Budgets and change orders
Catch a job running over while there's still time.
- With Max
- Customers sign from their phone
- Built into your books
The estimate becomes the contract
Agree on the price once. It stays put.
The price can't drift
- One click turns it into the contract
- The price locks in
- Only a signed change order moves it
Your budget's already done
- Put your cost on each estimate line
- They add up to your budget
- No typing it in a second time
Know your profit going in
- Contract less budget is your profit
- See it before the work starts
- Customers never see your costs
Get extra work signed
A handshake won't get you paid.
Handshake work goes unpaid
- Extra work agreed on a handshake
- Remembered differently at the end
- Get it signed before you start
They sign from their phone
- Email a link, or copy it and send it
- They type their name and tap Approve
- Nothing to print, nobody to chase
The numbers move themselves
- Once signed, the contract goes up
- The budget gets the new cost too
- See the extra profit it adds
Know what you've already promised
See the cost before the bill comes.
Bills show up too late
- Ordered, but no bill in yet?
- On paper you've spent nothing
- It counts the day you order
See what's really left
- Budget less spent less on order
- $18,900 less $11,800 leaves $7,100
- Know before the crew buys more
Order right from the budget
- Click Order on a budget line
- The job and what's left fill in
- A sub's line opens a subcontract
Where the job will land
Find out while you can fix it.
Overruns sneak up on you
- Budgets slip a few hundred at a time
- A sub signs for more than planned
- You see it then, not at the bill
Caught before the money's gone
- Spent so far, and where it's heading
- Over budget shows while work is left
- Still time to do something about it
Your number beats a guess
- Line finished? Mark it Final
- Running high? Type your own number
- The landing figure moves with you
How it works
Questions, answered.
The contract is what the customer agreed to pay. The budget is what you expect the work to cost you. The gap between them is the profit you planned. Both sit on the job, so you can watch them against what you've really spent.
Then nothing changes. A draft, one waiting for a signature, a declined one and a void one don't touch the contract or the budget. Only an approved change order counts. If they lost the link, send it again from the job's Change orders tab.
Not by itself. Invoice the contract covers the original contract only. Bill each approved change order on its own invoice. If the job is billed in draws, the draws pick it up.
Yes. For a credit to the customer, enter a negative amount. An approved change order stands as it is, so to reverse one you make a new one with a negative amount. That keeps a clean record of what the customer agreed to.
Line by line, it takes the bigger of the budget or your cost so far plus what's still open on order. If a line's finished, mark it Final. If you know better, type your own estimate for that line.
No. Import the file from any estimating app, check the columns BooksGPT matched, pick the date it starts, and import. Every change saves a new version with its start date, and earlier versions stay, so a report for an earlier date shows the budget you had then.
Contracts, budgets and change orders come with Max. An owner or bookkeeper adds them. Anyone who can open the job can read them.