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Proposals and invoices

How prices are set, how a proposal is built and issued to a client, and how a project is invoiced and paid. It is written for project managers and billing staff. Proposals are prepared on a project's Work stage and invoices on its Money stage; see running a project for the stages.

Before you start​

  • Rate cards must exist for any service other than abatement. A service with no rate card is not priced: on a proposal it shows "No rate card for X — it won't be priced", and an invoice skips it. Rate cards are edited at /rate-cards, and the app has no button that creates one.
  • Abatement is priced from the price list on the same page. If none is loaded, an abatement invoice is billed at the flat Abatement rate card per component, if one exists.
  • Decide first. A proposal covers the services that follow from the project's decided orders. With undecided orders the card says "Estimate only" and names them, with a Decide now link.
  • Permissions: viewing Money, proposals and rate cards needs the view-financials permission; editing rate cards needs manage-rate-cards, proposals need manage-proposals and invoices and vendor payments need manage-invoices (team and roles).

Set prices (/rate-cards)​

Open Pricing → Rate cards in the sidebar. The page has two sections.

Rate cards hold one price per service: XRF Inspection, Paint Chip Sampling and Dust Wipe Sampling. Choose Edit on a card to change its Base fee (a flat amount, or none), its Unit price and its Unit label (for example "reading" or "sample"). A card displays as a flat fee, a per-unit price, or a base fee plus a per-unit price.

Abatement price list holds a flat price for each combination of component, substrate and method (for example a wood door replaced, or a metal door stripped and repainted). With no list on file, Load standard abatement price list fills in a standard set, and each price can then be edited.

Changes apply the next time a proposal or invoice is built. Prices are read when needed and never copied onto old rows, except that a saved proposal keeps the prices it was saved with.

Build a proposal​

Open the project, then Work → Proposal.

  1. The Covers pills list one service per decided track, each with its subtotal. Select a pill to price it. Abatement also appears once the linked violations cite components, even before its order is decided.
  2. Non-abatement services show their lines from the rate card. Type a different price on a line to override it for this proposal.
  3. Abatement shows the violated components taken from the linked HPD orders' wording, each with a tick, a Substrate and a Method. Tick the ones to include; each needs a substrate and method, chosen from what the price list offers, before it has a price. A component the wording does not name can be assigned a component by hand. You can override a price here too.
  4. Save proposal makes the lines and prices final. It needs every included component priced, every price filled in and at least one line. The proposal is valid for 30 days from saving.
  5. Generate PDF produces the proposal document and opens it. It is stored as a draft document of type PROPOSAL that needs the client's signature.
  6. When the client signs, enter their name under Client signed? and choose Mark signed.

Until you generate the PDF, Edit reopens the builder with the saved lines put back, and Save changes replaces them. If prices or components changed since saving, a warning says how many saved lines no longer match and will be left out. Once the PDF exists, the proposal cannot be edited or regenerated from the card.

Proposals are financial documents: they are never shown to the client portal and are not shared with collaborating companies.

Invoice a project​

Open the project, then Money → Invoices.

  1. Generate invoice appears when the project has no invoice yet. It allocates the next invoice number, builds the lines from the work actually recorded on the project (XRF readings, dust-wipe samples, paint-chip samples, abatement components), prices them from the rate cards and the abatement price list, and stores the PDF as an invoice document. A project has one invoice this way.
  2. Mark sent moves a draft invoice to sent. From then on the client sees it on the portal's Invoices page.
  3. Mark paid closes it.

The invoice is built from captured work, not from the saved proposal, so its lines can differ from the proposal. A service with no rate card, or no recorded work, contributes no line, and the invoice is still numbered; check the total before sending it. Nothing stops a $0 invoice from being sent or marked paid.

Vendor payments​

Money → Vendor payments tracks costs you pay out, such as the lab. Enter a Vendor name and an Amount and choose Add; choose Mark paid when it is settled. Vendor payments are never shared with the client or with collaborators. The Money stage's Numbers show what is invoiced, collected and outstanding, and the vendor cost, paid and pending.

Under the hood​

Data flows · Permissions