Draft and change a proposal with AI

Start with the customer

Proposals → New proposal opens on a customer, not on an empty proposal. Either search your existing customers and click the one you want, or fill in Name, Phone, Email and Service address on the right and press Create & build proposal.

Picking the customer fills in the proposal title and the service address for you, so the builder opens ready to price.

The two AI boxes

There are two AI boxes on a proposal, and they do different jobs.

• Draft writes a scope from nothing.
• Change edits the scope that is already in front of you.

Change only appears once there are lines to change.

Draft the first version

Type what the job is and press Draft:

a full roof replacement on a 2,400 sq ft home, 2 stories, 6:12 pitch,
about 26 squares. Include tear-off and disposal of the old shingles,
replacing any bad decking, synthetic underlayment, and a ridge vent.

You get priced lines grouped into Equipment, Services, Install supplies and Upgrades, plus a customer-facing summary written for the homeowner.

Two things worth knowing about the price:

• A total you state wins. Say “priced at $14,000 total” and it prices the scope to land near that figure rather than guessing from its own numbers.
• Your price book wins over guesses. If a line genuinely matches an item you sell, it uses your item and your price. Otherwise it uses realistic regional pricing, and the line is not linked to your catalogue.

Note

Drafted lines arrive with no cost against them. A line matched to your price book brings your cost with it; an invented line comes in at cost $0, so the Internal only panel will read 100% margin until you fill the costs in. The customer never sees that panel — but do not trust the margin figure on a fresh draft.

Tip

The request decides the work. A workspace set up for HVAC that asks for a roof tear-off gets a roof tear-off — your trade is background, not the instruction.

Change it by asking

Once there are lines, use the second box. One instruction can do several things:

drop the permit line and put the tile up to 40 sq ft

Other things that work:

• add 400 linear feet of seamless gutter at $10 a foot
• take the labour down to $4,500
• rename the middle option to "Recommended"

Everything you did not mention stays exactly as it was — same labels, same quantities, same prices, same sections.

Caution

Do not ask it to change the deposit. The deposit is the Deposit % field at the top of the proposal, not part of the scope, and AI cannot reach it. Asking anyway gets you a line item called “Deposit — 10%” priced into the job, which is not what you meant. Type the number into Deposit % yourself.

Caution

Nothing is saved until you press Save proposal. The changes land in the table in front of you so you can read them first. If you navigate away without saving you get a Leave without saving? prompt, with Cancel, Save proposal and Leave.

Which one to use

You want to	Use
Start from a description	Draft
Adjust what is already priced	Change
Add one known line	The price book search, not AI
Change the deposit, title or dates	The fields at the top of the proposal

For a single line you already know, searching the price book is faster than asking — and it keeps the catalogue link.

Good / Better / Best

Switch Proposal type from “Single proposal — one scope, one price” to “Good / Better / Best — up to three options” before drafting, and you get a shared base scope plus three options, each with its own upgrade lines and a short pitch. The Change box can target one option — say “add a 10-year warranty to Best”.