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Using AI for quoting jobs
AI can turn your notes from a site survey or a client meeting into a draft quote for you to check. A set-up like this prices each line only from your own price sheet or the items you keep in Xero, and anything it can’t match is left blank for you to price. Nothing goes to the customer until you have checked and edited the draft.
The same pattern can turn up in other businesses that quote, such as an agency costing a brief after a client meeting or a cleaning firm pricing a building after a walk-round.
What does quoting a job look like in a small business?
In a small business, a quote can start with a survey, site visit or meeting and finish at a desk, where what you captured becomes priced lines. AI can help draft that second half.
Say you run a building firm. You finish a survey or a meeting at 4pm. The job looks a good one and you may have what you need: a page of notes, photos on your phone and a few measurements on the back of a drawing.
After tea you open the laptop. The price sheet is in Excel, some materials sit as items in Xero, and the quote gets built in Tradify, or typed into a template and emailed from Outlook. You check a measurement in the photos and write the same paragraph about access and clearing up that you wrote last week.
By the time the quote is done, most of the evening may have gone. A quote that waits for a free evening reaches the customer later, and one typed up late at night can slip, with a line left off or a rate taken from an old copy of the sheet.
Illustrative example, made up for this page. Not a real client.
A worked example, from rough job notes to a drafted quote
Here is what this could look like for a small bathroom fitting firm. First come some made-up notes of the kind you might jot down on a site visit, then the draft quote a set-up like this could hand back for you to check.
Tile 3 walls floor to ceiling, approx 18m2, customer picking tiles
Floor tiles too, approx 5m2
Extractor old, replace
Toilet + basin staying
Skip needed, parking on drive ok
Wants to start w/c 9 Nov if poss
| Remove bath, prepare for walk-in shower | your rate |
| Supply and fit 1200 x 800 tray and glass screen | your rate |
| Wall tiling, approx 18m², tiles supplied by customer | per m² |
| Floor tiling, approx 5m² | per m² |
| Replace extractor fan | your rate |
| Skip hire and waste | your rate |
Not included: tiles, toilet and basin (staying). Proposed start: week of 9 November, to confirm.
You check before anything goes out
- Measurements match what you saw on site
- Every price comes from your own price list, not the AI
- What is and isn’t included is right
- You send it yourself, from your own email
Tools in this example
Time: How long this takes depends on the job. Checking a draft can be quicker than typing a quote up from scratch, and you’ll know your own times best.
How do you use AI to quote jobs?
You give a set-up like this what you captured at the survey or meeting, and it can draft the quote lines in your usual wording, using only your own prices. You check the draft and fill any gaps before it goes out the way your quotes go out now.
You still finish at 4pm. Before you leave, you add your notes and photos to the job as you normally would, perhaps with a short voice note about the awkward bits. The set-up can then draft the quote lines from what you captured and take quantities from your measurements. It can also be set up to use your photos for context.
When you sit down with it, your job is checking, which is where your experience counts. You adjust a quantity, price a new item and change a line where you know the work will take longer. The customer sees nothing until you, or whoever you trust to quote, has read it and decided it is right.
Where do the prices on an AI-drafted quote come from?
In a set-up like this, every price comes from your own price sheet or the items you keep in Xero, and from nowhere else. How to price a job stays your decision.
Where something has no match, such as an item you have never priced before, the line is left blank for you to fill in, so you know which figures you added yourself.
What should a quote for a job include?
A clear quote for a job sets out the work to be done, the quantities, a price for each line, whether VAT is included, what is left out and how long the price stands. It also helps to note anything you have assumed, such as access to a site or the scope of a brief.
AI can lay the draft out in your own template, with the wording you already use for terms and exclusions. You still read every line and change what this job needs, and it goes out the way your quotes go out now.
Do you need new quoting software to use AI?
No. A set-up like this works around the quoting software or template your small business already uses. Your notes and photos stay on your phone and in the job, your prices stay in Excel or Xero, and your quotes stay in Tradify or wherever you keep them now.
How the set-up picks up your notes and how a draft reaches your quoting tool both depend on that tool and how your business uses it, so they are among the first things we look at with you. There is more on the approach in how we work.
Questions about quoting from your notes
More general questions are answered in our FAQ.
Can AI write a quote for a job?
Yes, as a first draft. A set-up like this can draft the lines from your notes and measurements, pricing each one only from your own price sheet or Xero items and leaving anything it can’t match blank. You check and edit the draft before it goes to the customer, so the final say on every price is yours.
Can I use ChatGPT to write quotes?
A general chat tool can help with the wording of a quote, and you can paste or upload your price sheet each time you use it. Any figure it gives still needs checking against your own prices. A set-up like this takes prices only from your price sheet or Xero items, and you still check every quote.
What happens to my notes, prices and customer details?
Your records stay in the tools you already keep them in. To draft a quote, a set-up like this sends the details it needs to an AI service, so which service that is, and what it is allowed to store, is something we agree with you before anything is built.
Do I still need to check every quote?
Yes. In a set-up like this, each draft waits for you or someone you trust to check and approve it before it reaches a customer, so your time goes on the parts that need your knowledge of the job.
Also worth a look: replying to enquiries, following up on quotes and getting admin done
Start with the free AI readiness check
Scalar is an AI consultant for small businesses in the UK, and the work starts with one process. Quoting can be a good first one to look at, because it comes round often and follows a pattern. The free AI readiness check asks a few short questions about how your business runs and points to the process worth looking at first.
Seven quick questions, about two minutes, and no email needed. You get your readiness level and three practical things to do next. Then get in touch when you’re ready.
- 1Take the check
- 2Try your next steps
- 3Talk it through with Scalar
Using AI for quoting jobs
AI can turn your notes from a site survey or a client meeting into a draft quote for you to check. A set-up like this prices each line only from your own price sheet or the items you keep in Xero, and anything it can’t match is left blank for you to price. Nothing goes to the customer until you have checked and edited the draft.
The same pattern can turn up in other businesses that quote, such as an agency costing a brief after a client meeting or a cleaning firm pricing a building after a walk-round.
What does quoting a job look like in a small business?
In a small business, a quote can start with a survey, site visit or meeting and finish at a desk, where what you captured becomes priced lines. AI can help draft that second half.
Say you run a building firm. You finish a survey or a meeting at 4pm. The job looks a good one and you may have what you need: a page of notes, photos on your phone and a few measurements on the back of a drawing.
After tea you open the laptop. The price sheet is in Excel, some materials sit as items in Xero, and the quote gets built in Tradify, or typed into a template and emailed from Outlook. You check a measurement in the photos and write the same paragraph about access and clearing up that you wrote last week.
By the time the quote is done, most of the evening may have gone. A quote that waits for a free evening reaches the customer later, and one typed up late at night can slip, with a line left off or a rate taken from an old copy of the sheet.
Illustrative example, made up for this page. Not a real client.
A worked example, from rough job notes to a drafted quote
Here is what this could look like for a small bathroom fitting firm. First come some made-up notes of the kind you might jot down on a site visit, then the draft quote a set-up like this could hand back for you to check.
Tile 3 walls floor to ceiling, approx 18m2, customer picking tiles
Floor tiles too, approx 5m2
Extractor old, replace
Toilet + basin staying
Skip needed, parking on drive ok
Wants to start w/c 9 Nov if poss
| Remove bath, prepare for walk-in shower | your rate |
| Supply and fit 1200 x 800 tray and glass screen | your rate |
| Wall tiling, approx 18m², tiles supplied by customer | per m² |
| Floor tiling, approx 5m² | per m² |
| Replace extractor fan | your rate |
| Skip hire and waste | your rate |
Not included: tiles, toilet and basin (staying). Proposed start: week of 9 November, to confirm.
You check before anything goes out
- Measurements match what you saw on site
- Every price comes from your own price list, not the AI
- What is and isn’t included is right
- You send it yourself, from your own email
Tools in this example
Time: How long this takes depends on the job. Checking a draft can be quicker than typing a quote up from scratch, and you’ll know your own times best.
How do you use AI to quote jobs?
You give a set-up like this what you captured at the survey or meeting, and it can draft the quote lines in your usual wording, using only your own prices. You check the draft and fill any gaps before it goes out the way your quotes go out now.
You still finish at 4pm. Before you leave, you add your notes and photos to the job as you normally would, perhaps with a short voice note about the awkward bits. The set-up can then draft the quote lines from what you captured and take quantities from your measurements. It can also be set up to use your photos for context.
When you sit down with it, your job is checking, which is where your experience counts. You adjust a quantity, price a new item and change a line where you know the work will take longer. The customer sees nothing until you, or whoever you trust to quote, has read it and decided it is right.
Where do the prices on an AI-drafted quote come from?
In a set-up like this, every price comes from your own price sheet or the items you keep in Xero, and from nowhere else. How to price a job stays your decision.
Where something has no match, such as an item you have never priced before, the line is left blank for you to fill in, so you know which figures you added yourself.
What should a quote for a job include?
A clear quote for a job sets out the work to be done, the quantities, a price for each line, whether VAT is included, what is left out and how long the price stands. It also helps to note anything you have assumed, such as access to a site or the scope of a brief.
AI can lay the draft out in your own template, with the wording you already use for terms and exclusions. You still read every line and change what this job needs, and it goes out the way your quotes go out now.
Do you need new quoting software to use AI?
No. A set-up like this works around the quoting software or template your small business already uses. Your notes and photos stay on your phone and in the job, your prices stay in Excel or Xero, and your quotes stay in Tradify or wherever you keep them now.
How the set-up picks up your notes and how a draft reaches your quoting tool both depend on that tool and how your business uses it, so they are among the first things we look at with you. There is more on the approach in how we work.
Questions about quoting from your notes
More general questions are answered in our FAQ.
Can AI write a quote for a job?
Yes, as a first draft. A set-up like this can draft the lines from your notes and measurements, pricing each one only from your own price sheet or Xero items and leaving anything it can’t match blank. You check and edit the draft before it goes to the customer, so the final say on every price is yours.
Can I use ChatGPT to write quotes?
A general chat tool can help with the wording of a quote, and you can paste or upload your price sheet each time you use it. Any figure it gives still needs checking against your own prices. A set-up like this takes prices only from your price sheet or Xero items, and you still check every quote.
What happens to my notes, prices and customer details?
Your records stay in the tools you already keep them in. To draft a quote, a set-up like this sends the details it needs to an AI service, so which service that is, and what it is allowed to store, is something we agree with you before anything is built.
Do I still need to check every quote?
Yes. In a set-up like this, each draft waits for you or someone you trust to check and approve it before it reaches a customer, so your time goes on the parts that need your knowledge of the job.
Also worth a look: replying to enquiries, following up on quotes and getting admin done
Start with the free AI readiness check
Scalar is an AI consultant for small businesses in the UK, and the work starts with one process. Quoting can be a good first one to look at, because it comes round often and follows a pattern. The free AI readiness check asks a few short questions about how your business runs and points to the process worth looking at first.
Seven quick questions, about two minutes, and no email needed. You get your readiness level and three practical things to do next. Then get in touch when you’re ready.
- 1Take the check
- 2Try your next steps
- 3Talk it through with Scalar