of an estimate, and adds unit prices, what the price includes and excludes, clarifications and terms, on your company letterhead.
| Menu | Open a project, then click Proposals in the Proposals card. Or click Proposals on the row of an estimate |
| Permission | View all projects and bids to see the proposals. Manage own projects and bids, or Manage all projects and bids, to add and change them |
| Feature | Estimator Proposals |
What you see depends on your role. If the menu, a button or a setting on this page is missing, ask your administrator to give you the permission listed above or to turn on the feature. Only administrators can turn features on and change site settings.
Add a proposal
- On the Proposals page of the project, click Add proposal.
- Pick the Estimate and enter the Title, such as Electrical proposal.
- Click Add proposal.
The new proposal takes:
- The base bid and the alternates of the estimate's current revision, as the recap prices them.
- The company and the contact of the estimate's bid. Without a bid, it goes to the client of the project.
- The clauses of the clause library marked to go to every new proposal.
- The opening, the terms and the validity of the proposal settings.
Proposals are numbered in each project, from 1. The reference of a proposal is the project number and the proposal number, such as 2026-014-2.
Change a proposal
A proposal changes while it is a draft. Fill in the cards and click Save.
| Card | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Recipient | The Title, the company it goes To, the person to the Attention of, the Address, the Date and how many days it is Valid for |
| Letter | The Opening and the Scope of work. Leave an empty line between paragraphs |
| Pricing | The base bid shows. Clear the check box of an alternate to leave it off the proposal |
| Unit prices | Click Add unit price and enter the Description, the Unit and the Price, such as one duplex receptacle added |
| Inclusions, Exclusions, Clarifications | Click Add and type a clause, or pick one in Add from the library |
| Terms and conditions | Such as the payment terms |
When the estimate gets a newer revision, the proposal tells you so. Click Take the prices of revision to take its prices. The alternates you left off stay off.
See and send the proposal
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Preview | Opens the proposal page in a new tab. Use the print command of the browser to print it or to save it as a PDF |
| Downloads the proposal as a PDF file | |
| Excel | Downloads the parties, the prices and the clauses as an Excel workbook |
The PDF and the page show the same content. The page follows the template of the proposal settings; the PDF has its own layout.
Record where the proposal stands
| State | How it gets there |
|---|---|
| Draft | A new proposal. It can change |
| Sent | Click Mark as sent when you send it. It no longer changes |
| Accepted, Declined | Click Accepted or Declined when the recipient answers |
To change a sent, accepted or declined proposal, click Back to draft.
Set the letterhead
An administrator sets the letterhead and the defaults of proposals in Settings > Proposals. This needs the permission to manage the proposal letterhead and template.
| Card | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Letterhead | The Company, the Logo (the address of an image of the media library, such as /media/logo.png), the Address, Phone, Email, Web site, License number, the Accent color of headings and tables, and the Footer of each page |
| Signature | The Name and Title of the person who signs. Leave the name empty for a signature line only |
| New proposals | How many days new proposals are Valid for, their Opening, and their Terms and conditions |
| Template | Select Use my own template for the proposal page to change the page. The template is Liquid; it reads the proposal as Proposal. The settings refuse a template that is not valid Liquid |