Bilt Base

Handbook / Winning the work

Proposals and signing

An estimate is arithmetic. A proposal is the offer, in words, that the client signs on their phone.

A proposal wraps an estimate in everything the arithmetic does not say: the scope in prose, what is expressly excluded, the payment schedule, and the terms. Built from an estimate it arrives prefilled - the scope written out of the line items, the exclusions and terms from your company defaults - and needs editing rather than writing.

  1. Build it from the estimateOn the estimate, Build a proposal from this. It carries the number, the client and the project across.
  2. Say what you are doingThe scope section. Prose, not line items - the client is reading this on a sofa.
  3. Say what you are not doingExclusions save more arguments than any other field on the page.
  4. Set the payment scheduleDeposit, progress points, final. This becomes the billing plan.
  5. Send itGenerates the PDF, files it against the client and the project, attaches it to the email, and gives the client a link.

What they receive and what is on file are the same document. The PDF is generated server-side at the moment of sending and filed under the client, so there is never a question of which version they actually got.

The client side

The link opens a read-only copy that works on any phone. Opening it marks the proposal viewed and timestamps it. Accepting asks for a typed name and title, and records the signature, the moment, and the IP address it came from.

The signature does real work. It marks the estimate accepted, makes the project live, and sets the contract value - but it will never overwrite a contract figure already agreed, so a second proposal signed against a running job is added scope rather than a silent replacement of the first.

Draft→Sent→Viewed→Accepted

A proposal

The number stops moving

A proposal quotes its estimate live: reprice the estimate and the proposal follows, so nobody sends a figure the office no longer stands behind. The moment it is accepted, that stops. What was signed is what was signed, and later edits to the estimate cannot reach back and change the contract.

Eleanor signed on a Thursday evening from her phone. The project went from lead to active that moment, with $117,246 as the contract value and the signature, timestamp and IP on the record.

Open proposals

Undoing things

What happenedThe way back
Sent before it was readyEdit and send again. The client sees the current version at the same link.
Editing after they signedRefused - a signed proposal can no longer be edited. Raise a change order for anything that moves after this point.
Deleting a signed proposalRefused. It is part of the contract record.
Client signed the wrong oneNothing unsigns a proposal. Issue a corrected one and note the mistake in the discussion on the project, where it stays with the job.
Client declined but wants to talkDuplicate the estimate, reprice, and build a fresh proposal. The declined one stays as history.

Access: Creating and sending needs financial management. The client needs nothing - the link is the credential.