Job Specs turns what your crew measures on site into estimate quantities. Build a spec sheet once, let the crew fill it on a phone, and the estimate suggests each line's quantity with your waste factor and rounding already applied. Then watch your margin and markup move as you price.
See how Field Estimating works →
Your crew lead measures the living room: 14 by 18. That number goes on a notepad, a text message, or the back of a receipt. Then somebody in the office re-types it, multiplies it, remembers (or forgets) the waste, and rounds it.
Every hand-off is a chance to miss. Forget 10% waste on 252 square feet of flooring and you're 26 square feet short, which means a second supply run and labor you didn't price. Use last month's numbers instead of this job's, and the bid is wrong before the customer reads it.
Job Specs gives the measurement one path. The crew answers the same questions on every job, the spec does the multiplication, and the estimate offers the quantity, waste and rounding included. Nobody re-types it.
Templates are set up once in the office on a computer or tablet. Crews fill specs on a phone. Templates live under Setup > Job Specs.
Add sections and questions, then drag them into the order your crew walks a job. Question types are Short answer, Number, Long answer, Dropdown, Yes / No, and Calculated. A Calculated question does the math for you: multiply, add, subtract, divide, or round up other answers, like Length × Width for floor area.
Pick the products and services from your catalog that a typical job of this kind uses, and drag them into order. On each line, set a default quantity, a unit, a Waste %, and Rounding (round up). Then choose Suggest the quantity from this spec answer to tie the line to a question, like Floor area.
From a phone, a crew member with estimate access picks the job and the spec template, answers the questions, and measures the space: a room, a flat area, a linear run, or a piece of work. Live measurements, a 2D sketch, and a 3D-look view update as they type. Work in progress is kept as a draft on the device while they go.
On the estimate, click Apply Template to drop in the catalog lines. Once the job's spec is complete, the estimate shows a button for each mapped line, like Use 278 SF. You click it; nothing changes on its own. Fill Blank Attribution can also copy the spec's lead source, sales rep, estimator, and Project Manager fields onto the estimate.
As you set prices and costs on the Estimate Builder, every line rolls into its cost bucket (Materials, Labor, or Subs) and the Margin and Markup boxes recalculate right next to the total. If you've set your overhead and income target, each box shows your target and turns green when you hit it. With price books and rate cards loaded, the estimate can price lines from the costs in effect on the date you choose.
The crew picks the shape that matches the work. Each one asks only for the measurements it needs.
Gives floor, ceiling, and four wall surfaces, plus perimeter and volume. Assign doors and windows to the wall they sit in, and subtract cut-outs like islands or closets.
For flat outdoor areas like a patio or a lawn bed. Add rectangles for L-shaped or connected areas, subtract cut-outs, and record an optional depth.
Fence, gutter, pipe, or edging. Optional diameter and depth of bury for underground runs.
For work that isn't measured in feet: fixtures, units, service calls. The details come from the questions on your spec template.
What the live measurements show after the crew adds one 3 × 7 ft door to a long wall.
Need to split a wall, like tile on the bottom and paint above? Add a zone for the tile and the remainder stays visible for the paint. The math refuses to hide mistakes: if the doors, cut-outs, or zones add up to more than the surface, the crew sees an error instead of a quietly trimmed number.
Job Specs is part of the full platform on every plan. If you don't use it, switch the module off in Settings and your team won't see it.
Drag-and-drop sections and questions, required questions, dropdown choices, units, and Calculated questions. Editing a template your crews already used saves a new version, so past specs keep the version they were filled on.
Reusable sets of catalog lines with default quantities, units, waste %, and round-up. Each line can take its quantity from a spec answer. Prices and costs come from your Products & Services catalog.
Crews with estimate access fill specs and measure rooms, areas, linear runs, and pieces from a phone browser, with live totals, a 2D sketch, and a 3D-look view.
Start a job spec from a template right from the estimate, and see every spec already captured for that job in one list.
A completed spec puts a Use button on each mapped estimate line, with waste and rounding applied. You decide which ones to accept.
Margin and markup on the Estimate Builder update as you price, with Materials, Labor, and Subs tracked as three separate cost buckets.
Every line on the Estimate Builder is tagged Product, Service, or Sub. Quantity times cost rolls into Materials, Labor, or Subs, and the Margin and Markup boxes sit right beside the subtotal and total.
Margin is profit divided by price. Markup is profit divided by cost. Same dollars, two views. Sales tax is taken out first, because it isn't yours.
Your targets come from the same overhead rate the CFO Dashboard uses (monthly overhead × 12, divided by your annual revenue figure) plus your income target. With $12,500 a month of overhead on $600,000 of revenue, that's a 25% overhead rate. Add a 15% income target and you need a 40% margin, which is a 66.7% markup. A box turns green at or above target, amber within 5 points, and red below that.
| Line | Price | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| LVP flooring 278 SF × $4.50 Materials |
$1,251.00 | $667.20 |
| Install labor 252 SF × $3.00 Labor |
$756.00 | $378.00 |
| Floor leveling 1 × $400.00 Subs |
$400.00 | $300.00 |
| Total | $2,407.00 | $1,345.20 |
Example numbers, no sales tax. The flooring quantity (278 SF) came from the spec with 10% waste and round-up; the install line uses the same 252 SF floor area with no waste.
Any trade where the bid starts with a tape measure.
Rooms with floors, walls, and ceilings, doors and windows taken out, and a zone where the wall changes material.
Flat areas with L-shaped add-ons and an optional depth, plus linear runs for fence, edging, and drainage pipe with depth of bury.
When a crew lead or estimator does the walk-through, the spec makes sure the same questions get answered every time and the office prices from the real numbers.
What owners and estimators ask before they build their first spec sheet.
Job Specs is included with every Best Decision Project Tools subscription. No add-on, no premium tier. Build one spec sheet for your most common job and use it on the next walk-through.
Read the step-by-step estimating guide →
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