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Estimates and change orders
An estimate is what you quote. A change order is an estimate against an estimate — the extra bathroom nobody knew about until the wall came down.
They are the same document with the same lifecycle, so everything on this page applies to both.
Writing one
Estimates → New estimate. Pick the client, give it a title, and add lines.
A job is optional. You quote work before it exists as a job, and that is the normal way round. Attach it to a job later, or let acceptance create one.
A client is required, because somebody has to receive it.
Set Valid until if the price has a shelf life. Past that date an unanswered estimate shows as expired rather than sitting in the list pretending to still be on the table.
Sending it
Two ways, and they are different:
- Send emails it to the client and puts it in their portal.
- Mark as sent records that it went out without sending anything — for the one you handed over at the kitchen table or emailed from Outlook.
Both move it out of Draft. A draft is invisible to the client, always.
What happens next
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Being written. The client cannot see it. |
| Sent | Out with them, waiting. |
| Viewed | They opened it in the portal. |
| Accepted | Agreed. This is the only status that counts toward contract value. |
| Declined | They said no. |
| Expired | Past its valid-until date with no answer. |
| Void | You withdrew it. Kept rather than deleted, because it was sent. |
Acceptance
A client on the portal accepts it themselves: they type their name, tick that they agree to sign electronically, and optionally draw a signature.
SimpliWork records the name, the email, the timestamp, the IP address and the consent tick. That combination is the point — a name with no timestamp proves nothing, and a signature without recorded consent is weaker than it looks under the ESIGN Act and UETA.
You can also accept on their behalf, for the one who signed a paper copy. Upload their countersigned PDF and record it.
What acceptance does
Accepting sets the job's contract value. If the estimate had no job yet, this is where it gets one.
Change orders
From an accepted estimate, raise a change order. It carries a parent, numbers itself against it (CO-001), and goes through the same send-and-accept cycle.
The job's chain view shows the original and every change order against it, oldest first — which is the document you want when somebody asks why the final bill is bigger than the quote.
A change order against a change order is not offered. One level, deliberately, because the second level is where nobody can tell what was agreed any more.
Invoicing an estimate
From the estimate: Create invoice. The lines come across, and the invoice remembers which agreement it billed.
If a project type has Require estimate before invoice set, invoicing a job of that type with no accepted estimate behind it raises a warning naming the job — and creates the invoice anyway.
That is deliberate. A hard block would stop you billing work you have already done, mid-month, because of a setting somebody turned on once. Only an accepted estimate clears the warning: a sent one is an offer and a draft is a thought.