Estimates serve as a foundation for building trust with potential customer, providing them with a clear understanding of the services offered and the associated costs.
At Servgrow, we understand the pivotal role that precise and professional estimates play in securing new business and maintaining customer satisfaction. With Servgrow, you can generate comprehensive and accurate estimates (with options) that differentiate your business from competitors and reflect the true value of your services, helping you to win more contracts and enhance customer trust.
Below we'll walk you step by step on how to create an estimate in Servgrow.
As always, we suggest you add yourself as a customer to see how the estimates process will look and feel from a customers perspective.
There are several major components when creating an estimate, click on each one to learn more about them.
Creating an Estimate
1. Navigate to 'New' in the upper right and select 'Estimate'
2. Find and Select the Customer
You can +add a new customer here as well.
3. Select the correct address:
Some customers might have multiple addresses so select the correct one.
After you have selected the correct address, click 'next'.
3. Scheduling the Estimate
You can skip the scheduling of the estimate by clicking 'next'.
To Schedule the estimate, on the calendar, click on the day/time that you would like to schedule. Doing this will pull up the Schedule box already populated with the day/time that you clicked on.
After clicking on the day/time in the scheduler, it will bring up the schedule details screen with the day/time you selected. This is where you can edit and add all the schedule details about the job.
If you are scheduling an "Anytime" estimate tick the 'Anytime' checkbox. Anytime estimates will show at the top of the calendar on the day that it is scheduled.
Next, complete the estimate's schedule details.
a. Estimate Title: The title of the estimate (any name you want to use to identify the estimate).
b. Start Date and End Date: This will auto populate as the date you selected in the scheduler. You can edit this.
c. Start Time and End Time: This will auto populate as the time you selected in the scheduler. You can edit this.
d. Select Team: Select the team members who will be working the job or appointment. You can select one or more team members.
e. Arrival Time Window: The arrival time window allows you a little more flexibility as to when you will arrive for the job. The arrival time window is also communicated to the customer and can be customized to your business. More info on the arrival time window here.
f. Appointment Reminders: This is where you have the option to send up to 3 appointment reminders (Sending an appointment reminder will save you from a lot of "no-shows"). People get busy and sometimes forget about an appointments. The appointment reminder is here to prevent that.
Note: The appointment reminder notification can be customized to fit your business. Go here to customize your appointment reminder.
4. Once you completed the estimate's schedule details, click 'Schedule Estimate'.
Your estimate is now scheduled and you will be able to see it on the calendar in Blue.
Click 'Next' to take you to 'Estimate Details".
4. Add Service/Materials
You'll be able to add up to 3 different types of services and materials.
Standard Service and Materials: Standard service and materials (line items) will not be optional and will be displayed to your customers without a check box. Your customers will not have the option to 'de-select' them.
Optional Service and Materials: Optional Service and Materials (line items) will be displayed to your customers with an empty check box next to them (unless you recommend them) with the ability for your customers to 'select' them. If your customer 'selects' an item, they do still have the option to 'de-select' the item again. If you recommend the line item, it will show to the customer with a check box that is pre 'selected' and the customer will have the option to 'de-select' the item. Customers will always be able to 'select' and 'de-select' optional items at will.
Selecting optional items will add price to total and de-selecting items will remove price from total.
Standard Service and Materials
Standard service and materials (line items) will not be optional and will be displayed to your customers without a check box. Your customers will not have the option to 'de-select' them.
Before getting into adding standard service and materials, let's cover the elements of each line item that you can add.
A. Name of the service/material
B. Quantity (the amount of the selected service or material)
C. Cost (this is not shown to the customer and is used for job costing)
D. Unit Price (actual price shown to customer)
E. Description of the service/material
F. Option to add tax to this service/materials when applicable.
G. If this is a new service/material, you will have the option to add/save it to your price book.
H. This is where you can add 1 or more items at one time to your estimate. (This saves time from adding them individually.)
I. Add another line item.
If the service is taxable, tick the Add tax to this item checkbox.
If you added multiple Tax Rates, you could select the particular Tax Rate on the Payment Summary later.
Now that you know the elements, let's get to adding line items to your estimate.
Adding Standard Service and Materials (line items), you'll have three ways.
A. Adding 1 or more from your price book by clicking '+add line items from price book' (This saves a great deal of time if you have more then one)
This will open up your price book allowing you to select multiple items at once.
A. Select on the category
B. Select the amounts of each
C. Select add line items.
After you 'add to line items', you'll see the items you selected populated in the estimate details.
B. Add line items individually by searching and selecting. Selecting the service/materials will populate all information from the price book.
C Add new line items not in your price book.
For this, you just need to fill in all the fields of this new service/material. After all details are entered, you have the option to add this new service/material to your price book.
All fields must have a value. Quantity must be at least 1, price can be any number value including '0'.
To add more line items just click '+ add line item'
Optional Service and Materials
Before we get into the details, see below how options will look to your customers. As you can see below, there are 2 options that were 'recommended'.
Optional services and materials will have an empty check box next to them (unless you recommend them) with the ability for your customers to 'select' them. If your customer 'selects' an item, they do still have the option to 'de-select' the item again.
Customer View: When customers 1st view the invoice, optional items that are not 'recommended' will NOT be added to the total. 'Selecting' the item will add price to the total.
If you recommend the line item (see recommending an item below), it will show to the customer with a check box that is pre 'selected' and the customer will have the option to 'de-select' the item. Customers will always be able to 'select' and 'de-select' optional items at will.
Customer View: When customers 1st view the invoice, recommended items will be added to the total. 'De-Selecting' the item will remove price from total.
Now, let's get to adding optional item(s). First, you'll need to toggle the 'Optional' to on...
When creating the estimate, all optional items will have the price added to the total so that you can view the total as if all options were selected by your customer. However, when your customer 1st views the estimate, only optional items that are 'recommended' will be added to the total price.
Now, just add your line items as you normally would. All items below the toggle will show to your customers with an empty check box next to them (unless you recommend them) with the ability for your customers to 'select' them. If your customer 'selects' an item, they do still have the option to 'de-select' the item again.
Recommending an optional line item.
When you recommend a line item, the item will show to the customer with a check box that is pre 'selected' and the customer will have the option to 'de-select' the item. Customers will always be able to 'select' and 'de-select' optional items at will.
Optional items will have the price added to the total unless the customer 'de-selects' the item.
Now that you have all of your Service and Materials added, it's time to move on.
Discounts
After you're done adding all services/materials, you will have the option to add a company discount.
To add a company discount, click on the drop down to pick from your company discounts or create a new one.
When creating a new one, select '+ Create a New Company Discount' and add in the details.
Jump to this article if you need to learn how to create a discount.
Company discount will be applied and can be viewed in the payment summary.