Proposals — building, pricing, sending, and the record
A proposal is the priced document you send a client. It lives under Construction Flow → Business Operations → Proposals. This guide covers what changed in September 2026 as well as the basics.
Building a proposal
New Proposal walks you through client, project, pricing, terms and branding. You can type line items by hand, pull them from an estimate, or open Generate with AI and describe the job in plain words. The assistant builds the whole document — client, site, scope, line items, payment terms, warranty, terms — and keeps everything across turns: ask for a change and it changes that part, nothing else. If you state a total ("the total must be exactly $46,875"), the platform scales the line items to land on that number itself and tells you the percentage it moved them.
Attach what you have. The paper-clip in the generator takes a PDF plan set and, since October 8, a spreadsheet — an estimate, a bid tab, a rate sheet (.xlsx or .csv). Every sheet and row of a spreadsheet is read the moment you attach it and the chip shows ready; a plan set is read in the background and the chip shows analyzing… until it is. Asking for quantities from a plan set reads the drawings page by page, which can take several minutes on a large set — the generator waits for it now rather than reporting a network error. A 1997–2003 .xls workbook is refused by name: in Excel choose File → Save As → Excel Workbook (.xlsx) and attach that. A workbook that unpacks past 200 MB is refused too; save the sheets you need as a smaller workbook or a .csv.
Alternates from the chat. Paste "ADD ALTERNATE — … $925 each" and the answer carries the alternate beside the base bid. "Apply to Proposal" lands both; Add alternate ALT-A only adds just the alternate and leaves the base bid as it is. On the edit page, anything you type into an alternate is saved as you leave the field, and the page's Save saves every alternate.
A schedule window a project manager reads. The Timeline card takes the early start (the start date), the late start (the latest day work can begin and still meet the finish), the early finish (anticipated completion) and the late finish (required completion), plus whether the duration counts working or calendar days and a schedule-notes paragraph for the constraints behind the dates — lead times, weather, phasing, owner milestones. Float is computed, never typed: start float (late start minus early start) and finish float (late finish minus early finish), in the basis you stated — working days count Monday to Friday with no holiday calendar. When the two differ, both are shown and the dates are flagged as inconsistent with one duration. Float appears on the edit page and the proposal view only; the client's PDF prints the dates and the notes, not the float. The PDF's Project Timeline switches to the early/late labels the moment a late date is stated. A date the AI generator writes is kept only if that date appears in your own text (the request, an earlier turn, an attached sheet); any other is left blank and the chat says which — the same check the price labels get. If the conversation can't be read back, the chat says the dates weren't checked. A month and day you give without a year take this year, unless that day is already more than 60 days past, in which case next year — and the chat says so.
Where each price came from. Every line the generator writes carries its price source: numbers you supplied (a price you typed, pasted or attached), the cost library, or an AI estimate. The chat says it line by line — "6 of 9 lines follow numbers you supplied. 3 of 9 lines are AI estimates: Permit fees; Mobilization; Clean-up" — so an estimate never hides behind a document-wide sentence.
Line items: three ways the client can see them
On the Pricing step (and on the edit page's Pricing card) two switches decide what the client sees under Total Project Cost:
| Show line items | Show line item prices | The client sees |
|---|---|---|
| on | on | every item with quantity, unit, unit price and total, then subtotal, tax and total |
| on | off | every item with quantity and unit — the work, not the money — then the total only |
| off | — | one total, no list |
Most lump-sum proposals want the middle row: the client knows what is included without seeing how each item was priced. Alternates have their own Show prices in PDF switch; when the base bid hides prices, alternates hide theirs too (the alternate's total still prints).
Alternates
An alternate is priced work that is not in the base contract — "ALT-A: water and sewer tap and tie-in, $45,000". Add one on the Alternates card, or ask the AI: "give me the verbiage for alternate A; we will be including the price of $45,000 for water and sewer tap and tie-in." The assistant recognises that the figure is the alternate's price, not the job's, writes the alternate, and offers Apply as ALT-A. The base bid is never changed by an alternate. The chat cannot delete an alternate — remove one from the Alternates card.
The "Quantity basis" line
Every AI-built proposal ends its notes with one sentence that says where the quantities came from: no plans were attached; the plans' text was read; or the plan sheets were reviewed for fixture counts. Lengths are always estimates, never measurements — the platform does not scale drawings. The sentence prints on the client PDF in plain contractor language, because it protects you.
If you remove the line from Notes, it stays removed: the platform records that you removed it and never adds it back on its own. Add it back yourself if that was a mistake. Each revision states its own basis — attach the plan sheets on the Plans card and the next AI turn upgrades the sentence.
Voiding a proposal
A proposal you have sent (or one that already carries a signature request) cannot be deleted — it is part of your record. Void… on the proposals list marks it void with your reason; it keeps its number, its line items and its history, and never comes back. Issue a new proposal instead. Only a draft with no record can be deleted.
Revisions
Create Revision clones the proposal as a new draft version. Everything travels: branding, the location photo, work photos, the plan sheets, every alternate, the pricing switches. The new version gets its own number in the chain; the original is kept as the record of what the client saw.
Sending, and the record of what was sent
Send emails the proposal for review or for signature. Every email the platform sends about a proposal — review copy, each signer's request, each courtesy copy, the signed confirmations — is kept on the Activity tab with its subject, recipients and the exact message; View email opens it. Email records begin September 8, 2026. Rows marked Sent for Signature and Courtesy Copy are derived from the signer's current status; the email rows are the stored record.
Finding a proposal
The search box on the Proposals page matches everything the proposal carries: number, client name, company, email, phone, address, site, scope, notes, line-item descriptions and alternate titles. Type a street, an email, or a line item like "sewer".
Who sees which proposals
A company admin sees every proposal. Anyone else sees the proposals of the organizations they belong to. See Organizations — who sees what.